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Monday was the official celebration of Martin Luther King Day, although the actual birthday was Jan. 15, which was also the deadline for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait.
Some civil rights leaders, among them Coretta Scott King, have criticized President Bush for setting that deadline on Martin Luther King's birthday, saying that it demeans King's memory as a man of non-violence.
George Bush certainly deserves some hard criticism for his civil rights policies, but not this time. Bush did not choose Jan. 15 as the deadline. The UN Security Council did, last November. The U.S. ambassador, presumably acting under Bush's orders, argued for a Jan. 1 deadline; other Security Council members wanted to give Iraq more time.
Bush settled for Jan. 15, but he didn't choose it. If he'd had his way, the war would have started two weeks earlier.
The anti-war movement is also getting some hard raps, thanks to demonstrations which consist largely of traffic blockages and incoherent shouting.
The movement might get somewhere if it asked whether the sacrifice of American troops will have any long-term effect in a part of the world where Westerners have been despised since the First Crusade, or why the U.S. is so concerned about Republican Guards in Kuwait and so little concerned about Black Berets in Latvia, or why Iraq's current enemies were so eager to sell it arms.
As it is, the general imbecility of the anti-war movement must be turning most Americans into flag-waving jingoists. The pro-war crowd, instead of criticizing the anti-war movement, should be grateful.
But maybe this all evens out. While some people receive unjust criticism, others receive unjust praise.
To judge by contemporary vernacular, the two most
intelligent professions are rocket scientists and brain
surgeons, as in You don't have to be a rocket scientist
to notice that many retired state legislators become
lobbyists,
or It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see
that pursuing Two Forks is a waste of time and
money.
Rocket scientists may enjoy a good reputation at the moment, thanks to the success of the Patriot anti-missile missiles, but let us remember that the Scuds were also designed by rocket scientists.
Rocket scientists also had a hand in the Hubble space telescope, which doesn't focus, and in the Challenger, whose faulty design killed seven astronauts.
As for brain surgeons, last month there was a big story about hundreds of unnecessary frontal lobotomies performed over several decades. A lobotomy is brain surgery, and people suffered because the exalted brain surgeons did the wrong thing.
Public discourse doesn't make much sense these days, but
as Sen. Hiram Johnson of California said in 1917, The
first casualty when war comes is truth.
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