This Saturday there will be a "Pro-America" rally in downtown Houston, courtesy of a few local talk-radio stations. There will be speakers, live bands, a fly-over, etc.

I wager that it will draw far more folks than the peace demonstration that we had here a few weeks back. The organizers of that rally claimed 3,000 marchers, other sources said it was more like 1,500-2,000, max. Pretty thin turnout for a city with a SMSA of over four million.

In related news, the Houston City Council today rejected two different resolutions condemning the war, saying that they had more appropriate business to attend to - that is, running the city.

I've been contemplating the signs I'll be making. So far, I've come up with:

"Bomb Saddam!"

"Freedom - It's For Brown People, Too!"

"Genocide is Bad For Children & Other Living Things"

However...

Events may overtake the demonstration.

Consider:

A) Gen. Tommy Franks has left Tampa, his peacetime HQ, for the HQ we built in Qatar to manage this war. Franks, for those of you that don't keep up with this stuff, is the man in charge of fighting the war. He won't be fighting it from Tampa, even though he easily could. It's Just Not Done.

B) This weekend will be moonless - considered the best time for our forces, as it allows us to use our superior night-fighting capability. There won't be another like it before the weather gets hotter than we would like it to be.

C) The Iraqi Republican Guard units have left their normal bases and are taking up their previously prepared defensive positions in and around Baghdad and Tikrit.

D) US troops of the 3rd Division are assembling in Turkey even as I write this, as we've cut the deal with the Turks.

E) Turkey and Russia are rapidly evacuating their diplomats and dependents from Baghdad. Turkey and Iran have closed their borders with Iraq, and Iran is mobilizing troops along it. They join many other nations (Spain, Japan, Malaysia, et. al.) that have already closed their missions or severely cut back their staffs

F) US warplanes are now hitting Iraqi missile units, in addition to the normal command and control and anti-air radars. Iraq has been attempting to move these surface-to-surface missiles and rocket launchers to within range of the troop buildups in Kuwait - the US aircraft are playing Whack-A-Mole with them. The attacks today were the most extensive since last November.

So, will it be this weekend? Conventional wisdom has been pointing to mid-March, and they could very well be right. But it looks like it could go in the next few days.

I'd sure like for this to be the last post I ever have to write about it. Further debate is useless, as by now, everybody's mind is already made up about whether or not this war is a just one, and all we're doing at this point is aggravating each other, reciting the same old stuff for the zillionth time.

The Iraqi people are sure hoping so.

You know, I didn't see any Iraqis at the peace marches. You'd think that since it was their freinds and relatives that are supposedly going to die in droves when we invade, they'd be right up there in front. So, where were all the media reports about Iraqi ex-pats against this war?

(crickets chirping)

Wonder what they know that A.N.S.W.E.R., MoveOn, Win Without War, and assorted Hollywood actors don't?

Freedom Is For Brown People, Too.

UPDATE: Monday, 3 March, 2003, 09:00 CST

The Turks have failed to pass the parlimentary resolution that would allow US ground troops to attack from their soil. This must have really turned the war plans into a compleat clusterfuck, since a good bit of the troops and light equipment had already landed. Now what do they do? Get back on the ships? Drive to Jordan? Some logistics officers gotta be tearing their hair out about now. This has to have pushed the date back at least a few days, probably as much as a week.