Editorial: Americans protest conflict, but the government turns a deaf ear
About a million people took to the streets Saturday across the country to show their opposition to a potential war with Iraq.
We hope President George W. Bush was listening, though we doubt it.
The president has shown little patience for debate over Iraq, preferring the rhetoric of good and evil and the language of gunfighter movies to the hard work of democratic discussion.
But that’s just what’s needed here, before our troops are placed in harm’s way, before American soldiers are asked to risk their lives and before we threaten the lives of Iraqi civilians.
That’s what the protests Saturday were all about.
Several hundred thousand protesters clogged the streets in New York the actual number is in dispute with the police estimating 100,000 and organizers saying 400,000. Similar, but smaller demonstrations took place in Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, San Diego, Sacramento, Miami, Detroit, Milwaukee and scores of other cities, according to The New York Times.
It was a group that featured clergy and lay people, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, grandparents, teachers, bankers, computer programmers, college students. For many, the demonstrations were their first foray into the political world. Others were veterans of other protest movements.
The protests, largely peaceful, were an indication that there is a solid core of Americans that is opposed to war, willing to step out in the freezing winter temperatures and make its voice heard.
Admittedly, it is difficult to know just how large this core of opposition really is. Recent national opinion polls seem to indicate that there is general support in the country for war with Iraq and with the Bush administration’s handling of the current crisis. But the same polls show that much of the support is tied to U.N. support and that the hardcore pro-war and antiwar sentiments each make up about a quarter of the respondents.
This leaves a lot of room for a debate that has yet to happen.
Yes, the administration has offered evidence, but much of it has been vaguer than Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell have been willing to admit.
But the administration has failed to make a legitimate case for why the United States must act unilaterally and before the United Nations can certify whether Iraq has indeed been manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. And it has failed to show that Iraq poses a real and immediate threat to the United States the only reason that would justify a pre-emptive military strike.
We are not saying that Saddam Hussein is not dangerous or that his dictatorship has been anything but a violent, repressive regime. But we must ask why Saddam Hussein is considered more dangerous right now than Kim Jong Il of North Korea, who already possesses nuclear weapons, or Iran or any number of other potential threats.
It is imperative that, whether you believe military action is warranted or not, you engage your neighbors on the issue. Talk to them. Find out what they think.
We cannot allow our fighting men and women to risk their lives until we are sure their risks are necessary.

