Clown Army at Anti-War March

Operation: Exit Strategy
Anti-Official Communique #9 and 1/3, San Francisco 3/14/2006

For a while now, we've been hearing that the people in Iraq don't want the US Army there; that the soldiers themselves don't want to be there; that their friends and family want them home. Yet every time one of the big honchos gets up at a news conference they always mutter something about "no timetable for withdrawal". Now, we don't really know why they keep saying this, but some people tell us it's because they don't have an "Exit Strategy".

Now, we're helpful clowns and we thought that if we could come up with a few good "Exit Strategies", maybe we could help get those soldiers back home, spread smiles all around, and maybe even win an all-expense paid trip to Babylon (the tomb of the first fools). Unfortunately, the White House won't answer our phone calls and returned our letters. We were dismayed until we heard there was going to be a big demonstration right here in San Francisco. We thought it would be the perfect place to demonstrate our exit strategies and maybe someone could actually help us get through to those rich men in Washington.

It only took us a little thinking (and a lot of playing) to realize this whole conundrum isn't so hard. We just have to look at the four pillars of clowndom: fun, freedom, friendship, and... fun! (Not really that different from the 'life, liberty, happiness' bit). The US went over to Iraq because we wanted to "liberate" them, right? Well, liberation is freedom, and we think freedom is about playing soccer in the street, having sleep-overs in your front yard, and dancing across town to the market, not worrying that the road or your house is about to blow up. Explosives don't make good friends, and they aren't very much fun either. So we thought the Clown Army would do a much better job making friends with Iraqis than the normal soldiers are - and have more fun while we're at it!

But everyone has ideas, and just saying the troops should come home doesn't make an exit strategy. So, we sweat and toiled in our bouncy castle workshop and constructed some actual prototypes of strategies to get the troops out of from Iraq. They're still under wraps right now, but they will be on display in San Francisco on March 18th at a big demonstration against the Iraq war. We hope you can come and spread the word!

With love and laughter,
General Insanity