As the trial of Saddam Hussein starts up again next month, I predict it will be an eye-opener for a lot of Americans. Reminiscent of the days of the Vietnam War, campus demonstrations are springing up across the country replete with, yes, American flag burnings. (As a side note, it has been reported that students are burning the American flag as a demonstration of their free speech rights rather than as a statement of their hatred of America). But those demonstrations that are in vogue with many of today’s students may not seem so cool when images of torture and death under Saddam are seared into the brains of the American public.
Despite the similarities to the Vietnam era, there are some marked differences. Perhaps the biggest difference is that today, we have a vast amount of information available, including videotape, about the atrocities of Saddam’s regime. That’s why this trial has the potential to really change public opinion. Up until now, the American news media has been complicit in failing to show the extent of Saddam’s crimes in order to appease the far-left.
And unlike the Vietnam era, when the anti-war movement was founded and spearheaded largely by American students, today’s anti-war movement has been planted and nurtured by some very questionable groups many of which are Saddam loyalists. Many of the groups I have reported on such as ANSWER and the Muslim-American Society blatantly support terrorist organizations like Hamas while calling for the destruction of Israel. And they are front-and-center with the American anti-war movement – in fact, those two groups were the cheif sponsors of the recent anti-war rally in Washington, D.C.
So how did these people gain legitimacy? They did it by recruiting the assistance and endorsements of famous people. And up until now, one of the movements brightest stars was a member of Britain’s Parlaiment, George Galloway. Galloway, if you were watching, was one of the featured speakers at last month’s Washington rally , and has been the darling of the American press. News outlets here in the U.S., including the New York Times, have been in a swoon over him.
But now, like many of his ilk, his motives have proved to be entirely self-serving and even sinister. For all his anti-war posturing, it turns out that he is entwined in the "Oil for Food" scandal bigtime. Galloway and his wife have apparently been on the take from Saddam for quite some time and it doesn’t look like he’ll be able to wiggle his way out of this.
So as much as I deplore the willful desecration of the American flag, I hope that every time an American student lights one up in the name of free speech, he/she ponders what free speech or the lack therof existed under the regime of Saddam Hussein.