Effect of Anti-War Americans

Obviously people have the right to express any opinion they want, but I wish sometimes people would analyze what the effect of their opinion is on the world. I am one who thinks that the anti-war movement in the USA is giving the insurgents in Iraq the moral support to fight American soldiers & attack the democratically elected government. It also gives the insurgents the impression that if they can just increase the anti-war opinion in America a bit more with a few more car-bombs, America will give up on Iraq and leave.

I wanted to show part of a recent post by an Iraqi of the impact of anti-war opinion in the USA on Iraq.

What do you expect the attitude of the common Iraqi to be when he watches, hears or reads about the fairly wide anti-war movement in the west? When there are Americans who say America is wrong or say the war isn't for a just cause and when Americans say the US presence in Iraq is bad, and when that is the only side of the image the media focuses on, it becomes an invitation for Iraqis to resist this presence and there's no doubt many will answer the invitation whether with words or violent action since they will get the impression that they're legitimately resisting something bad.

We have little in our culture about compromise or working-out-our-differences-peacefully. Radical solutions often seem more tempting to the ordinary, less educated people. When everyone, and I mean everyone, keeps telling them America is their enemy, the common reaction would certainly involve violent means of expression...yes, that's our common way in showing our disagreement with others in this part of the world. It sucks, it's backward and it's savage but it's the fact and it will not change overnight, such changes happen slowly.

I think that if more people who are against the war were aware of this negative impact, they might change their minds or find a better way of expressing themselves. If my side of the argument was that the American military should pull out of Iraq and it was supported by insurgents who try to achieve the same result by blowing up bombs in marketplaces. I would take a second look at my opinion.