Today I'm just going to reprint
this opinion from someone who catches my feelings rather well:
(original
link here)
As the television showed moving scenes of Iraqi people celebrating their freedom by destroying the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, two peaceniks - one American, one British - sat in the bar next to Charing Cross station weeping into their wine glasses. They studiously ignored the evidence which is proving the anti-war lobby wrong. Instead, they simply ranted about the evils of Bush and Blair.
In my more diplomatic moments, I say that although I disagree with them, I respect those who opposed the war in Iraq. But if I am really truthful, I would say that I don't even do that. I respect their right to express an opinion, and I understand the emotions that lead one to oppose war, but in all honesty the anti-war lobby had little real credibility.
The critics of the war fell into two categories: the extreme peaceniks, and the moderate intelligentsia. Both have been proven wrong in the last few days, but even before the war began, neither really spoke much sense.
Of course the hard core extremists are easier to dismiss. The people who gathered outside parliament day after day - and are still there even when the war is near an end - are the usual suspects. They protest at anything. They get hysterical. They usually haven't washed for days. Most of them belong to the Socialist Workers party. They were out in force in the 1980s, and they are still here. They are entitled to live that lifestyle, and to express an opinion, but they cannot expect to be taken seriously.
The hardcore element were joined, for a while, by other extremists specifically opposed to this war. They were a mixture of anti-capitalists, Bush-bashers, students and the odd middle-class liberal. While they may have thought about why they were protesting, they lost all sense of proportion. What was peculiar was that they are people who often talk the language of justice and human rights, yet made little mention of Saddam Hussein's barbaric treatment of the Iraqi people over a quarter of a century. Bush and Blair, in their eyes, were the villains.
A few days into the war, when the roads around Parliament Square was blocked by people, I stood and listened to the demonstrators. At first, I was genuinely interested. But they lost me after just a few minutes through two incidents. First, while the police were restrained, reasoned and calm, the protestors were not. Having failed to persuade some people sitting in the road to move, a policeman picked up one person and moved him to the pavement. The person was unharmed. But a shrill woman next to me went beserk. "Leave him alone. You're so heavy-handed," she screeched. Then she yelled: "Now I know why you want this war - you want to turn Britain into a police state." I rolled my eyes heavenwards.
A few moments later, the second act of lunacy occurred. The demonstrators started singing, to the tune of "Yellow Submarine", the words "we all live in a terrorist regime". At that, I almost lost it. I wanted to go over and shout back at them. I wanted to tell them that they had no idea what a terrorist regime is like, and that they should try going to Iraq, Burma, Sudan, Zimbabwe or North Korea.
You see, although I have not been to Iraq, I have met victims of other terrorist regimes. I have been to the refugees and internally displaced people (IDP) on the Thai-Burmese border. I have seen the aftermath of the Indonesian military terror in East Timor. I have met landmine victims, former child soldiers, orphans, women who have been gang raped, boys forced into hard labour, former prisoners of conscience, people who have seen their relatives hacked to death limb by limb. I have spent hours trekking through the jungle to get to a remote IDP village in Burma. I have met a 14-year-old girl who weighs just 22 kilos, a victim of malnutrition caused by a regime which spends 40% of its annual budget on the military and less than two% on health. So the protestors, many of whom cloak themselves in the language of compassion, showed little understanding of reality.
There was, of course, a broader, more intelligent, moderate group of opponents of the war. They were journalists, academics, lawyers, religious leaders and politicians. They included the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury. They argued that the war could cause greater instability, foster Islamic extremism, and that without UN endorsement the war was wrong. I disagreed with them, but at least they argued more sensibly than the extremists and their concerns were valid.
My problem with the moderates, however, was that while they always said that they did not support Saddam, that they wanted his removal, and to prevent the development of weapons of mass destruction, they never once offered an alternative way of achieving these goals. They supported the objectives, but were not willing to get their hands dirty. They wanted Saddam to be miraculously spirited away by yet another security council resolution. Had they offered a credible alternative - or any alternative in fact - they might have had a stronger case. Instead, all they could point to was yet more stalemate and prevarication.
Of course, opponents of the war did not all come from the liberal-left. Indeed, both camps brought together odd bedfellows. Just as Ann Clwyd and William Hague supported the war, Ken Clarke chose to sail - or sink - in the same boat as Robin Cook. Douglas Hogg and John Gummer found themselves in the same camp as George Galloway and Tam Dalyell. Noam Chomsky and Matthew Parris were singing from the same hymnsheet.
The Conservative opponents of the war were arguing primarily from an old-fashioned establishment belief that Britain should look after its narrow short-term national interest, not interfere in other countries, and not rock the boat in Europe. I believe it is time for Conservatives to change that attitude to foreign affairs, and I am glad that the party leadership officially backed the war.
I supported the war for two reasons. Firstly, if Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction then it was right to stop him. And I supported "liberation", an end to his reign of terror. Both are actually in the long-term national interest.
The war in Iraq puts flesh on the Bush doctrines of "pre-emptive action" and "regime change". There is some parallel here with Margaret Thatcher's approach to economic policy in that they involve a challenge to the status quo, the establishment thinking.
Foreign policy has until now been largely based on the appeasement, containment and engagement of dictators. That is the foreign policy some Tories still wish to pursue. But if the Conservatives really are a party of freedom, small government and the rule of law, then why should those values stop at Dover? They should be applied to all areas of policy, including foreign affairs. Iain Duncan Smith has begun to do this, and I hope he will go much further. And it is not as if "pre-emptive action" and "regime change" are not common sense. It is surely wise, if there is a known threat, to take action to remove that threat before it becomes too great. And it is surely right, where possible, to seek to free people from the grip of brutal dictators.
My support for the war was energised by something extraordinary I saw on my last visit to Burma. I went to a village of IDPs, living in terrible conditions in the jungle having fled their own homes which had been torched by the Burmese military. There was malnutrition and malaria all around. Yet hanging on the wall of a little bamboo hut was a banner with a very simple question, written in English: "Are you for democracy or dictatorship?" That is the question the anti-war lobby has to answer.
· Benedict Rogers is a journalist and human rights campaigner, and an approved Conservative party candidate. He is the co-author of New Ground: engaging people with the Conservative party through a bold, principled and imaginative foreign policy, which can be found at www.newground.org.uk.
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