In an article from A.P. about anti-war and pro-war protesters I found what I considered to be a very enlightening quote from an anti-war protester.
"Too many people have died and it doesn't solve anything," said Ann Bonner, who drove through snow with her husband, Tom O'Grady, and two children, 13 and 10, from Athens, Ohio. "I feel bad carrying out my daily activities while people are suffering, Americans and Iraqis."
"Too many people have died", of course too many have died, even one dieing is too many but here is the problem. You can not resolve issues with those that seek only your destruction and do not seek negotiation. This has been true through out time and only when a group that does evil is put under enough pressure do they begin to accept the concept of negotiation. Remember that most of these terrorists are religious zealots that only seek the complete and total destruction of "the western world"
"and it doesn't solve anything," Really, perhaps we should examine what has been accomplished in Iraq as a result of the allies efforts to fight terrorism. Women have a right to education, more people have clean water and electricity than ever before. Please notice we did not fix, secure, and protect the oil fields. We have been fixing infrastructure that was dilapidated under the palace building dictatorship of Saddam and the beneficiaries of our efforts are the free people of Iraq. We have stopped an entire society, the Kurds, from being slaughtered for having the audacity to disagree with the previous government.
"I feel bad carrying out my daily activities while people are suffering, Americans and Iraqis." If this person is going to "feel bad" then feel for the true suffering that was endured by these people when no one would help them to become free. Kurdish families and indeed whole towns were attacked with poison gas. These butchered defenseless people are who we should have felt bad for a long time ago.
The problem as I see it is that this war protester like so many others does not examine the facts but instead only reacts emotionally to vague statements like "Bush lied to us" or "this was is over oil". By the way if oil was all we really wanted we would have ignored the U.N. sanctions and happily traded with Iraq for oil. Here Saddam we only care about the oil so how about we guarantee to buy 5 million barrels a day, cash, and you guarantee us $30 a barrel oil for the next 10 years? Deal? cool and good luck with those pesky Kurds and women who want equal rights.
Check your facts and then think about this stuff people, quit dragging your family across country for an anti-war rally because you "feel bad". None of us feels good but those of us that seek out a few facts very quickly realize the price we are paying today will do more for humanity over that long term than anything else we could have AND DID try.
ARTICLE CITATION:
Title: War Protesters, Supporters Rally in D.C.
By LARRY MARGASAK and MATTHEW BARAKAT (Associated Press Writers)
From Associated PressMarch 18, 2007 1:05 AM EDT
