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Twisted Hippie Logic
By Mike Bayham
March 31, 2003

I know someone from Ohio who has to be one of the most unusual sports fans to ever visit an ESPN Zone. Though there is nothing atypical about a true fan possessing an extensive knowledge of obscure athletic stats or giddily anticipating the release of the NCAA tournament brackets, it is his selection of favorite teams that separates him from the rest of his fellow sports fanatics.

Most people cheer for a particular team because of geographic proximity or because of a popular star player, neither of which is the source of his team support. Despite hailing from Toledo, this fellow cheers for the Tennessee Titans in football, the Oakland A's in baseball, and the Atlanta Hawks in basketball. When I asked him why he roots for teams that do not share any obvious link to his home, he revealed the method behind his preferred franchise madness.

When he was younger, he picked his favorite teams by their uniforms. Though his appreciation of sports has surpassed his early bias for "neat logos" and "cool colors," this transcontinental team booster has not strayed away from his adolescent favorites.

If only the protestors would be so logical and consistent in their choosing of the side they take in the war to liberate Iraq!

All over the world, with the homeland not being exempt, tens of thousands of protestors have taken to the streets to scream, in many instances in crude and belligerent forms, their opposition to America's military action in Iraq. Powered by their own sense of moral authority and armed with placards bearing foul language and bad manners, the "Loud Minority" (72% of Americans back intervention) has engaged in numerous acts of not so civil disobedience across the country. While the protestors' sincerity and conviction is probably genuine, their reasoning is open game for questioning.

For example, the protestors have used the most vitriolic language imaginable to attack President Bush in their demonstrations, accusing him of being the new "Hitler" and for illegitimately assuming his office yet their silence concerning his Iraqi counterpart is deafening. The protestors have said nary a word of criticism about Saddam Hussein, who "wins" elections with 100% of the vote and is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. The anti-war activists slam Bush for his invasion of Iraq yet it is doubtful that any of these people rallied to the side of Tehran or Kuwait when Hussein launched barbaric incursions into those countries.

In another puzzling disregard to reality, Greenpeace is a major player with the protest scene rallying for the very man who is the world's leading eco-terrorist for ordering the torching of oil wells and simulating the Exxon Valdez catastrophe by intentionally dumping oil into the Persian Gulf. After calling for the heads of Exxon in the eighties, it is odd that they stand for the protection of the very man who has raped and pillaged "Mother Earth."

It almost goes without saying that Hollywood is less than pleased with the war or the man they spent millions trying to demonize since 2000. The same glitterati who cried to the media about their right to be as obnoxious as they want to be about America's "oppressive" president would learn the true meaning of persecution if they tried to do the same thing in Iraq towards Hussein.

It has been reported that Iraqi "First Amendment" martyrs who advertise their dissent have experienced Hussein's "tolerance" by being lowered into a plastics shredder headfirst for those who have been extended mercy and ankle-first for the not so lucky. One human shield, upon speaking with an Iraqi who informed him of this news, decided it was not worth dying in defense of a murderer, and left the country.

War opponents have blamed the American military and political leadership for the deaths of Iraqi civilians yet they have been mum on Hussein's use of these "expendable innocents" as human shields to protect soldiers firing on coalition forces.

In a typically hypocritical posture, anti-globalists, the same peaceful people that make cities where the World Bank meets armed camps due to the violent riots that are their trademark calling card, have decried the lack of the blessing of the United Nations for this military action.

American leftists, who were nowhere to be found when President Clinton decided to bust skulls in Serbia without UN backing, have cited that this operation was illegal because Bush did not receive the UN's endorsement. If it is all right to save Kosovars, why is it now considered evil to save Kurds and Kuwaitis? And more importantly, why are people who fight globalism upset over the fact that America did not receive the permission of the world's most expensive debating society?

In San Francisco, neo-hippies have upped the public angst ante with their new brand of protesting by clogging traffic throughout the city last week in the name of saving lives. Though their protests did not save a single life in the Middle East, one has to wonder how many San Franciscans had their lives endangered by creating a situation where ambulances and fire trucks were unable to arrive at the scenes of emergencies? The protestors, who have been nearly omnipresent in the news, have even accused the media of not giving them adequate attention in the press.

Liberal politicians that believe in the concept of the welfare state and abhor any military expenditure have actively defended a regime that neglects the care of its own people while investing billions that could be spent on medicine and food on the machines of war and weapons of mass destruction.

Considering the many contradictions, the outrage is there even if it's just directed at the wrong president, though consistency is in short order.

The one common thread that can be found in the domestic war opponents is that they primarily contain strong elements of the hard Left, which exists almost entirely to torment conservatives and capitalists. To the Left, it is not the objective that is so offensive, but the Republican who is in charge. Just like how Clinton could do no wrong, George W. Bush can do no right, even if it means saving the lives of many Iraqis.

Some liberals, blinded by their partisanship, have even taken to praising Hussein as one of the most progressive leaders in the region because women are allowed the same rights as men in the workforce. I am also certain that the enlightened Hussein also does not have a gender bias when it comes to executing female dissidents. Somewhere in the bowels of hell, Herman Goering is wishing these people were around to sit as jurors during the Nuremberg trials

On the Continent, large-scale protests are fairly common events with France having them if the groundhog does not see its shadow on February 2. Unsurprisingly, Communists, Socialists, and Palestinian sympathizers have been visibly present at the forefront of these marches. The Euro-Left didn't bother hiding their radical affiliations as they proudly waved their red flags and displayed giant portraits of Che Guevara during the protests. Because many of the participants in these marches are your garden-variety anti-Americans, they are probably not as much anti-war as they are looking for an excuse to vent their "Yankee go home" sentiment and to act like a bunch of hooligans.

The people who would be the angriest with the protestors are the Iraqis who have endured a life of misery, persecution and poverty under Saddam Hussein's rule. If the protestors and Iraqi opponents to Hussein's regime could swap places for a day, you would see the protestors, instilled with a true appreciation of America and the Bill of Rights, scampering to escape Iraq. The new "Americans," fearful that the prodigal citizens would once again pollute the nation's political process, would demand a moratorium on the immigration of naive hippies from the Middle East for the sake of the country.

Now that the not so noble motivation behind the protests has been aired out, I have been able to identify one other logical reason that would lead protestors to fervently oppose the removal from power of the bloodthirsty Iraqi dictator.

Maybe they like the Republican Guards' uniforms.