Some Iraq vets will join this protest [on March 19th] out of a feeling of nostalgia for a time before they were even born. But it’s no longer the Vietnam war, civil-rights, military draft ’60s. Sporting a grungy military uniform is a tactic that the real policymakers can dismiss as a non-threat to their political viability. Even John Kerry quit that gig more than 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
Over the life of the recent anti-war movement, the attempted revival of the ’60s was destined for failure from the beginning.<\/p>\n
Too many other issues were dragged into the effort. What middle-of-the-road Americans would attend a demonstration against the war if they knew they’d be standing in a mob of Che Guevara T-shirts listening to chants of “Free Mumia!”?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He has a point. Who wants to associate themselves with the shrieking harpies of Code Pink, who wants to associated with the Jon deWalds and Adam Kokeshes? I’ve admitted here that any sympathy I had for anti-war Iraq veterans dissipated on the steps of the National Archives building last march when I was physically threatened by IVAW members for having a differing opinion, even though they knew I was a veteran. I’ve even seen a small group of perverts carrying a “Stop Circumcision” banner with the anti-war crowd (they told me that circumcision is child abuse – a subject they appeared quite familiar with).<\/p>\n
Bruhns makes an observation I thought beyond the average anti-war clod;<\/p>\n
I support people protesting what they think are injustices, but all issues aren’t linked. It’s not a good tactic to force people to stand under an umbrella of issues, all of which that they may not support.<\/p>\n
By alienating the silent majority, the current anti-war movement has dealt itself a bad hand that essentially diminished its credibility.<\/p>\n
In a democracy, strength is in numbers. This anti-establishment and absolutist view of the political process is likely to be the real cause of their implosion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Bruhns has been inside the anti-war movement at various vantage points for the last four years and he has built himself a fine reputation among them. If his ideas catch on, it might be a whole lot harder to fight the next anti-war movement.<\/p>\n
Proof that his ideas aren’t far off the mark would be GOE I. The anti-anti-war movement didn’t gain traction until our side had figured we’d been pushed too far when the Vietnam Memorial was threatened. If their side had been more civil and less willing to accept participation by the Black Bloc and anarchists and Truthers and Code Pink and any other number of Madhatters, they might still be a relevant voice and have no organized opposition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sergeant John Bruhns was with one of the first units into Iraq in 2003, the 1st … What the anti-war crowd has learned<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}