Harry's Place,the prof and others have been turning their attention, again, to the STW marches. This time they are wondering why STW haven't protested about Saddam, Al-Qaeda, terrorism, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. The general thrust seems to be that while it does not mean, per se, that if you don't demonstrate against something, you are for it - which is a relief, since I wasn't looking forward to Stop the GBH Coalition march tomorrow, nor yet the Stop the Drunken Hoolies Throwing up in little Old Ladies' Gardens Coalition rally next week - in this case, it does. Or rather, if you marched against Bush and Blair while not simultaeneously protesting about people being shredded by Saddam and blown to pieces by terrorist bombs, then your motives may be suspect, you may be a closet terrorist yourself and at the very least you are sending the wrong message to the world, making terrorism more acceptable and providing propaganda for the Islamofascists and Baathists in Iraq.

All this is deduced mainly by the content of the banners, "Bush - World's No 1 terrorist", "End the Occupation" etc, and the toppling of the paper Bush statue, which was an attempt to suggest, apparently, a moral equivalence between Bush and Saddam rather than a rather snappy way of getting on the news.

The STW crowd are light on the details behind their slogans, and an idea of their positions on the occupation and the war on terror beyond the fact that they are against 'em wouldn't go amiss, but the vitriol that some of the pro war left are pouring on them seems to me to go beyond the necessary. There were a million people demonstrating against the war before it happened. They were saying "not in my name" to the politicians who were intent on war before all avenues of peace had been explored. They objected to many things about the war - the legal authority, the fact that world opinion was being ignored, the sidelining of the UN, the dubious evidence on WMDs. They thought it more likely rather than less likely that terrorism would flourish in the world and in the region. And they questioned whether killing Iraqis - between 20,000 and 50,000 as it turned out - was the best way to rid the world of Saddam Hussein.

The jury is out on these points. The occupation is messy. There are a thousand things to debate about where to go from here.

And the left, as per usual, squabbles with itself.