Anti-war protesters march down wrong road (Yorkshire Post)

IF the anti-war movement gets any smaller, it will disappear up its own fundament.

Two years ago, the Stop the War Coalition claimed that more than two million people marched through central London to protest at the liberation of Iraq.

Last Saturday, the equivalent march attracted barely 25,000, according to police estimates.

If these figures are correct, it means that 98.75 per cent of the protesters who took part in 2003 didn't bother this time around.
Heavens, even Cheerful Charlie didn't turn up. And when the Liberal Demagogues start desperately scrambling to jump off the bandwagon, it's a sure sign it's headed for the ditch.

This is a good thing as it means even the most rigid orthodoxies are open to change by the realities on the ground – from Afghanistan to Iraq, and from Cairo to Beirut.

It would be too much to expect these people to march with a big sign saying: "Sorry, Tony and George – you were right all along."

But their decision to stay away in their many hundreds of thousands speaks more eloquently than any battered loudhailer could.

The 1.25 per cent who did turn up represents a curious mixture of hard-core extremists and the terribly confused.

Take, for example, 41-year-old Charlotte Graham, of Chiswick, who told the BBC: "If the soldiers left now, that would make things worse in Iraq. It would be complete anarchy."

These sensible words were slightly undermined by the fact she was on a Bring the Troops Home march and was wearing a Bring the Troops Home T-shirt. Perhaps she'd got dressed in the dark and joined the wrong demo.

Another woman was pictured scribbling "Bush Has to Go" on a wall. She's going to get an awful shock when she finds out the result of the presidential elections last November.

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http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=107&ArticleID=982141

That's rather daft, as my British friends would say.