Dammit, protesting the war was absolutely not a statement of support for Saddam Hussein. Apparently he thinks that the world was turning out to congratulate him on his lovely oppressive regime. What a nice job he's done with all that senseless killing and torture. Starving his own citizens? Excellent work. Well, he is a delusional madman.

Now what?

I was very upset this weekend, because ANSWER (thanks to Bee for the link) were handing out signs with their name and URL on them, and people were taking them and marching with them, totally not knowing what the organization is all about. I heard a mom spelling it out to her daughter: "Act Now to Stop War and End Racism", she said. "That's why we're here." She sounded so inspired and uplifted by that phrase.

I mean, who doesn't want to stop war and end racism? So it made me very damn angry to see that woman suckered into having an uplifting moment by a creepy group that basically supports Saddam Hussein and thinks he should just be left alone to run his fascist police state. And it made me angry to see people carrying those signs and unknowingly promoting ideas that they probably wouldn't agree with for a second . And it makes me really angry when people take nice words and use them to front for scary ideas. Why can't they call their organization "Act Now To Overthrow The Capitalist Hegemony And Install Oppressive Socialist Dictatorships". I guess ANTOTCHAIOSD was just too hard to pronounce.

Joe Conason suggests emailing the Iraqi Mission to the UN to tell them to comply with inspections. I suppose it is worth a try, but does it seem very likely that they will listen?