Editorial: Iraq war protesters are wrong

Tuesday, March 25, 2003 | 8:46 a.m.

In the last few months the debate on what to do about Saddam Hussein was comprised of three divergent views: war now, possibly war later or war never. President Bush, impatient with Saddam's long defiance of the United Nations order to disarm, and as he had indicated all along he would do, chose war now, and American and British casualties are part of the daily news reports as our forces approach Baghdad.

People who, before last week, opposed war now but were willing to consider war later argued that the U.N. inspectors should be given more time and that acting almost alone in opposition to world opinion was not in the United States' best interest. Those were arguable points but they are made moot by the present circumstances. We are in Iraq, and Americans are dying. The third view, war never, is represented by the protesters who marched in New York and other American cities over the weekend, and by people such as Sunday night Oscar winner Michael Moore, who disgusted and angered a large part of the American public, including us, when he used the opportunity of his acceptance speech to attack Bush and the war -- at a ceremony host Steve Martin had dedicated to "our young men and women overseas."

The right to dissent is one of the fundamental freedoms that makes America great, but citizens of this country are also free to make up their own minds. The alternative offered by the anti-war protesters, to stop the war and get out now, is both wrong-headed and deeply offensive. Saddam is a ruthless tyrant who has maintained his power by brutalizing his own people and who poses a threat to the rest of the world. Our troops who are risking, and in some cases giving, their lives to rid Iraq of Saddam deserve our complete support. Their cause is just.