It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

I OPPOSE THE WAR ON IRAQ (as it presently constituted). Yet, when I read articles like this I find it more than a bit distasteful to find myself in company of folks like Mark Levine who find the prospect of a swift (and, therefore relatively low in civilian casualties) American victory, the ousting of Saddam Hussein, and no global increase in terrorism to be a "nightmare scenario." Read for yourself:

In this . . . scenario, the war is over quickly with relatively low U.S. casualties, some sort of mechanism for transitional rule is put in place, and President Bush and his policies gain unprecedented power and prestige. From my recent conversations with organizers and their latest pronouncements, it is clear that this possibility has yet to be addressed. Waiting much longer could spell disaster for the antiwar movement. . . .

In such a scenario, especially if there is no major upsurge in domestic terrorism, the antiwar movement will find itself publicly discredited and politically marginalized; remember the Y2K dooms-dayers? . . .

If the movement doesn't move with full effort to lay the groundwork for a Bush Wins scenario the massive organizing and consciousness raising of the last year could well prove fleeting, forcing the movement to start from scratch in mobilizing public opinion a year or two down the road.

Unless I am misreading the piece, he is arguing that such a scenario is a "nightmare" because it means that the anti-war crowd will have been proven wrong and will have more difficulty mobilizing people to support the same mistaken views in the future. Given that it appears that we are going to war, anti-war protests notwithstanding, a swift and certain victory (with no resultant increase in terrorism) is the best one can hope for, not a nightmare (except for people who like protest for protest's sake).