"Thousands march in Iraq: Demonstrators want U.S. gone, demand Islamic state," read the headline in Saturday's East Valley Tribune.
"What the heck is this crap?" responded Eric Spratling, as he groggily read the morning's newspaper while chewing on a granola bar.
I know the left must just love this. With every passing day, they lose another argument against Operation Iraqi Freedom, so I'm sure that they're just pleased as punch that they won't have to cling to the hilarious "random looting is Bush's fault" approach any longer.
And this one might actually pose some difficulty for me. How do you reconcile the Iraqis viewing the Coalition as liberators, and then asking us to leave?
Simple. It's the freedom.
Originally, I had likened the demonstrators to your typical American kid: They want their mom to drive them to the mall and give them some money to spend, but God forbid they actually be seen with their mother in the mall.
The U.S. bought the Iraqi people their trip to Freedom Central, but now they expect us to wait in the parking lot? I don't think so.
But the answer is more complicated than that. If you want a hint, ask yourself how many of the demonstrators were shot, gassed, or tortured by Coalition forces for expressing their views?
About the same number as the number of women who find me attractive: zero (well, that might not be accurate, since I think the latter figure may somehow actually be a negative number).
That's right. For the first time in decades, Iraqi citizens can speak their minds without fear of being crushed by an evil regime. It's a new morning in Iraq.
I bring all this up because, like I said, the anti-war left is running out of arguments, and thus lately they've had to switch gears from, "This war will be terrible and costly," to, "The post-war occupation will be terrible and costly."
I know I should ignore the Chicken Littles of the world, but honestly, what has to happen to make them stop screaming about the sky falling?
For the left, the surefire results of President Bush's catastrophic blunder are always just around the corner - but never seem to materialize. I was only a kid during the '80s, but I'm already having flashbacks to liberal alarmism about Ronald Reagan kicking off the nuclear holocaust. (He never did, in case anyone forgot.)
Iraq's never going to be perfect, folks. America's the best nation in the world and we're not perfect, so I can live with that. But it bugs me that the doves are going to take any sign of imperfection from the Iraqi people to constitute a failure on the Coalition's part.
The United States has been a free democracy for the past 200 years, and just in recent months we've had to deal with Senate Democrats leading a dishonest filibuster against Miguel Estrada's appointment, CNN admitting to aiding Saddam Hussein's reign of terror, and a horrible "Daredevil" movie.
Baghdad's been free for a couple weeks and the left is already having a silly anti-America demonstration. That's not bad at all. In fact, they're ahead of schedule.
We're going to pack up our gear and leave Iraq when we're good and ready, and if, in the meantime, a minority of Iraqis get impatient and want to protest, let them.
Organized idiocy is one of the surest signs of a healthy democracy. Just look at America.
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Eric Spratling is a journalism junior. Reach him at eric.spratling@asu.edu.
