Pre-War Protests Twenty Years Ago Were Very Different
Over twenty years ago when a U.S. invasion of Iraq seemed imminent the public reaction was overwhelmingly against it. While leadership in the U.S. often seemed split during the run up, global opinion was massively against it. Including in countries much closer to Iraq or more likely to be targets of bombs if Iraq were to launch the weapons it was accused of having.
On February 15th, 2003, global protests took place. Many millions of people in cities around the world protested. Probably the biggest global demonstration ever. In fact, because it was a coordinated effort with people everywhere aware that it was a global statement, it was a kind of birth of a global human consciousness. A step in human evolution.
We even had our own protest months earlier in the small western city I live in. Our local and informal group of peace activists and environmental advocates were reading about leadership laying the foundation for rationalizing such a war and held a day of protest on the town square. I participated and wrote about it in the local paper at the time.
Of course none of it worked. Just a month after the global protest the attack and long war began.
Now we have a similar attack on Iran but the lead up was very different. In part because Trump, having cowed Congress into near irrelevance, just jumped in on this without taking time to get Congressional approval or laying much groundwork for rationalizing it. And in part because Trump creates so many things that demand protest that it’s hard to keep up.
Iran does create a lot of problems for the region and does have some nuclear material. There ability to actually make nuclear warheads and missiles and how quickly any of that could be done is nothing like what Trump has claimed. And their abuse and murder of their people is not the real reason since much worse could be found elsewhere in the world. It’s yet another Trump mistake in judgement and a Trump ego trip.
Despite nothing like the same protests, people are very much against this. A Quinnipiac poll done just before the attack, about the possibility of such an attack, showed 70% against it and only 18% for it.
The lack of pre-war protests compared to back then is disconcerting but understandable. But nothing has changed. Leadership is still idiotic about this kind of thing, the people are much smarter than leadership about this, what the people want is clear, and leadership is doing exactly the opposite.
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