Okay, might as well rant in this thread...

My newspaper yesterday had these six stories, all on the first three pages:

1) US soldiers by the thousands were engaged in fierce and deadly fighting in Iraq,

2) A detailed study of hospital records by journalists finds that at a very bare minimum, the war in Iraq has thus far created over 3000 civilian deaths,

3) The US has run out of places to look for WMD's in Iraq,

4) The US military is saying that it may take more than two years, and thousands more troops, before an Iraqi government can be installed,

5) US intelligence is convinced that Al Quaeda will strike against American interests in the near future,

6) More bloodshed between the Israelis and Plestinians.


In the days following the toppling of the statue, I heard many commentators on thug radio and Fox news, and read dozens of editorials and letters-to-the-editor, calling on "the peaceniks" to admit they were wrong and apologize.

In light of yesterday's paper, WRONG ABOUT WHAT?

Yes, we "won" the war. But not one peacenik that I know objected to the war because they were afraid we'd lose.

Yes, Saddam was a cruel tyrant. But, the peaceniks I know have also been active in human rights issues for most of their lives -- the warhawks are johnny-come-latelies to issues of concern for the world's poor and oppressed (but welcome aboard, are ya' gonna stick around?)

Instead, many peaceniks were concerned that the war would become an unwinnable quagmire (see headline 1), that there would be many casualties among the civilians we were claiming to liberate (headline 2), that Iraq did not pose enough of a threat to the US to justify a first-strike (headline 3), that we could not hope to foist a government (even democracy) upon a sovereign nation (headline 4), and that a strike against an arab country would not prevent terrorism, but could actually incite more (headlines 5 and 6).

So warhawks, what exactly were the peaceniks wrong about? Turns out we seem to have had a hell of a lot just about right.