Out of tune

Today they'll be out there protesting again. Tony Parkinson nails it:

The coming days will bring protest marches across Western capitals to mark the second anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq. These gatherings will struggle to match the scale, intensity and exuberance of the pro-democracy rallies in Beirut.

For there is nothing in the grey, wintry narrative of the peace movements in America, Europe or Australia to compare with the potent taste of freedom doing the rounds of the coffee houses of Arabia. There is a new force out and about in the town square of global opinion.

The ironies here are profound. On the one hand, we see a starburst of dynamism in the Arab world, a breakout of popular agitation after decades of living in the shadows of tyranny. Yet, in the West, naysayers and post-Marxists cling grimly to the ideological imprint of the old Middle East, nursing historical Cold War and post-colonial grievances.

It's as if the needle was stuck on an old vinyl record. Do they not remember what it was like to clamour for new possibilities?

Read it all. Yes, they could be demonstrating for the people of Zimbabwe. They could be demonstrating for the people of Darfur. They could be demonstrating for those Iraqis struggling for democracy in their country and against a murderous 'insurgency'. But they prefer to keep the war going over the war they could not stop. (Thanks: Jim Nolan.)