Lileks has a semi-screed for the Fourth of July:

Remember the first Fourth after 9/11? We were all relieved when nothing happened. Well, except for the isolated incident of a man shooting up the El Al counter at LAX, but there was no indication of any terrorism connection. (Unless the fellow has an Al Qaeda employee benefits pamphlet in his back pocket, it doesn’t count.) No, nothing happens. Here. It happens elsewhere, but it can always be explained away, run through that perversely creative Justify-O-Matic that blames radical murderous doctors on the overthrow of Saddam – as if a terror campaign waged by Iran would make doctors at the Mayo Clinic lay down their scalpels and set off nailbombs in an Iranian community in LA.

I’ve gotten to the point where I imagine, almost simultaneous with the event, what the reaction will be among those who find evidence of terrorism both maddeningly inconvenient and perversely heartening – they must downplay the event lest the dark gang of warmongers use the crime to terrify the bedwetters – you know, all those people who believe in the bogeyman of global jihad - but at the same time, the attacks prove that we’ve not only failed to stop “terrorism,” we have made it worse by, well, trying to stop terrorism. Oh, it can be stopped, if the proper postures are assumed, but on we go with our chests out and our manhood in our hand, looking for fights. As Hitchens put it in this recent piece, there are many who can’t quite get on board with the whole anti-caliphate gig, since the people running the show are probably motivated by racism. Even if it’s true, it’s like saying the people who wanted to fight Hitler did so because they couldn’t stand German opera.

I saw a bumpersticker today: “I’m already against the next war.” No doubt. That really says everything. It’s not the cause; it’s not the stakes; it’s not the world the foe wants to impose. It’s the means. War bad. If Iran nukes Israel, it’ll prove their point. The fact that it might have been preventable by lesser war? For some, the position is perfect and hermetically sealed, and can be pointed in any direction. The war that might have prevented a larger war is bad, because it is war. The war that resulted from the lack of a smaller war is bad, because it is war. War is war and bad is bad, and when you’re that far up in the clouds the details don’t really matter. A puff of smoke here, and puff of smoke there: do we need to know the name of the place to know it’s wrong?

"I saw a bumpersticker today: “I’m already against the next war.”"

To me, this isn't an indication of an ideological stance against war, it's an indication of confidence that the next war will be reprehensible. I believe that there have been some just wars, like the war against the Nazis, and the American revolution. However, I highly doubt that America's next war will be just; that's why I'm against it. This opposition is, of course, conditional on how the actual situation plays out.

Me, I'm against picketing.

I just don't know how to express it.

I had the fortune to be at the LAX Marriott on July 4, 2002. The incident shut down the airport for hours, and it was eerie not seeing the usual constant stream of jet traffic.

My question, which is hard to fit on a bumper sticker, were you against the war two wars ago?

In the Kosovo War, the enemy was thoroughly demonized, the President leading us in war was a proper Democrat with anti-war credentials from his college youth, and the war was conducted from 15,000 feet altitude with a minimum of American casualties. And the place remains an unresolved quagmire of sectarian strife, of course, without American casualties. And American involvement in that war is of no concern to the international community, apart from Mr. Putin's recent bluster.

Quite the opposite that people are opposed to all war. A lot of the opposition to the war is 1) hatred of Mr. Bush, 2) numerous American casualties to bring this to public attention. In the calculus of many anti-war activists, casualties among the wogs (speaking as one of those wogs by family ties) are of no consequence.

I would have more respect for the anti-war if they were truly and broadly anti-war, but many among the anti-war pick and chose as to what they consider to be just wars and what they don't.

Ashley:

There is a high probability that the next president will be a Democrat given how the political pendulum is swinging back in that direction, and there is a high probability that some military action will be waged during that presidency.

Am I to expect the current anti-war contingent to vigorously oppose that military action when it occurs? I have nothing against Democrats, and the last Democrat to wage war had the right-wing fringe attacking him on a shrill partisan basis. But is the anti-war movement based on opposition to violence as a means to advancing American interests, or is the left anti-war the partisan counterweight to the extreme right wing who will be attacking the next President over the next military action?

Is anti-war strictly partisan politics or does it have roots in genuine opposition to violence? Is the Iraq War unjust but is the Kosovo War just? Was the Kosovo War just because 1) people who died in it were not Americans or 2) the enemy in that war was evil in the way the enemy in the Iraq war is not?

And it's useful to remember the constantly shifting tides of history.

Was the Korean War just? Ask I.F. Stone, writing in the late 1950s, and he'd cite you chapter and verse about how it was all about keeping Americans paranoid about "reds under the bed."

Was the Civil War just? In 1861, there wasn't much talk about freeing the slaves, just about denying the right to self-determination. And what's this about drafting people to make other people "free"?

Would fighting Hitler in 1939 (before Wannsee and the death camps) just? The Left certainly didn't think so---it was just a war among capitalist powers (and the COMINTERN had strict instructions about not opposing Hitler).

"Just" wars are a lot harder to find when they're being fought....

How not to overreact and win the war if you insist on calling it that; the difference between Blair and Brown, and hopefully between Bush and our next President:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/03/AR2007070302154.html?hpid=topnews

Paul: Excellent question. I opposed the NATO bombing of Serbia at the time, because I thought that opening up a hot war would give cover to the ethnic cleansers and worsen the harm, because I thought that the people harmed by the bombing probably wouldn't be same people committing atrocities, and because I thought Bill Clinton was using military force to distract people from his Monica Lewinsky-related problems (I may be a leftist, but I seek a variety of viewpoints, and I was listening to a lot of Rush Limbaugh at the time).

I don't think that the Christian-Orthodox Serbs are either particularly virtuous or evil, and likewise the Muslims in Kosovo, Iraq, and Gaza and the Jews in Israel. I think that Islamic theocracy is a very serious threat to the world, and although I opposed the war in Afghanistan, I was very pleased that the Taliban was toppled.

I can only speak for myself, not for other leftists opposed to the current war, but I don't think my opposition is partisan.

Me, I'm against picketing.

I just don't know how to express it.

Good thing I don't drink coffee Jane, though my keyboard is not happy with the Dr. Pepper either.

Reminds me of the B.C. comic where they needed BC to join them for a demonstration against apathy. He said, "Go without me, I'm tired."