Just out of curosity, can we see a show of hands of how many Americans believe Saddam's government is a fundamentalist one? That many, huh? Brrrrrttt! Wrong answer.

Okay, next question. Name the religious affiliations of the two other major political factions in Iraq that are candidates to control an post-Saddam Iraqi government? Anyone want to guess?

Old Guy, the exact number of marchers is not the exact number of dissenters. I couldn't make it, for example, though I wanted to. In US politics, the general rule of thumb for politicians is that one phone call opinion equals 100 votes. So how many votes does a person who gets in a car and drives a few hundred miles to stand in the freezing rain count for?

I think you will find that most of the longtime activists are far more aware of Saddam's history than those who march lockstep with the Bush administration. After all, we're the same activists who vigorously protested when the US was supplying him with biological and chemical weapons and propping up his government despite his crimes in the 80's. We were generally reviled for being "bleeding heart liberals" because we didn't support our ally Saddam and his war against then-number-one-enemy Iran. He was the US's darling right up until he overstepped his bounds and invaded Kuwait. Ironically, those same old US-aided crimes are now being trotted out as evidence against him.

I might ask where was this deep concern that Rumsfeld and Cheney have for the poor Kurds in the late 80's, when they were aiding and abetting Saddam? Where was the concern about Saddam's brutality to civilians from the right wing hawks then? Answer: it was nowhere to be found.

And it's not found now, either. Because there's no concern for civilian lives when the Pentagon war plan includes dropping 800 bombs in the first 48 hours, many over Baghdad. That's one every 4 minutes. Shall we run a pool for the average number of children killed with each bomb?

Slaughtering the populace is a damn poor way to "liberate" them.