Iraq War was preceded by the largest worldwide non-violent protests in history and the war happened anyway.
Iraq War was preceded by the largest worldwide non-violent protests in history and the war happened anyway.
Those non-violent protests shook them so bad they wanted to charge non-violent Quaker protestors with terrorism.
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"largest worldwide non-violent protests in history"? I remember living through that time and don't remember that. Do you have a source? I myself was opposed the second Iraq war because Saddam had agreed to let in any inspectors the west wanted but we went "too late, we're coming in anyway" and I knew it was a scam invasion.
We were also just a couple of years into Afghanistan and it made no sense to be starting a second war on a second front when there was no immanent danger. Again, it made to sense.
Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests
Specific news articles about that day:
From Guinness World Records:
On February 15, 2003, anti-war rallies took place across the globe – the largest occurring in Rome, Italy, where a crowd of 3 million gathered to protest against the USA’s threat to invade Iraq. Police figures report that millions more demonstrated in nearly 600 cities worldwide: on the same day, 1.3 million rallied in Barcelona, Spain, 1 million participated in a peace march through the streets of London, UK, and 500,00 people in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, joined the biggest marches since the Vietnam War peace protests.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100326221254/http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=6067
The French political scientist Dominique Reynié has estimated that, between 3 January and 12 April 2003, some 36 million people took part in nearly 3,000 protests around the world against the Iraq war.
(It's worth noting here that I have been unable to find Dominique Reynié's paper that estimates this. I have searched and searched for a PDF with no luck. Lots of references to this work, but can't seem to find the actual document.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20190921125652/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2765215.stm
Between six and 10 million people are thought to have marched in up to 60 countries over the weekend - the largest demonstrations of their kind since the Vietnam War.
A key aspect of what made it so big was because it was happening worldwide, simultaneously, in multiple cities all over the world.
I was a bit skeptical as well, but there's at least one seemingly reputable academic researcher who says as much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests (first citation).
So even if it wasn't, one could easily be forgiven for the mistake.Goes to show how effective non-violent protest is.