TL readers: this is the official TL copy of the book Shantaram. This copy originated with oculus, who passed it along to kdog, who is now sending it to me. This book has received rave reviews from Jerilyn, oculus and kdog.

I think Judge Walker wrote a very well reasoned decision, a very useful decision that tears apart the lies that homophobes have been hiding behind for years. Protecting marriage? Baloney. Prop 8 doesn't enhance marriage one bit. Traditional marriage? Nonsense, traditionally, marriage was the exchange of ownership of one or more women from their fathers to their husbands. Traditional marriage in this country was anti-miscegenistic. The people that got this law passed are fearful and cruel, and are despicable liars.

The brilliance of Judge Walker's decision is that it ties the Prop 8 proponents' AGENDA to the passage of the law, and their agenda is promoting homophobia in order to either 1) Feel better about themselves (rally the troops against "the other"), and/or 2) Make money from other people's fears (NOM - the National Org for Marriage Exclusion - is raking in millions right now).  

Now, Greenwald goes on to say that the details of that motive are debatable. He then talks extensively about oil, recent history, and "resource nationalism" -- all of which clearly implies that he believes oil is the prime motivation.

He later states it much more clearly, which I quote here:

After almost three months of fighting and bombing -- when we're so far from the original justifications and commitments that they're barely a distant memory -- is there anyone who still believes that humanitarian concerns are what brought us and other Western powers to the war in Libya?  Is there anything more obvious -- as the world's oil supplies rapidly diminish -- than the fact that our prime objective is to remove Gaddafi and install a regime that is a far more reliable servant to Western oil interests, and that protecting civilians was the justifying pretext for this war, not the purpose?  

Does it get clearer than that? Greenwald is stating that it's "obvious" that the "prime objective" of the war in Libya is about oil. But then he walks it almost all the way back in an update:

That's not to say that Gaddafi's "resource nationalism" is the only or even overriding motive for the war in Libya.

But that isn't what he wrote initially, he wrote exactly what he's saying he didn't, as anyone can see.

I don't deny that the reason NATO is intervening in Libya is not entirely or even predominantly humanitarian, or at least it's obvious that there are other instances of worse humanitarian situations in which NATO has not gotten involved in. But Greenwald shouldn't expect that he can insinuate (and, in the above-quoted case, state openly) one explanation and then pretend like he was being far more vague in the update when people like Juan Cole argue against the oil-centric analysis of his original post.

That said, I think it was right for him to resign entirely. What he did was (IMO) morally wrong, but I don't really have to rely on morals to want him gone.