The more fundamental issue, of which the "signage problem" is one part, is whether activists know what the goal of what they're doing is. Okay, so the anti-war protesters don't like the current war. Neither do I. So, what do the organizers want to happen?

Instant cease-fire? Pack up and go?

If the huge, unprecedented preemptive anti-war demonstrations across the globe didn't convince Bush & Co. to abstain, smaller versions now in the U.S. are not going to convince them to stop right now.

Be a constant presence, hoping to be able to say, I told you so as casualties mount?

Ugh.

(Insert self-image-propping motivation here.)

No comment

Be a constant gadfly to prevent idiotic U.S. tactics that would slaughter civilians?

There's a goal I can endorse. Now, what would be more effective at that, a demonstration with diffuse purposes other than "We don't like the war?" or something more pointed and surprising, like ACT-UP's gotcha direct actions? (There's the other tactic, which would be to claim credit for every attempt of the military to avoid civilian casualties, pointing out that it's because of a long history of antiwar protests that the military has been forced to change its broader strategies for neo-colonial wars. But that would take extraordinary moxie to pull that one out, however truthful it is.)

Be a constant gadfly to make sure we don't become colonial administrators after a war?

Again, a great goal. The fact that the signs you tried to read were illegible is perhaps emblematic of the larger lack of a clear (or feasible) message of the protests in general at this point

Sorry for the rant. You had a light-hearted perspective on a modern tragedy, and it happened to push some of my buttons. You're just right in more ways than what you stated.