Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Hey, Hey. Ho, H....Ah, Who Cares?

It’s amazing what moderate success in a war will do to an anti-war movement.


Three protesters, a half-dozen signs and a missing petition.

"People walk past and say, 'I'm glad you're doing something,' " said Marty O'Malley, a Forest Hills, Pennsylvania council member who has attended more than 100 anti-Iraq war events, as he stood in front of Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle's Downtown office last week with the small gathering of activists.

"I want to shake them and say, 'Why aren't you doing something!?'"


Oh, we are. We’re actually advocating victory. And wouldn’t you know it? There’s now reason for optimism, albeit cautious optimism. Who would have though such a thing leading up to the 2006 midterm elections? Back on September 11, 2006, there was a Washington Post story claiming a nearly untenable situation in what was then the al-Qaeda dominated Al-Anbar province. Today, that area is considered one those most stable regions and is even under control of the Anbar military forces. And there have been numerous other stories detailing how the Iraqi military is leading more of the combat operations.

As a result, the success has been an unmitigated disaster for Congressional Democrats so heavily invested in defeat, with Senate majority leader Harry Reid leading the way. Their sole issue in the ’06 midterms (other than their vapid cries of a GOP “culture of corruption”) was ending the conflict in Iraq, or at least putting restrictions on funding the war. Despite attaining majorities in both the House and Senate, the Democrats’ failures culminated last December when 70 Senators approved a no-strings-attached war funding bill.

So when I see that war protesters are frustrated by apathy, I believe they have it all wrong. People aren’t so much apathetic as they are resistant to join a losing cause.

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