I went to Moveon.org's site today to answer their question, "What's you position on the US military presence in Iraq? They had these choices:

Immediate withdrawal
Setting a date for withdrawal
Staying the course,
I don't know--it's a mess.

I chose the last option and then added this comment.

This is not a question for which multiple choice answers work very well. Bush's adventure has destabilize Iraq and injected into it a measure of chaos that we now, unfortunately, have the obligation to correct. So immediate withdrawal is irresponsible. Staying the course, since it is a rudderless one, is inconceivable. Perhaps, what would be best is if the newly sovereign government in Iraq repudiates the Bush administration itself and demands the withdrawal of all coalition troops and their replacement with a UN-sponsored security force that is a true international coalition. Perhaps then, the new Iraqi government can forge an independent tone and those currently fighting "occupation" would have no enemy.

Then, maybe, Iraqi police and military will not abandon their jobs or collaborate with those fighting the occupation. Bush has ruined our image in the region and I think we will have to step out of the lead in rebuilding Iraq to rehabilitate that image. At the same time, we must ensure that any UN replacement is up to the job, has teeth, and is not mere window dressing.

So, that was the position I took. Almost half of the membership supports the date setting option, which I think just gives those fighting the occupation a time-table for their evil deeds. Will the sovereign Iraqi government help us out by kicking us out? Probably not. That would take boldness and I doubt those installed by brainy (the UN diplomat who will choose the interim government) will be anything more than cautious and plodding.

By the way, I got an email today about resurrecting an anti-Nazi occupation idea from Norway and Denmark to wear certain colored clothing to signify opposition. According to the email, Norwegian women knit red caps for their household to wear in public to demonstrate, quietly, their opposition to the fascist Germans. Danes wore red-white-blue caps. The email asks those opposed to the Bush Admin. To wear red every Friday.

Though this is not outright stupidity like the email I received urging me to not buy gas on a particular day to protest gas prices (if we all bought gas every day, this might make sense, sort of, but since I buy gas every 2 weeks or so, and probably wouldn't buy gas on that day anyway, how is this going to hurt big oil?), it still kinda makes me smile. My alternative is, forget the red cap, get someone, anyone, convinced not to vote for Bush in November and do THAT every Friday and maybe we would get somewhere. Plus, red is associated with communism and that nonsense could be thrown in your face. How about blue? Or red white and blue? We need to rescue the flag from the right wing nuts anyway....

Last bit is outrage 65002. John Ashcroft is trying to brand Greenpeace a criminal organization in Federal Court in Florida. Greenpeace has for sometime boarded boats bearing illegal Amazon rainforest mahogany to bring this smuggling to the attention of US authorities and demand the authorities take action against the shippers. The volunteers are usually arrested for trespassers and given fines for their civil disobedience. But John decided to use an obscure maritime law from 1872 to indict Greenpeace as an organization. (That old law was to prevent organized gangs of whores and gamblers to come on board ships just in harbor for the purposes of bilking the sailors of their pay.) The idea is to get a conviction and then use that to strip Greenpeace of it's tax exempt status and effectively shut it up. Don't believe this is the Bush Strategy? A few months ago, the Greenpeace ship Esperanza was not permitted to enter Miami harbor on a PR and education tour because of "homeland security issues."


A corollary to that dumb republican trick is Mitt Romney, Gov' of Mass. Using a bigoted law that was put in place to prevent miscegenation (mixed marriages) in Mass. Without having to actually state that's what they were doing. The law prohibits the issuance of marriage certificates to out-of-staters if their union violated the law in their home state. Here he is using that bigotry in a new and creative way. Think that irony was lost on Mitt?