War. War is an awful thing. But sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes it is necessary as a means of self-defense, and sometimes it is necessary as a means to defend people who can't defend themselves. I support the coming war with Iraq because I think it is necessary.

I certainly think that people have a right to disagree though. I have, indeed, gotten very upset with various friends, family members, radio personalities, etc. who get mad at the protestors and call them unpatriotic and such. I believe that people have a right to disagree with the government without being called unpatriotic and being told to get out of America if they don't like it. America is a democracy, and that's what democracy is all about. Goodness knows I have disagreed with the government plenty of times in the past. I actually have a lot of respect for the protestors who are honestly questioning the reasons we are going to war. They are standing up for what they believe in.

That being said, a lot of the protestors are just plain morons. It certainly seems like the vast majority of them aren't honestly questioning the reasons we are going to war, but rather are opposed to the war simply because of who is backing it. These are the same people in my liberal college town who papered the campus for two years after the last presidential election with signs that proclaimed things like, "Bush stole the election." And those were the nice ones signs. (This is not something I want to get into now, but I'll just say that Bush hardly controls the Supreme Court.) As an example of some of that lets just take a look at two categories of signs that I often see protesters holding.

The first says, "No Blood For Oil" or something else that implies that the only reasons Bush wants to go to war is to get those oil fields. Hu? Iraq doesn't even make the top three when you list oil importers by quantity imported to the US. And does anyone seriously thing that the troops are just going to march into Iraq, take the oil fields, and start giving them to American corporations? Even if that was what Bush wanted to do, there's no way the world community would stand for that. And that's not what Bush wants to do. There's no factual reason to believe that that is what he wants to do. It reminds me of when I was taking a sociology class last year and we were talking about different political ideologies. The professor asked, "Why do you think Bush wants to cut taxes?" One girl raised her hand and actually seriously said, "Because he wants his rich white friends to have more money." I raised mine and said, "No, it's because he believes in the market ideology, that people and corporations having more control over their money and decisions and the government having less is the way to make the economy thrive." For heavens sake, I don't go around saying, "Democrats are just a bunch of tree hugging freaks who like to kill babies, think they are oppressed, and consider throwing money at a problem to be a good solution." (Not that some people don't say that, but not too many of them would come up with that as an answer in class) Why do so many Democrats seem to seriously believe that Republicans are all a bunch of rich old white men who want to steal what they can and hold everyone else down?

Someone on the radio also pointed out that it doesn't make much economic sense to spend billions of dollars on war and reconstruction just to get something that Iraq willingly sells us now. I also heard a amusing bit where a guy went around talking to protesters, and when they said something about the war just being about oil, he asked them, "So why didn't we just take the oil fields after the last Gulf War?" "Ummmm…. I dunno" was the usual response. The whole war for oil thought just doesn't seem to stand up under scrutiny.

Of course, if you're looking for something even more ludicrous, how about those "Bush = Hitler" signs and others of their ilk that imply Bush is some kind of evil monster. Lets see… Hitler invaded other countries to increase his wealth and power. Has Bush done that? No, actually I think that Saddam Hussein has. Hitler tortured people in horrible and barbaric ways. Has Bush done that? No, actually I believe that Saddam Hussein is the one doing that. Hitler performed ethnic cleansing. Has Bush done that? No, actually I think that is something that Saddam Hussein has been working on. Gee, you hardly have to breath on that "argument" to make it topple.

It may very well be that only 5% of the protestors hold these sorts of asinine views. Goodness knows a few stupid people have a way of making everyone else with the same opinion look terrible. (Case in point: "pro-life" protestors who shoot abortion doctors.) All I can say, though, is that if there are any rational protestors, maybe they ought to get together and hold an anti-war rally where idiotic signs that are merely ad-hominem attacks are not allowed. Maybe then they'll be taken seriously, and there won't be quite as many people calling them unpatriotic.