Protestors need different tactics

Justin Byma -- Staff Column

While it is a necessary right of every American to be free to express his or her views in a peaceful manner, it is difficult to find any merit in the actions or goals of the "peace" protest that took place prior to the break.

This lack of merit stems from movement leaders that want credibility. From the outside looking in, it is all but impossible to differentiate between the sincere and the real, louder crazies. And the sincere either choose not to keep the protest on message or are afraid to do so. By their silence, the sincere give the impression of agreement with the utterly anti-American messages usually taken on by protests of that nature.

It is tough to win people over to your side when your best arguments are nothing but Donahue sound bites, and Michael Moorish equivalencies that alienate anyone with a sense of reason. The protesters that scream obscenities, call our troops murderers, and label our President a terrorist should take full responsibility for pushing several of the marchers away from their cause to join the counter-protesters.

The SCSU protest was no different from other protests worldwide. Every demonstration that has taken place has brought together people from every fringe leftist movement, to shout with one voice, not arguments against the war, but accusations against the President.

You see it's not that the protesters hate war, but the fact that they loathe the President that unites them. They hate the President, and his policy so much that would rather align themselves with the Butcher of Baghdad so long as they do not support our President, or our troops, which would be worse.

It is entirely possible to argue against the war on reasoned grounds, but the protesters do no such thing. I was assured by one misguided individual that the protest showed that more people care about the anti-war movement, evident in the turnout (which organizers severely overstated) and that, by extension, my position on the war is wrong. I ask, how do feelings prove the validity of an argument? Why should that convince people that the anti-war movement is, in fact, the moral high ground?

It shouldn't. And forgive me if I am not convinced that the "peace" movement has any merit. The arguments for regime change in Iraq have been made, but they have not been countered.

By the time this column goes to print, this debate will likely be moot, the war will have begun, and if not, it soon will. I wish Godspeed, fair winds and following seas to my former brothers-in-arms of the United States Marines, to my younger brother, due in the desert within a few weeks and to all of our troops, without whom we could not enjoy the security and liberty that we sometimes take for granted. Thanks. God bless you.

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Justin Byma can be reached at [email protected]