Many have noted that the anti-war movement has pretty much evaporated under President Obama, but this takes it to a whole new level of pathetic. At a fundraising dinner in San Francisco, protesters decried the administration’s alleged “mistreatment” of Bradley Manning, but quickly reassured Obama that there would be no political fallout for Democrats. Here is the actual protest chant:
Alone in a six-by-12 cell sits Bradley; 23 hours a day is night; the fifth and eights Amendments say this kind of thing ain’t right. . . . I paid my dues, where’s our change? . . . We’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true; look at the Republicans—what else can we do?
Even the most ardent national security hawks are probably shaking their heads in disgust at the anti-war crowd’s lack of backbone. And this took place in San Francisco, no less. Remember the kind of reception President Bush used to get in San Francisco?
This is further evidence (if further evidence is needed) that the anti-war movement was little more than a partisan anti-Bush movement. Obama has continued most of Bush’s counterterrorism tactics, increased AfPak drone strikes, kept open Guantanamo Bay, sent the U.S. into a war in Libya and tinkered with Miranda rights for terrorists. And yet no massive anti-war protests greet him in California, nobody burns him in effigy, nobody chants that he’s “the real terrorist.” Expect the anti-war movement to wake up shortly after a Republican president takes office again. Perhaps even in January 2013.
