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Why we need wartime dissent
It is useful because it could provide early indicators of errors in foreign or military policy.
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People protesting against the US military's involvement with Russia over the latter’s imminent invasion of Ukraine, in Times Square, New York, on Feb 5, 2022.
PHOTO: AFP
Ross Douthat
(NYTIMES) - On Sept 14, 2001, the US House of Representatives passed what was understood to be a declaration of war against the perpetrators of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks, by a vote of 420-1. The one dissenter was Ms Barbara Lee, Democrat-California.
At the time, her protest vote seemed like embarrassing peacenik nonsense, an example of left-wing folly at a time of moral clarity and necessary war.
