Ice? Or Iceberg? - Here's

Ice? Or Iceberg? - Here's the picture:

• A large, motivated minority turns out to protest a military action they detest.
• A religious organization links up with a group that represents (and practically worships) an old, discredited dictatorship, proving that war does indeed make for strange bedfellows;
• The media plays the demonstrations as if they are a definitive, seminal mass movement.

Are we talking about the anti-war demonstrations? Or the Iraqi anti-US demonstrations?

Both, of course.

At overflow Friday prayer services at the huge Abu Hanafi mosque, a Sunni religious center which opened its doors to members of the rival Shiite sect in a rare demonstration of solidarity, hostility toward the Americans and the desire for an Islamic Iraq were on open display.

"No to sectarianism, one Islamic state," read a banner on the mosque, with the legend "No to America" emblazoned on top.

Now - allowing for the fact that:

1. the media will only tell us the story they see - which is the story involving the most immediate gratification in terms of conflict, and
2. the Iraqi people are getting back into free speech, and one might expect that, as with the looting, the long-repressed feelings might take some radical turns,

I have to ask: Is this something to genuinely worry about?

Is the "US out of Iraq" movement any stronger in Iraq than it is here in Saint Paul? Is it the same percentage of vocal, obstreporous people with a knack for getting camera time that it is in Minneapolis or San Francisco?

And as long as the mission - to remove WMDs and Saddam and his links to terror, and allow the Iraqis a real choice in their future, even if that choice is oppressive fundamentalist Islam - then does it matter?

Posted by Mitch at April 20, 2003 07:22 AM