Hate something, change something

I received an email today headlined 'Study: Iraq is getting safer for British troops'. Can this be the same Iraq where five British service men and women were shot down in a helicopter last weekend and where they are already confined to their camps most of the time for fear of much higher casualty rates? It struck me as an example of formal logic - 'we are where we are' - or even no logic at all.

The author of the study, Brendan O'Neill, seems to be incapable of seeing the totality. After all, if troops are unable to move freely then that says something about how dangerous the situation is when they do move freely, even if no figures show up in the statistics. If families protest at this level of casualties much more than they did over higher casualties in previous wars, that tells you how illegitimate the war is among military families.

O'Neill claims that 'death has sometimes quite cynically been made into the defining issue of the conflict. It is time we made better arguments against the war than exaggerating how dangerous it is'. Thanks for that Brendan, we do our best. But surely we can't exaggerate how dangerous the war is. You see we don't judge it on British casualties alone but on the more than 100,000 Iraqi dead (is that exaggerated as well?), the effects of depleted uranium and other deadly weapons, and the general instability in the region.

A strike on Iran would make all this even more dangerous. But O'Neill probably thinks we're exaggerating that danger as well.

He should perhaps try talking to Egyptian pro democracy demonstrators who are at the sharp end this week. The regime, funded by and beloved of the US government, is cracking down after opening up a tiny bit last year. Even judges have come under the cosh. Some of them have complained about irregularities in last year's elections. That's a mild way of putting it since the main opposition candidate has since been sentenced to five years hard labour, and hundreds of Muslim brotherhood were jailed.

Now judges are threatened with dismissal for 'defaming the state'. Nearly 50 people are in jail for supporting them and demonstrators are regularly attacked by police.

Taking the no logic of O'Neill, it may not be that bad in Cairo since millions of people are going about their normal business and not being arrested. Or perhaps we should follow the dictum of, among others, Karl Marx and the BP advert: 'hate something, change something, make something better'.

A piece of advice that could be passed on to Paul Cantor who in the US magazine Counterpunch has bemoaned the usefulness of demonstrations, particularly the New York one two weeks ago, which some of the US left was dissing in advance but which turned into a mass event. We get similar criticisms here. So not being involved directly, here's a few of my thoughts.

First, demos show the world you're there. That in itself should be worth it. Secondly, it brings the movement together and builds solidarity. Doubly worth it. Thirdly it generates local activity and spreads anti war ideas. Also worth it. All right so one demo doesn't change the world but who ever said it would. It's the movement that can change the world and the demos are part of that.

So you were young in the 60s and it was better then. Grow old with dignity. Keep demonstrating.