The antiwar argument was whether there was an alternative way to achieve the goal of a freer and more democratic Iraq (and questioning the good faith of war proponents).
And frankly, the way the question is phrased, even war opponents could answer "yes"-- they know exactly why Bush is fighting this war.
The antiwar movement lost the argument on timing and on the efficacy of alternative means of addressing peoples broad concerns on Iraq. And I attribute that partly to their simplistic focus on "no war" unity over developing a more sophisticated positive message that also would have required more outreach to non-rallygoers (and probably less focus on rallies).
When people who praise the Hussein regime are leading the rallies, folks who don't like Hussein rightly should think that such a movement has no real plan for an alternative challenge to his regime.
-- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
[sure is getting harder to do optimistic readings of the poll numbers]
WSJ.com / OPINION JOURNAL from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Editorial Page
BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
BY JAMES TARANTO
Friday, April 4, 2003 5:00 p.m. EST
CLEARER THAN WORLD WAR II
PollingReport.com presents some fascinating historical poll results. During five different wars, Americans were asked, "Do you feel that you have a clear idea of what this war is all about--that is, what we are fighting for?" Here are the results, arranged in ascending order of the proportion answering "yes":
Date War Yes No DK/NA
May 1967 Vietnam 49% 48% 3%
November 1942 World War II 73% 27% 0%
December 1990 Gulf War 74% 24% 2%
March 2003 Iraqi Freedom 81% 18% 1%
November 2001 War on Terror 89% 10% 1%
This week's Village Voice, to take an example at random, has an article by Sydney Schanberg, who complains that the White House "kept changing its story" in the run-up to hostilities. Funny how the story is clear to four out of five Americans anyway. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk