Pushing the Left's Buttons (Part I)

First off, kudos should be given to Patrick Whitty for his valiant attempt on the part of the left-wing spectrum of this country to argue against the rather solid Viewpoint article I had written last week, though in all honesty he came off as part of the minority within the more extreme socialist wing of the party. With that said, Whitty’s article sadly does nothing to advance the claims made by the leftists arguing the United States had no right in removing Saddam Hussein from power and spreading democracy throughout the Middle East region. More to the point, his statements within his Viewpoint backs the Democrats further in the corner then they had been from the beginning.

Whitty continued to advocate the flower child point that it was neither hypocritical nor misguided to support the troops while protesting against the war we are entrenched in right now because “this position has been a common one among politicians and everyday Americans alike”. Seriously, I expected a more mature and sophisticated response then this. It just amazes me as to how the left continues to disappoint me – first nominating John Kerry then electing Howard Dean to chairman of the DNC, and now this. The following statement is essentially the equivalent of someone saying ‘well, if everyone else is jumping off a bridge, I might as well too’, in spite of the fact they you are not logically processing the matter in your heads. This blatant form of duplicity has evolved into a sort reflex for the left, they don’t even have to think about it, using it in order to shout down anyone who objects to their desire to have their cake and eat it too.

The anti-war hippies of the Vietnam War-era were the same way, or at least the majority of them claimed to be, whether this was actually the case or not is beside the point, but as it turned out years after the United States pulled out of the region, the motives behind the protests were, at least to the more left-wing members of Washington, startling. The Soviets believed they could use the opinion of the American public against its own government not only in weaken the morale of the soldiers engaged in combat but also in forcing antsy politicians, including the president, to make less decisive strategic decisions in the war. With crowds of pot-smoking flower children and naïve, dense college teenagers organizing rallies and protests against the war in Vietnam, the Soviets’ devious plot turned out better then any one of them could have envisioned years earlier. Who is to say the Muslims are not using this exact same tool against the United States government today? It is one thing to protest against a course of foreign policy before it actually begins but once those soldiers are engaged in that conflict, it is time to put up and shut up until we have completed the mission we set out to accomplish.

He continues, “I was disappointed with Kastner’s portrayal of war opponents as people who support the likes of Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Lenin”. Sorry Patrick, but here is the awful truth for you – if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, chances are it’s a protestor engaging in a rhetorical dodge. Call them what you want, anti-war pacifists or pro-Saddam loyalists, in the end there truly is no difference and no altering of either titles or labels is going to change that. In choosing to demonstrate against the war and being willing to broker a ‘peace’ deal with this vile dictator and his malicious band of Baathist sympathizers, you would have been choosing to side with Saddam Hussein in the continuation of his reign of terror and oppression upon the innocent Iraqi people. There is no witnessing of this event safely in the confines of the sidelines in this one. You are either with the United States or you are against us; it is that simple. There is no neutral territory when it comes to a pitched battle between good and evil.