Action Alert: March 20, 2004

This Saturday, March 20, has been designated as a global day of action by the anti-war crowd. Why March 20th? Well, its the first anniversary of the liberation invasion of Iraq.

Now, normally I would not care all that much either way. I think that the arguments both in favour and against the war were both silly. There were no WMD's that could threaten the States, and you don't spend 87 billion dollars to hand over the oil supply from one dictator to another.

So why is this Saturday important? Well, in the good tradition of left-wingers and US congressmen, they have decided to tack on an amendment to the protest:

We will also demonstrate on March 20 in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, including the right to return to their homes and land.

Does this have anything to do with the Iraq war? Of course not, but some people would never pass on an opportunity to attack Israel.

It seems that there will be a protest in Toronto too, and the local chapter of Protest Warriors has already contacted me. Now, I don't necessarily agree with all of the views that this organization holds, (in particular their anti-Democrat pro-Republican stance) but sometimes you have to swallow the good with the bad in order to get something done. Specifically, I might be able to wear my T-shirt this Saturday, yay!

As always, I am open to a diversity of views here. It would seem that some of the anti-war protesters were beginning to develop a backbone and realize that an anti-war protest was not really the appropriate place to be coming out in support of suicide bombers and their goals. The Arab-American and Muslim community decided to set them straight with an open-letter:

2. We insist that the Palestinian right to return and to self-determination are the key anchors of the Palestinian struggle, and that organizations that attempt to diminish, sidetrack, or abrogate these rights, regardless of any other position they may take on Palestine, are acting contrary to the will and aspiration of the Palestinian people.

3. We view all attempts to relegate our collective presence to the margin and to tokenize our participation in the movement to be racist in character.

That is why I am going to try and make it out to the protests this Saturday. If the anti-war movement is going to include a "destroy-Israel" component to their demonstration, then I have an obligation to point out that such an inclusion is unacceptable.