March of the Idiots
Sat, Jan 18, 2003 at 9:07:40 am PST
All around the world, idiots are doing what they do best—marching and screaming incoherent slogans. But once you get past the headline (Thousands Rally in DC!) you discover that the turnout seems to have been rather, uh ... pathetic.
Demonstrators staged peace rallies worldwide, events that typically drew hundreds or fewer. But 5,000 people marched through downtown Tokyo, carrying toy guns filled with flowers, wearing face masks that parodied President Bush and waving banners. The crowd, made up largely of students and laborers, was orderly.
About 60 protesters in Hong Kong shouted, "War, no," and in Pakistan, the familiar refrain "No blood for oil" rang out.
Several hundred people tried to march on the U.S. consulate in Lahore, but Pakistani authorities held the crowd back. Six were allowed to deliver an appeal to American officials to spare Iraqis from war.
More than 400 New Zealanders demonstrated in Christchurch. In Moscow, a few hundred people agitated outside the U.S. Embassy in a protest organized by a branch of the Communist Party. People turned their backs to the building, and signs called the United States a "Global Cannibal."
Even the Syrians demonstrated solidarity with their useful idiot cousins in the US, although their message was a bit more direct.
In the Syrian capital, Damascus, thousands marched with a message that was not all about peace. Many cried, "Our beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv," in celebration of Iraq's missile thrusts against Israel during the 1991 Gulf War and in hope Saddam would strike again. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians rallied under the same slogan.
Nice crowd the anti-war left hangs out with.
