Why aren't liberals protesting an attack on Syria?

Like Iraq, this potential war involves a dictator and "weapons of mass destruction." But the left has been conspicuously quiet.

Protesting Syria
(Image credit: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

In the lead-up to the war in Iraq in 2003, more than 100,000 protesters in New York jammed the streets near the United Nations building, where, less than two weeks earlier, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made the case that Iraqi officials were "concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction."

On Thursday, a few hundred protesters stood in Times Square to voice their opposition to U.S. military action against Syria. There were no celebrity appearances as in 2003, when Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Susan Sarandon, and Danny Glover gave speeches in the February cold.

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Keith Wagstaff is a staff writer at TheWeek.com covering politics and current events. He has previously written for such publications as TIME, Details, VICE, and the Village Voice.