By R. Cort Kirkwood
February 19, 2003

(AgapePress) - Among the words used to describe anyone protesting the coming war with Iraq are "anti-capitalist," "Marxist," and "communist," and tops among the people using the description is the portly kingpin of talk radio, Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh's point is that the kook left dominates the movement against the war in Iraq, bringing with it the usual steamer-trunk of kook issues. He's right about that. Notorious cop-murderer Mumia Abu Jamal, hero of the Hollywood left, is just of the causes for which we see the anti-war protestors hoisting their placards.

But Limbaugh and others paint with too wide a brush.

Conservatives Oppose the War
The Limbaugh conservatives want everyone to believe that all conservatives support the war in Iraq. Thanks to their success peddling that myth, they succeed in peddling the first one; i.e., only commie-pinkos are protesting.

It's the 1960s all over again.

Perhaps it's lost on the orotund orator of the right, but many conservatives, meaning old Right conservatives, and many of them much smarter than Limbaugh, also oppose this war. Included among them are Pat Buchanan and the libertarian folks at Antiwar.com, as well as many combat veterans and general officers skeptical about this latest project of the warfare state.

Like Buchanan, many can't be called "anti-capitalist" (at least in the sense Limbaugh means it) or "Marxists" or "communists." Many were ardent cold warriors when Limbaugh was stuffing his face with Twinkies in grade school.

That truth, and Limbaugh's disdain and ridicule for opponents of the war, invites an observation: When Limbaugh had his chance to fight in Vietnam, he ran for the bushes. "Anal cysts," he complained. You wonder how many guys with "anal cysts" are remembered on that black wall in the national capital, and Limbaugh isn't the only conservative chickenhawk clucking like Gen. Patton.

Point is, everyone who opposes the war is not a "commie." And not everyone who supports it is a chickenhawk.

Why They Oppose It
Conservatives, the real conservatives, in my estimation, oppose this war because they oppose war in general.

"War is the health of the state," they say, quoting Randolph Bourne. They believe war gives politicians an excuse to expand the state by increasing taxes and decreasing civil liberties. They believe the welfare state grows concomitantly with the warfare state, as the war in Vietnam well proved. The price for the war was that massive and failed welfare program, "The Great Society." If you wonder why so many liberals want war in Iraq, think about that.

War is a waste. As more than one writer has observed, war is the least conservative of government enterprises; it is the ultimate big-government program. It is a fabulously wasteful expenditure of the nation's financial resources on a project that employs millions of citizens, either as taxpayers or combatants, to destroy another country. Then the same taxpayers who paid to destroy the country pay to rebuild it.

Yet war wastes an even more important treasure than money. It wastes the lives and health of the young. They pay the ultimate price ... with blood.

Many conservatives oppose this war. But they can't be heard over the opponents who really are commies, or over chickenhawks shouting the "commie" label.