The emperor has no clothes

When millions of people from around the world took to the streets last month to protest the looming war in Iraq they saw something that the president of the United States clearly does not.

For the past six months, George Bush has been trying to convince Americans – and others around the globe – that an attack on Iraq will make the world a safer place.

He has also argued that the war can be wrapped up quickly, cleanly and with little loss of (American) life.

But on February 15, the world responded with well-founded skepticism.

Never before in history have so many people, from so many different places come together at the same time to deliver the same message.

And that message was simple: "the emperor has no clothes."

What all the people who took part in protest see that the American president does not is that this war will not be easy – and it will not be just.

For each of the American president’s major arguments and predictions, the protesters had a response that makes more sense.

For example, Bush insists that war will make us all safer by eliminating a madman with access to weapons of mass destruction.

But, as the protesters pointed out, there’s no good evidence that the Iraqis actually have such weapons.

Even more importantly, the protesters argued convincingly that a war in Iraq will further destabilize the Middle East.

In fact, it may set off a wave of unrest that will topple moderate and secular governments in place like Egypt, Jordan and – most alarmingly – Pakistan, with its arsenal of nuclear weapons.

How exactly, the protesters rightly asked, will the world be safer with more governments – and more weapons of mass destruction – in the hands of radical fundamentalists?

Bush has also argued that the war in Iraq will be concluded and another government installed in Baghdad within 90 days. He bases these predictions on the belief that American military power will "awe" the Iraqi military into surrender – and that the Iraqi people will greet the Americans as "liberators."

But – once again – the protesters pointed out that the American administration is dreaming in technicolor.

The reality is that thousands upon thousands of people will die if the Americans attack Iraq. And the Iraqi people are unlikely to welcome with open arms the people who have destroyed their cities and decimated their families.

The good news in all this is that the millions of people who participated in demonstrations around the world on Feb. 15 have accomplished what our leaders and the mainstream media could not – they’ve exposed the fatal flaws that lie at the heart of the Bush administration’s logic.

In the children’s story about the vain emperor, the child’s observation that the "emperor has no clothes" forced the adults to stop pretending.

Maybe, just maybe, the protests that happened on February 15 will be enough to snap our leaders here in Canada – and in other countries around the world – to finally acknowledge what we all know.

Maybe, just maybe, it will be enough to pull us back from the brink of a war that makes no sense.