The ants go marching... 2003-02-15

Millions of protesters � many of them marching in the capitals of America�s traditional allies � demonstrated today against U.S. plans to attack Iraq.
In a global outpouring of anti-war sentiment, Rome claimed the biggest turnout � 1 million according to police, while organizers claimed three times that figure.
In London, at least 750,000 people joined in the city�s biggest demonstration ever, police said. Berlin had up to half a million on the streets, and Paris was estimated to have had up to 100,000.
Peace activists [hope] to draw 100,000 demonstrators in New York City later for a protest near the United Nations.
'Peace! Peace! Peace!' said Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who led an ecumenical service near U.N. headquarters. 'Let America listen to the rest of the world � and the rest of the world is saying give the inspectors time.'
Rome protesters showed their disagreement with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi�s support for Bush, while demonstrators in Paris and Berlin backed the skeptical stances of their governments.
Some leaders of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder�s government took part in the Berlin protest, which turned the tree-lined boulevard between the Brandenburg Gate and the 19th-century Victory Column into a sea of banners, balloons emblazoned with 'No war in Iraq' and demonstrators swaying to live music.
Police estimated the crowd at between 300,000 and 500,000.
'We Germans in particular have a duty to do everything to ensure that war � above all a war of aggression � never again becomes a legitimate means of policy,' shouted Friedrich Schorlemmer, a Lutheran pastor and former East German pro-democracy activist.
In southern France, about 10,000 people demonstrated in Toulouse against the United States, chanting: 'They bomb, they exploit, they pollute, enough of this barbarity.'
Police estimated that 60,000 turned out in Oslo, Norway, 50,000 in bitter cold in Brussels, while about 35,000 gathered peacefully in frigid Stockholm.
About 80,000 marched in Dublin, Irish police said. Crowds were estimated at 60,000 in Seville, Spain; 40,000 in Bern, Switzerland; 30,000 in Glasgow, Scotland; 25,000 in Copenhagen; 15,000 in Vienna; 10,000 in Amsterdam; 5,000 in Cape Town and 4,000 in Johannesburg in South Africa; 5,000 in Tokyo; and 2,000 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
�War is not a solution, war is a problem,� Czech philosopher Erazim Kohak told a crowd of about 500 in Prague.
In Damascus, the capital of neighboring Syria, an estimated 200,000 protesters chanted anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli slogans as they marched to the People�s Assembly. Najjah Attar, a former Syrian cabinet minister, accused Washington of attempting to change the region�s map. �The U.S. wants to encroach upon our own norms, concepts and principles,� she said in Damascus. �They are reminding us of the Nazi and fascist times.�
In Ukraine, some 2,000 people rallied in snowy Kiev�s central square. Anti-globalists led a peaceful �Rock Against War� protest joined by communists, socialists, Kurds and pacifists.
In the Bosnian city of Mostar, about 100 Muslims and Croats united for an anti-war protest � the first such cross-community action in seven years in a place where ethnic divisions remain tense, despite the 1995 Bosnian peace agreement. �We want to say that war is evil and that we who survived one know that better than anyone,� said Majda Hadzic, 54. In divided Cyprus, about 500 Greeks and Turks braved heavy rain for a march that briefly blocked a runway at a British air base.
Several thousand protesters in Athens, Greece, unfurled a giant banner across the wall of the Acropolis � �NATO, U.S. and EU equals War� � before heading toward the U.S. Embassy. U.S. Ambassador Thomas Miller said the Greek protesters� indignation was misplaced. �They should be demonstrating outside the Iraqi embassy,� he said before the march.
In Moscow, 300 people marched to the U.S. Embassy, with one placard urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to �be firmer with America.�
Between 3,000 and 5,000 people marched through a suburb of Canberra, the Australian capital, to protest government support for U.S. policy. Australia has already committed 2,000 troops to the Persian Gulf for possible action.

--reported by Robert Barr- OC Register Saturday, Feb 15, 2003

So I'm walking down to Dietrich's Coffee (because I've been spending too much at Starbucks...) and there's a huge peace demonstration in the Orange Circle of old town Orange. Hundreds of people filling the area, holding up signs and protesting war with Iraq. And there were cops, regulating traffic and making sure it stayed peaceful. And there were others, holding up middle fingers in response to others holding up their hands in a peace sign.
And I'm looking at all this, suddenly slightly ashamed that the only reason I'm down at the circle was for coffee. A very large part of me wanted to jump in with the protesters, adding my voice to theirs, showing my disgust in how our government is dealing with the middle east and our assertive (and highly aggressive) stance against perceived threats.
Another part of me recognizes that there is a dictator (and madman) creating a stranglehold over basic human rights in Iraq, and that somebody needs to remove him from power. Of course, I don't have any idea how to do that without a)causing more violence, or b)causing more social turmoil than already exists in the region. We haven't had a very successful history in overthrowing a current government and replacing it with a better one. Usually we replace it with a worse one. Look at the Taliban. Look at Iran. At Kuwait. At Panama. At Vietnam.

I feel so helpless about the whole situation. I'm not a killer, and I could never be a killer, not for the military, not for anybody. I believe that violence should be the last resort of the desperate. I believe that America is not threatened by the turmoil in the Middle East, merely inconvenienced. And God (or Allah, or Mother Gaia, pick your deity) help the person/nation who inconveniences the American people.
Gas prices going up? Send in the napalm! What? The leader of an Islamic nation says he doesn't like me? Nuke his ass!

What the fuck is wrong with us? Who the hell thought war would be a good idea? We're like the Greeks, fighting with Troy over a woman named Oil instead of Helen. God forbid we try to invent machinery that doesn't require fossil fuels to run.

I'm sick of all the bullshit, and I'm tired of not knowing the answers.