I said specifically that the motivations I discussed were those of the organizers, not most of the marchers. If you recall, I anticipated this canned "they're not all Marxists" retort in my first post.

That being said, getting down to the marchers themselves, if we disregard all those who are in the organizers' camp and are marching primarily because they hate Bush, capitalism, and Amerika-with-a-"K," what's left?

You posted a chart a while back that proposed some plausible motives, at least for England. Let me also give it a crack:

"War isn't nice, and solves nothing" An awful lot of people never take it any further than that. The fact that war has solved any number of issues, often for the better, is something that never occurs to them. These people are emotionally driven, and are primarily only aware that the idea of invading a country makes them very uncomfortable and unhappy.

"Iraqis will get hurt." Sure, some will. But then, Iraqis are getting hurt while I'm typing this. Saddam has been responsible for over a million dead Iraqis so far. I wonder what kind of response you would get from an average Iraqi if you asked them (off by themselves, somehow) to choose between the risk to their lives of a quick American attack versus another generation of rule under Saddam and his lunatic son.

"American soldiers will get hurt." Rarer than the last one, but still there. Sure, some will. It will be worth it, and most of them will say so. And if we do nothing, it is a guarantee that a lot of other Americans will get hurt somewhere down the line.

"Arabs will get mad at us." Madder than they are now? Madder than they were before Bush was even elected? Madder than they were when Reagan was President? Or than when the first Bush attacked Iraq? There is no way the lunatics will get any more looney, and there is a good chance that bringing Iraq to freedom may actually improve our image in the eyes of the vast majority of moderate Arabs.

"Coming to this march was a lot more fun than staying home and watching TV, and I get to dress up and carry signs, and with any luck, I might get laid."

IMO, probably a good fifty percent of marchers fall into this "Woodstock" category. I know they did back in the Vietnam protests back when I was in college. A heck of a lot of people showed up at campus protests just to see what was happening, and of course they were counted in the crowd. Oh, they talk the talk if you ask them questions, but in the interviews I've seen, most of their discussion falls apart under even moderate questioning on policy.

And remember, nobody's counting the people who approve of Bush and the war, and stayed home. Bet it was more than a million.