An Open Letter to Blue.

Your open letter to the anti-war movement reeks of ignorance and does you a disservice. For readers as at home, I do not plan on quoting it, so if you can't follow along, tough cookies. You will find a link here. (You may need to scroll down).

To sum up the gist of your letter:

The anti-war movement is deserving of outrage because:

a) They have not been successful
b) When they have been moderately successful, they have supported regimes that have caused horrible atrocities
c) They haven't protested all of the other wars or lobbied for outside intervention in them.


You argument rests on one obviously contentious assumption: That the anti-war protestors are all the same, and that none of them did in fact protest the wars that you mentioned. A fact I find quite hard to believe. Despite the fact that you seem to think that the anti-war movement is comprised entirely of people that are completely ignorant of world affairs. This seems like an obviously false assumption. The hard left (much of whom comprise the so-called anti-war movement) tend to be fairly knowledgeable about what's going on in the world, quite often more so than your average Joe. Making gross generalizations about a movement so big as the anti-war movement doesn't seem fair.

This being said I have a bone to pick with each of your "arguments."

a) This argument is ridiculous. It makes no sense to criticize a protest movement for not having been able to effect the changes that they are trying to bring about. That's like criticizing someone trying to escape imprisonment for not having been able too. The goal that they have set themselves is quite a difficult one to obtain, what with deeply entrenched conservative and military powers.

b) Here, you are effectively saying something akin to Bush and "If you are not against us, you're supporting terrorism." Simply because someone does not support interventionist policies does not mean that they support the regimes that intervention has been considered for. The anti-war movement doesn't think that war is the right way to bring about the needed change. By and large the anti-war movement are probably more eager to bring about some change in these countries for the better, tan people who support military intervention as they quite often have a better idea of what's going on in countries like that (think Amnesty International and its work to this regard). They just don't think that violence is the right way to go about it. How horrible of them!

c) You give an in depth list of wars that you say that haven't been properly protested by the anti-war movement. First of all, I'm not sure that you have you facts right. I have no evidence that the anti-war movement has not been active in any protest of these wars. Secondly, you argue that they should have protested for intervention in these wars when this goes against exactly what they believe in: they actively fight against interventionist thinking. Thirdly, even if it were the case that they didn't protest these (a few of which occurred well before a lot them were even born) it seems really strange of you to suggest that protesting is useless, but also that they should have been protesting. Not to mention the fact that it really does make more sense to protest your own government's actions as you have a greater chance of effecting change. Finally, you should direct more of your outrage against yourself for having been just as much an accomplice in tacit support for all of these wars too.