Writes Amir Taheri in a disheartening column (Rev. Jackson, Let Me Speak, Feb. 22, 2002, National Post) on his experience with leftist “anti-war” protesters:
Our aim had been to persuade the [London] organizers to let at least one Iraqi voice be heard. Soon, however, it became clear the organizers were as anxious to stifle the voice of the Iraqis in exile as was Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The Iraqis had come with placards reading “Freedom for Iraq” and “American rule, a hundred thousand times better than Takriti tyranny!”
But the tough guys who supervised the march would have none of that. Only official placards, manufactured in thousands and distributed among the “spontaneous” marchers, were allowed. These read “Bush and Blair, baby-killers,” “Not in my name,” “Freedom for Palestine” and “Indict Bush and Sharon.” Not one placard demanded that Saddam should disarm to avoid war….The thugs also confiscated photographs showing the tragedy of Halabja, the Kurdish town where Saddam’s forces gassed 5,000 people to death in 1988.
Amir Taheri’s column demonstrates once again that today’s leftists are not against dictatorship, poverty, brutality, mass slaughter of innocent people, or weapons of mass destruction in the hands of maniacal killers:
We managed to reach some of the stars of the show, including Reverend Jesse Jackson, the self-styled champion of American civil rights. One of our group, Salima Kazim, an Iraqi grandmother, managed to attract the reverend’s attention and told him how Saddam Hussein had murdered her three sons because they had been dissidents in the Baath Party; and how one of her grandsons had died in the war Saddam had launched against Kuwait in 1990.
“Could I have the microphone for one minute to tell the people about my life?” 78-year old Salima demanded. The reverend was not pleased.
“Today is not about Saddam Hussein,” he snapped. “Today is about Bush and Blair and the massacre they plan in Iraq.” Salima had to beat a retreat, with all of us following, as the reverend’s goons closed in to protect his holiness.
What these leftists fear most is America winning a just war. They are opposed to a free country’s government doing what it ought to do: protect its citizens and interests from an evil and dangerous dictator.
Hashem al-Iqabi, one of Iraq’s leading writers and intellectuals, had hoped the marchers would mention the fact that Saddam had driven almost four million Iraqis out of their homes and razed more than 6,000 villages to the ground.
These leftists are emotionalists driven by hatred of America and what it stands for: the right of each individual to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” They desire to see America sacrificing itself to evil in order to appease “world opinion,” especially the opinion of morons and thugs. They are motivated by what novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called “hatred of the good for being good,” which is the essence of nihilism.
It’s time to stop pretending that these leftists are motivated by something positive.