I hate war and it's a tough pill to swallow when people die for someone else's cause. But the inevitable is on us, many inevitables actually. With The Battle grinding on, it was only natural that a vocal anti-war movement would emerge -- in a strange way, it obeys a basic law of physics.

I'm trying not to laugh at images of teary-faced men and women my age screaming, "Hell no we won't go, we won't fight for Amoco." But I just returned from a semester in Cairo, a place where armed soldiers guard all government buildings, banks, hotels and airline offices. Needless to say, I did not see many street protests in Cairo.

I missed these public displays of healthy discontent. But as with any protest, whether it's against war or other politically-correct items that are currently in fashion, I always find myself wondering what these hardy protesters hope to accomplish.

By no means do I believe their purpose is worthless, and I feel these patriots should be out in the cold fighting for the Cause. No country should fight a war without expressing at least a few questions and concerns. The bellies of young men and women will soon be torn open by white-hot machine gun rounds, and that's not a nice thing to think about in the early hours of the morning.

But are they on the right track?

My first impression of this new breed of peaceniks was not good. Actually, they didn't look like a new breed to me at all. What I saw was nothing more than a bunch of hippie burn-outs reliving their Golden Years, backed up with a handful of 20-year-old quasi-radical fishheads who are saddened by the fact that they were in diapers during Woodstock. But my first impressions from CNN are not the best things to base columns on so I began to investigate the Movement.

The night war broke out, I decided it was time to call Lou, my national affairs source in Philadelphia, to talk about this strange brew of protestors and other matters at hand. We were both watching CNN and listening to Bernie Shaw crawling around his Baghdad hotel room calling the shots as the bombs fell.

"You've got to take it easy on these people," Lou said. "They still see the world in terms of black and white, right and wrong, and they will get very angry if you make fun of them. They don't appreciate cheap shots and that's what you're doing."

Lou is a good man because he understands many things, but he's a little weak at heart himself. When people act seriously, I take them seriously. What am I to do when I see pictures of Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and Lenny Kravitz flashing peace signs and promoting their remake of "Give Peace A Chance?" I find it hard to take seriously a cause that is supported by a star-studded mega-music video recorded in four cities. Oh John, when will it end?

I wanted to find the serious side of the anit-war movement. And I did when I had lunch last week with Robert Hatten, one of the Prime Thinkers in the local Alternatives to War Committee and an associate professor of music. At a downtown restaurant, we talked about some of those "alternatives" and why he felt compelled to speak out against the War in the Gulf.

Mr. Hatten struck me as an intelligent and informed man. He told me that George Bush should have treated Saddam Hussein like the man he is, a head of state with a large army. The rhetoric and mean language Bush has used since Aug. 2 made a peaceful solution virtually impossible from the start. Hatten called this "alternative" that Bush ignored "positive diplomacy."

I didn't find such seriousness and careful thought at the Jan. 18 Peace In at the Paul Robeson Cultural Center. What I found was pretty much what I expected -- a lot of people talking at each other and very few talking to each other.

There were a bunch of what I like to call Pro-Bush people standing at the back of the auditorium. I call them Pro-Bush because they believe the use of force is justified in this case, but are by no means in favor of war to solve every international crisis. This group, which sported large American and Israeli flags, was countered by a larger group of anti-war people.

During the two hours I spent at the Peace In, which was more than enough time to get a decent Journalistic Feel, I saw a lot of serious faces but not nearly enough serious thought. The Pro-Bush people, draped in their respective flags, clammered about how troops are in the gulf area and we must support them for that very reason. I guess if U.S. troops were laying siege to Montreal we would have to support them as well.

On the other hand, the anti-war crowd was throwing back arguments just as simplistic. Every foreign policy pursued by the U.S. government turns into an imperialist drive to reap profits and commit heinous crimes.

The real reason to protest this war is because few people, especially Bush and the crew of cheap-shot thugs he calls experts, are thinking about how to deal with the Middle East after the War. The U.S. led coalition will without a doubt win this War, but winning the peace is a completely different matter. If you think the Middle East is a mess now, wait until Iraq becomes a power vacuum to be filled by the various Powers That Be.

During the first night of battle, Bush told the nation this is a "black and white" problem. Bush's simple-minded rhetoric has swayed even the anti-war crowd. All this talk about "No blood for oil," "Honk if you support peace" (I always thought cars were massive consumers of oil products) and not fighting for major oil companies is pure drivel compared to the aftermath.