RE: Iraq: the case for decisive action

From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Fri Jan 24 2003 - 09:16:26 MST


-----Original Message-----
From: Amara Graps [mailto:amara@amara.com]

>I have yet to see any viable alternative course of action presented by the
>'anti war' groups. Id be willing to listen of course.

Are they getting their voices in the media?

 From what I saw during the two weeks I was in the U.S., the antiwar
groups were not given alot of 'airplay'.

Amara

   ------------

Well consider a sample of what was said at the protest this previous weekend
(these are from Horowitz article -
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=5620)

"We have to stop America's war against the people of Iraq, and the people of
Palestine, Colombia and the world."

"The President wants to talk about a terrorist named bin Laden. I don't want
to talk about bin Laden. I want to talk about a terrorist called George
Washington. I want to talk about a terrorist called Rudy Guiliani. The real
terrorists have always been the United Snakes of America."

"We 're calling for a System change," "We won't get any justice as long as
that criminal Congress is up there. We're calling for revolution. It's
revolution time, brothers and sisters. We have to get rid of greedy
murderers and imperialists like George Bush in the White House."

"If you're looking for the Axis of Evil," "then look inside the belly of
this beast.""

""Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld," he said, "that's the Axis of Evil."

"In San Francisco, the most powerful Democrat legislator in the state John
Burton screamed, "the President is full of shit" and that the President was
"fucking with us," while encouraging the general sentiment that America
rather than Iraq was the outlaw state."

and DC ex-congresswoman Cynthia McKinney read a speech with the following
claim: "In no other country on the planet do so many people have so little
as they do in this country."

Admittedly this is a small sample of what was said at these rallies, but do
we suspect that with sentiments like this flying around, that other
conversations included appeals to calm, rational and diplomatic solutions?
If these are the sentiments of anti-war protestors, its easy to see why they
might not get a lot of airplay, it would probably scare off the majority of
anti-war protestors who are more moderate and reasonable, who legitmately
feel that this is not a prudent course of action, but still acknowlege that
Sadam is a murderous tyrant. Instead quick hit bullet lists would serve the
purpose better, just presenting them as 'peace activists' (even though the
organizers clearly support murderous regimes) and telling how many people
showed up would serve the purpose much more so then actually relaying what
they are saying, which would probably hurt the anti-war movement.

Much of this similar sentiment is relayed by Tod Gitland, who is also
anti-war, in the NPR interview on Fresh Air which was run yesterday.

Tod Gitland's Interview on NPR -
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/fa/20030123.fa.01.ram

Michael Dickey

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