Protests today are on the light side. Minus some 1400 hundred activists, with police out in force keeping people on the sidewalk, the disruption has been not as great. The steady thrum of helicopters and planes, is a pretty much constant downtown, punctuated by the occassional wail of sirens. People against the war seem split on what to think of it all.

The war presses on. The news programs are coming across as sports shows, admiring the technical prowess and the skills and the hardware. "A wave of steel" is sweeping northward. "I fell in love with this plane" said one journalist. "we were eating our fruit salads watching artillery shells explode, 'walking' towards us. A Wart Hog floated in, dispatched a missle, destroying the battery, and then floated off." Fruit salad? Then the US military complains when they hide their tanks in civilian centers. What do you expect them to do? Stand up and be destroyed like a man! We are just taking the country apart. The "heavy resistance" that has come in some sections, usually sounds like light resistance, after you read the article. I just wish we'd speak of these soldiers, these mens desctruction with a little more humility. I wonder if you compared the amount of money in men, equipment and training between the two sides, how would it stack up? How much does it cost to train a pilot? a driver? a special forces soldier? a regular soldier? to build a command and control center?

The natives are restless.

All over downtown SF, protesters are camped out in intersections, one where they had potted trees and newspaper racks to form a low lying barricade. But just below the Sierra Club, you can see that it doesn't take much it seems to shut down a city. Many seem to be veterans of critical mass, all it takes is one or two people and traffic stops. A few more to get your back, and drivers usually stand down. The police seem remarkably absent and one wonders if they are chasing protesters all over town who just melt away and then reform elsewhere. Thank god terrorists are not so smart. As I write the human barricades below on 2nd and Mission have slipped away.

Of course, what good is it? Plenty of media but who is watching and who is swayed? What exactly is the message anyway?

The kneejerk response is, of course, "if they don't like it, let 'em go live in iraq" as one guy spat into his cellphone as he walked past. "Huh?"

Any minute now it will begin. Half a world away, soldiers, pilots, civilians have knots in their stomachs waiting for that first shot. I can't say I'd want to be in any of their shoes. Once, long ago, I'd thought of being a soldier. I probably would've made a good one. Some small part of me wishes I had, the rest of me is glad.

War is looming. For the ones who have wanted peace, it seems we have failed. The administration has paid no more attention to us than they have to anyone else. So what next?

The first thought is to hope that continuing demonstrations will have some effect. But I fear the only hope of the success in demonstrations would come only after a failure of U.S. military might. This is not the way forward.

We should hope that this war is over, as is likely, in a matter of weeks. We should pray that our troops are as effective as we are told. We should hope that a bomb, a bullet, or our troops find Hussein quickly, and verifiably. That speed and effectiveness will make for less lives lost, civilian and soldier alike.

But we can, and should, do more than hope and pray. It is time to refocus our energies and bring them to bear on the future of Iraq. This is the crux of future war or peace: can our nation rebuild Iraq?

We cannot, and should not, let Iraq be rebuilt by the current administration and their friends alone. We must ensure that education, liberty and justice take footholds, not just oil companies. We must ensure that our nation is there to help over the long haul, not just to the next election. We must ensure that democracy does thrive, and that there is not just another Saddam, or Osama, waiting in the wings.