Anti-War Protest

Good pics of the protest are here:
/Yanda/pix/2003_02_15_good/

Crap pics are here (digital cameras are COOL):
/Yanda/pix/2003_02_15_therest/

Went on the Anti-War protest today, the largest protest ever in Britain. Estimates of the number of people marching in London alone ranged from a low of 750,000 to a high of 2 million. This despite the enormous problems with London transport (3 lines closed) and what was, for London, bitterly cold weather.

I went on the march because I believe the reasons put forward for this war are extremely flawed. As I understand it, these reasons (along with why I disagree with them) are primarily:

1. To discourage and disrupt Global Terrorism.
If this war goes ahead, I think it will be the best recruiting campaign ever conducted for Global Terrorism. I personally believe the recent terrorist threats in the U.K. are a direct result of the sabre-rattling by George Bush and Tony Blair. Conversely, I hope that the scale of the protests today across the globe will go some way to defusing the middle-eastern terrorist's argument that everyone in the Western world is evil and a deserving victim of terrorist attacks.

2. To prevent Sadam Hussain from using his Weapons of Mass Destruction (if they exist).
Don't agree with this either. I think (and I believe it was the view of most foriegn policy consultants in the run-up to resolution 1441) that the only way Sadam will use these weapons is if he is directly threatened (i.e. if he were to be invaded). If we recall the debate prior to 1441, an awful lot of heavy hitting pundits were arguing that containment was working and we didn't need the threat of war, never mind the actual thing. Since 1441, Bush's threats have coerced Iraq to be much more compliant when it comes with the U.N. weapons inspectors. Bush, you've won. Now go fix your economy.

3. To remove Sadam from power.
Okay, yep. I believe the combined firepower of the U.N. (especially when that of United States is included) is sufficient to remove Sadam from power. I agree he's an evil dictator almost certainly hated by the overwhelming majority of the people of Iraq. However, I'm not sure that invading a country and wiping out its head of government because he is widely loathed is a wise precedent. I believe this threat is directly related to the sudden upsurge in paranoia in North Korea which has led them to resume their nuclear weapons programme.

4. We've made the threat (resolution 1441) and not to go through with it would undermine the power of the United Nations.
So, because Bush is a terrible politician, we should all sign up to a war that is guaranteed to murder at least 10s of thousands of people directly, cost billions of dollars, and destablize the entire world. No. Absolutely not. I believe that the U.N. has obtained significant concessions from Iraq. I believe they are still trying to cheat. I believe they will continue to cheat. However, I do not believe they are much of a danger to the rest of the world. Additionally, I think the entire crisis has shown the U.N. to have considerable power. I would argue that if the current arguments in NATO and the U.N. cause the U.S. to back down and give up on this insane warmongering, it will actually demonstrate its worth to the world rather than the reverse. Can you imagine how a headline like "Bush admits he was wrong, U.S. Willing to Listen to Other Viewpoints" might damage the cause of International Terrorism against America.

These arguments make so little sense that, although I can't quite bring myself to believe it, the argument that it's all about Oil makes more logical sense to me. I can at least spot the logic in the argument, "Hmm, tax cuts for the rich don't seem to have fixed the economy. Hey! Iraq has the second largest oil reserves on the planet. They're worth billions! If we invade we could steal most of it. Fantastic. Oh, and destabilising the world should help out our defense industry."

But again, I'm too generous a person to actually believe such an argument.

Which doesn't leave me with much of a justification for this war. The only other thing that makes even the tiniest bit of sense is that George W. Bush is determined to get a bigger chapter in the history books than his father.

If that's the case, why doesn't he just get an intern to give him a blow job? It worked for Clinton.

In other words: make love, not war, Mr. Bush.