firstsgtmike
03-21-03, 08:31 AM
Peace Activists Hide Behind a Shield of Cynicism
By Norah Vincent, Norah Vincent is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
President Bush is a terrorist. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is Hitler.
You've heard these slanders before, uttered by the antiwar left, a movement characterized by its refusal to accept what it sees as Bush's simple-minded, jingoistic separation of the world into good (us) and evil (them) -- but a movement quite content nonetheless to assert its own facile and specious categories of moral equivalence.
Of course, these slurs are all just canny tantrums staged to provoke.
Those who voice them don't even believe them, though perhaps in the pitch and puerile frenzy of protest they persuade themselves that they do. But when it comes to action, they know quite well the distinction between them and us. In fact, they presume it.
Consider their protest marches, which the less provincial and spoiled among them know would be impossible in any truly tyrannous country, where freedoms of speech and assembly are squelched with cudgels and guns.
Consider too their deployment of themselves as human shields, a strategy they know has a chance of succeeding only when the "aggressor" is a democratic country mindful of the rules of engagement, respectful of human rights.
A human shield works only against an enemy who is reluctant to kill those who stand in its way. Obviously, that is why there are human shields in Gaza and Baghdad and none in Jerusalem and New York City.
In Israel, Palestinian suicide bombers target pizzerias, buses, universities and shopping malls precisely because they are filled with civilians. The more the better.
Likewise, Al Qaeda not only targeted office buildings in the center of a crowded megalopolis, the ultimate civvy bull's-eye, but also packed its missiles with passengers, inadvertent human shields all.
If there is no difference between them and us, why don't the tie-dyed protesters make a love chain around Israel (pre- 1967 borders, of course)?
In Baghdad, Saddam Hussein has been happy to encamp Western volunteers at power plants and other strategic sites, just as he did at the onset of the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Either he has faith in American restraint or a dictator's total disregard for civilian life.
In Gaza, American protester Rachel Corrie was accidentally killed Sunday when she stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer to prevent it from destroying the home of a Palestinian militant. Even one of her fellow protesters acknowledged his shock at the incident, thereby admitting their presumption of Israel's commitment to abide by civilized rules of engagement: "We thought we had an understanding. We didn't think they would kill us."
No such understanding could be had with Al Qaeda or Hamas. Nonviolent protest works only under governments built on and constitutionally constrained by respect for human rights and self-determination.
Few governments, however democratic or progressive, are without blame in shedding civilian blood and even committing, in war, acts that may later be termed atrocities.
But only those nations founded on principles of freedom and the consent of the governed have ever responded to civil disobedience, acknowledged and corrected their mistakes and lived up, however imperfectly at times, to their ideals.
Though not without struggle, suffering and even death, that is why Mohandas K. Gandhi prevailed in India. That is why Martin Luther King Jr. overcame in Alabama. That is why the students failed in Tiananmen Square. And that is why no human shield will ever ride the bus in Jerusalem.
By Norah Vincent, Norah Vincent is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
President Bush is a terrorist. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is Hitler.
You've heard these slanders before, uttered by the antiwar left, a movement characterized by its refusal to accept what it sees as Bush's simple-minded, jingoistic separation of the world into good (us) and evil (them) -- but a movement quite content nonetheless to assert its own facile and specious categories of moral equivalence.
Of course, these slurs are all just canny tantrums staged to provoke.
Those who voice them don't even believe them, though perhaps in the pitch and puerile frenzy of protest they persuade themselves that they do. But when it comes to action, they know quite well the distinction between them and us. In fact, they presume it.
Consider their protest marches, which the less provincial and spoiled among them know would be impossible in any truly tyrannous country, where freedoms of speech and assembly are squelched with cudgels and guns.
Consider too their deployment of themselves as human shields, a strategy they know has a chance of succeeding only when the "aggressor" is a democratic country mindful of the rules of engagement, respectful of human rights.
A human shield works only against an enemy who is reluctant to kill those who stand in its way. Obviously, that is why there are human shields in Gaza and Baghdad and none in Jerusalem and New York City.
In Israel, Palestinian suicide bombers target pizzerias, buses, universities and shopping malls precisely because they are filled with civilians. The more the better.
Likewise, Al Qaeda not only targeted office buildings in the center of a crowded megalopolis, the ultimate civvy bull's-eye, but also packed its missiles with passengers, inadvertent human shields all.
If there is no difference between them and us, why don't the tie-dyed protesters make a love chain around Israel (pre- 1967 borders, of course)?
In Baghdad, Saddam Hussein has been happy to encamp Western volunteers at power plants and other strategic sites, just as he did at the onset of the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Either he has faith in American restraint or a dictator's total disregard for civilian life.
In Gaza, American protester Rachel Corrie was accidentally killed Sunday when she stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer to prevent it from destroying the home of a Palestinian militant. Even one of her fellow protesters acknowledged his shock at the incident, thereby admitting their presumption of Israel's commitment to abide by civilized rules of engagement: "We thought we had an understanding. We didn't think they would kill us."
No such understanding could be had with Al Qaeda or Hamas. Nonviolent protest works only under governments built on and constitutionally constrained by respect for human rights and self-determination.
Few governments, however democratic or progressive, are without blame in shedding civilian blood and even committing, in war, acts that may later be termed atrocities.
But only those nations founded on principles of freedom and the consent of the governed have ever responded to civil disobedience, acknowledged and corrected their mistakes and lived up, however imperfectly at times, to their ideals.
Though not without struggle, suffering and even death, that is why Mohandas K. Gandhi prevailed in India. That is why Martin Luther King Jr. overcame in Alabama. That is why the students failed in Tiananmen Square. And that is why no human shield will ever ride the bus in Jerusalem.