The capitol Bs weren't the only ones to misunderestimate the duration of this capaign. In fact, a
little over a week ago, the most commonly used phrase among
all commentators, from White House
BULLSHIT
peddlers to the most cynical of pacifist activists, was that this
war will probably be over quickly. Even though we didn't swallow the party line, that
Iraqis would welcome Yankee invaders as their liberators, we'd seen Iraq capitulate in 1991, and
knew that the Irresistable Force of the American war machine had only multiplied in the interim. What
nobody counted on was encountering the Immovable Object of Iraqi will. We forgot that you can't
win a war with missiles and bombs alone. Death isn't only coming to Iraqi soldiers, loyalists, and
civilians swiftly from the
sky, but also from American, British, Australian and Polish boys with pimples and machine guns who
look them in the eye before pulling the trigger.
Even though I believed the war would have been largely won by this time, I still advocated protest.
I believed that the anti-war movement had achieved good momentum, and that with a little more
effort it could have brought about an early ceasefire. As many people predicted, the polls
are showing that public support is swinging massively in favour of the respective governments. But
who believes the mainstream press anymore? Without knowing
quite what the numbers are, I have the impression that the propaganda campaign has somewhat
succeeded in convincing people that they will rally, as predicted, behind their leadership during
these times of war. How brain-washingly prophetic.
It's actually quite preposterous that any of us believed that this war would be over quickly. When
has that happened? Really? The liberators of the last war in Iraq were still dropping bombs
in the no fly zones the day before this one started. Any word from Afganistan? No, they don't
like to bring that one up - it's still going on!
Unless we do something about it, this latest war will proceed until Bush has had enough. His
complete failure in every other aspect of governance suggests he might try and ride this baby
through into the next term. So if you were thinking there's no point protesting now, it'll
all be over soon, well i'm afraid that's just not the case. And once the conflict in Iraq
is over, what next? The problems at home won't be magically fixed, so look out Syria, Iran,
North Korea...
Dissent is boiling across the World, but infrastructure and bureaucracy buffer activist groups
from each other - even in the futuristic, communication-enabled world we inhabit.
In Tokyo when people march, (around 3,000 people weekly; 40,000 at the beginning of March)
police break the mass of protesters up into manageable sized groups (100-200 people)
and then work to prevent the groups from joining up. Divide and conquer.
The internet has become the principle direct interface between dissidents, not so much scattered
as splattered quite thickly around the globe. As I've said before, the internet is not a reliable
medium for communicating anything meaningful. It buffers us from reality with the soft cushion of
virtual anonymity. It excuses apathy by
making us think we are activists every time our votes are discarded in a rigged online poll. How
many anti-war emails did you forward this week? How many American products did you knowingly buy?
But perhaps by being a little less anonymous, a bit less abstract, we can use the internet to
bolster global confidence in opposing war. I will be regularly updating this site with news
from protests in Tokyo. If anybody
wants to do the same for where they're living, or can point me to similar sites, please do. If
you have words or images you want to share, please email them.
I have started a mailing list so that people can share their thoughts more directly, and
coordinate protests.
I've never been terribly sentimental. At times I feel only a very loose association with
the human race. But right now I'm overcome with the notion that if everyone in the world who
thinks so, were to shout NO at the same time, then we could send Baby Bush to his room without
any supper, and start to clean up the mess he's made in the living room.
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