The following article by, Arianna Huffington, is syndicated nationwide by Tribune Media Services.
We share this article with you in the name of the truth of peace on earth.

Subject:  Why The Anti-War Movement Was Right
   Date:    Wed, 16 Apr 2003 09:41:56 -0700
   From:   arianna@ariannaonline, now at the huffingtonpost.com
     To:        Good Works On Earth

Why The Anti-War Movement Was Right
  By Arianna Huffington

   [Note of 20061109 : There is an update below with a new link showing proofs of outcomes dated and marked 20061109.]

The Bible tells us that pride goeth before the fall. In Iraq, it cameth right after it.

From the moment that statue of Saddam hit the ground, the mood around the
Rumsfeld campfire has been all high-fives, I-told-you-sos, and endless
smug prattling about how the speedy fall of Baghdad is proof positive that
those who opposed the invasion of Iraq were dead wrong.

What utter nonsense. In fact, the speedy fall of Baghdad proves the
anti-war movement was dead right.

The whole pretext for our unilateral charge into Iraq was that the
American people were in imminent danger from Saddam and his mighty war
machine. The threat was so clear and present that we couldn't even give
inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction -- hey, remember
those? -- another 30 days, as France had wanted.

Well, it turns out that, far from being on the verge of destroying Western
civilization, Saddam and his 21st century Gestapo couldn't even muster a
half-hearted defense of their own capital. The hawks' cakewalk disproves
their own dire warnings. They can't have it both ways. The invasion has
proved wildly successful in one other regard: It has unified most of the
world -- especially the Arab world -- against us.

Back in 1991, more than half-a-dozen Arab nations were part of our Desert
Storm coalition. Operation Iraqi Freedom's "coalition of the willing" had
zero. Not even the polygamous potentates of Kuwait -- whose butts we saved
last time out and who were most threatened by whatever threat Iraq still
presented -- would join us. And, I'm sorry, but substituting Bulgaria and
the island of Tonga for Egypt and Oman is just not going to cut it when it
comes to winning hearts and minds on the Arab street.

In fact, almost everything about the invasion -- from the go-it-alone
build-up to the mayhem the fall of Saddam has unleashed -- has played
right into the hands of those intent on demonizing our country. Islamic
extremists must be having a field day signing up recruits for the holy war
they're preparing to wage against us. Instead of Uncle Sam wants you,
their recruiting posters feature a different kind of patriotic image: an
American soldier ill-advisedly draping the American flag over Saddam's
face.

The anti-war movement did not oppose the war out of fear that America was
going to lose. It was the Bush administration's pathological and frantic
obsession with an immediate, damn-the-consequences invasion that fueled
the protests.

And please don't point to jubilant Iraqis dancing in the streets to
validate the case for "pre-emptive liberation." You'd be doing the Baghdad
Bugaloo too if the murderous tyrant who'd been eating off golden plates
while your family starved finally got what was coming to him. It in no way
proves that running roughshod over international law and pouring Iraqi oil
-- now brought to you by the good folks at Halliburton -- onto the flames
of anti-American hatred was a good idea. It wasn't before the war, and it
still isn't now. The unintended consequences have barely begun to unfold.
 

And the idea that our slamdunk of Saddam actually proves the White House
was right is particularly dangerous because it encourages the Wolfowitzes
and the Perles and the Cheneys to argue that we should be invading Syria
or Iran or North Korea or Cuba as soon as we catch our breath. They've
tasted blood.

 [ Note of 20061109 : from researcher, David Rose : at the Huffington Post

    I remember sitting with Richard Perle in his suite at London's Grosvenor House hotel
    and receiving a private lecture on the importance of securing victory in Iraq. "Iraq is a very good candidate
    for democratic reform," he said. "It won't be Westminster overnight, but the great democracies of the world
    didn't achieve the full, rich structure of democratic governance overnight. The Iraqis have a decent chance
    of succeeding." Perle seemed to exude the scent of liberation, as well as a whiff of gunpowder. It was
    February 2003, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the culmination of his long campaign on behalf of regime
    change in Iraq, was less than a month away.

    Three years later, Perle and I meet again at his home outside Washington, D.C. It is October, the worst month for
    U.S. casualties in Iraq in almost two years, and Republicans are bracing for losses in the upcoming midterm elections.
    As he looks into my eyes, speaking slowly and with obvious deliberation, Perle is unrecognizable as the confident
    hawk who, as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had invited the exiled Iraqi
    dissident Ahmad Chalabi to its first meeting after 9/11. "The levels of brutality that we've seen are truly horrifying,
    and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity," Perle says now, adding that total defeat--an American
    withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an anarchic "failed state"--is not yet inevitable but is becoming more likely.
    "And then," says Perle, "you'll get all the mayhem that the world is capable of creating."
    Source of above two paragraphs : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-derych/rush-tells-his-audience-_b_33690.html

It's important to remember that the Arab world has seen a very different
war than we have. They are seeing babies with limbs blown off, children
wailing beside their dead mothers, Arab journalists killed by American
tanks and bombers, holy men hacked to death and dragged through the
streets. They are seeing American forces leaving behind a wake of
destruction, looting, hunger, humiliation, and chaos.

Who's been handling our war PR, Osama bin Laden? The language and imagery
are all wrong. Having Tom DeLay gush about our "army of virtue" at the
same time we're blowing up mosques is definitely not sending the right
message to a Muslim world already suspicious that we're waging a war on
Islam.

Neither is Ari Fleischer's claim that the administration can't do anything
to keep Christian missionaries -- including those who have described the
Islamic prophet Muhammad as a "demon-possessed pedophile" and a
"terrorist" -- from going on a holy crusade to Baghdad. You think the Arab
world might take that the wrong way? If there is one thing that could
bring Sunnis and Shiites together, it's the common hatred of evangelical
zealots who denigrate their prophet.

And it doesn't help to have the American media referring to Jay Garner,
the retired general Don Rumsfeld picked to oversee the rebuilding of Iraq,
as "viceroy." It reeks of colonial imperialism. Why not just call him
"Head Bwana?" Or "Garner of Arabia?" I didn't realize the Supreme Court
had handed Bush a scepter to go along with the Florida recount.

The powerful role that shame and humiliation have played in shaping world
history is considerable, but something the Bush team seems utterly
clueless about. Which is why the anti-war movement must be stalwart in its
refusal to be silenced or browbeaten by the gloating "I told you so"
chorus on the right. On the contrary, it needs to make sure that the
doctrine of preemptive invasion is forever buried in the sands of Iraq.

Especially as the administration, high on the heady fumes of Saddam's
ouster, turns its covetous eyes on Syria. I give it less than a week
before someone starts making the case that President Assad is the next,
next Hitler.

------
Arianna Huffington is the author of "Pigs at the Trough: How
Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining
America." For information on the book, visit
www.PigsAtTheTrough.com

****
Here are a few links to Star Arts that back up Arianna's
words with their revealings.
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/awareness.html
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/awakenings.html
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/corporate.html
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/democratic.html
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/freedom.html
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/shockandawe.html
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/taxpayers.html
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/usapatriotact.html
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/bluechipeconomists.html
https://www.goodworksonearth.org/georgewalkerbush.html

Note added 2007 : To see the current writings of Arianna, and her blogger's sharings, visit the Huff Post : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

     Note added 20070425 : The Drumbeat of Impeachment is Resonating Across America.

We invite you to read, A Cornucopia of Death, Arianna's article of April 12th, 2005.

We invite you to read Arianna's article of April 6, 2005, Bushes in the Hood.

We invite you to read Arianna's article entitled, A Tale of Two Leadership Styles,   dated 2 March, 2005.
   "And so that's exactly what he (Andy Stearn) does, shaking things up with his reform-or-else threat to break up the AFL-CIO;
    with a campaign to bring Wal-Mart to its knees; and with his pledge to "pay back" politicians, "no matter who they are
    or what party they come from . who looked us in the eye and said they were for us--but then went out and betrayed us."

We invite you to read Arianna's Article entitled, Rummy TV, dated 23 February, 2005.

We invite you to read another article by Arianna, regarding the book, Disney War and more, dated 16 February, 2005.

We invite you to read Arianna's words on the Enronization of American Corporations, and our Corporate Executives.

We invite you to read an older article of Arianna's, dated March 12th, 2003 : Tax Havens: Are You With Us Or Against Us?