The killer question

Thursday, April 27, 2006

My hero of the week is Bob Wareing, the Liverpool MP who asked Tony Blair a question he couldn't answer. He got up at prime minister's question time and asked whether, since Blair is so fulsome in his praise of soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq, he could spare five or ten minutes to come upstairs to committee room 16 where 50 relatives of dead servicemen were gathered.

As Bob told the assembled crowd in committee room 16 an hour later, 'he didn't say yes and he didn't say no'. But he never put in an appearance. How could he? He simply would not be able to face the families, who have had their fill of spin and emollient phrases. The grief at their loss and anger at the government were apparent in the room and for once the MPs who turned up didn't dominate the proceedings.

Instead, we heard a series of contributions from people, mainly women, who have lost husbands, sons and brothers in an illegal war and who want some answers. They were better informed than many MPs in the House of Commons and spoke from the heart _ again a rare quality in Westminster.

MPs from all parties attended and then joined a procession to the Cenotaph to lay wreaths and to Downing Street to demand a meeting with Tony Blair.

There was not much in the press about the visit. Obviously concerned about really important issues like John Prescott's affair.

The day before that I got a taste of the furore which has hit the government over the NHS when I spoke at a Stop the War meeting at the Unison Health conference in Gateshead. The shiny new conference centre, not to mention the Hilton hotel where we had the meeting (never thought I'd be speaking at the Gateshead Hilton)are part of the new 'regenerated' Britain. You would never know from these buildings that our hospitals are in crisis, shedding thousands of jobs.

Our meeting was extremely good, a serious discussion by trade unionists about how we raise the anti war movement.Anger at the government was exactly the same as the military families expressed in Westminster. And our platform got more applause there than the whole conference gave Patricia Hewitt the day before.

Admittedly that wasn't too hard.

4/27/2006 01:29:00 PM | Permalink

Defensive about the offensive

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Everywhere I go people comment on Cherie Blair's £7,700 budget for hairstyling in last year's election. That's nearly £300 a day. Those I've spoken to fall into two camps: those who can't believe anyone could spend that kind of money on hair; and those who can believe it but feel she was robbed.

I feel similarly about other revelations about money spent on elections. Michael Howard, over £2000 on make up. Why? Charles Kennedy, £5000 on six suits. Did anybody notice?

You could hardly fail to notice John Reid's latest attire. One of the most multi skilled of Tony Blair's ministers, Reid has in previous lives been Gramscian intellectual, Communist guru, pretender to Tony Blair's crown (a vanishing prospect) and tough but tender Minister of Health. Extensive use of his Dr prefix has even given the impression that he could perform the odd appendectomy, whereas of course his expertise is in philosophy.

But this week Dr Reid is a signed up member of HM armed forces as he dons camouflage gear and a helmet and rushes to and from helicopters in Afghanistan. Without a hairdresser in sight he manfully battles against the notion that our deployment of 6000 troops there at a cost of £1 billion will involve killing people.

Reid last week told the Commons that British troops were not going there 'to wage war or carry out seek and destroy' operations. Instead the operations will be called 'deep manouvre effects'. Once in Kabul he did agree that there would be 'overlaps' between the peacekeeping British and the US 'Enduring freedom' operation. Indeed, 'If they attack us we will defend ourselves and if defending ourselves...means taking pre-emptive action we will do that.'

Sounds a bit like that might involve killing people or even a full scale war.

And the military have let the cat out of the bag. Commanders say they have been given permission to carry out aggressive operations including pre-emptive strikes. Seems a bit more realistic to me. After all, why else are the British replacing the Americans in Helmand province?

If I were Dr Reid, I would keep my camouflage at the ready.

4/25/2006 10:55:00 AM | Permalink

Peace is war

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Jack's back. After a refreshing Easter break he's in Saudi Arabia, at a conference on Saudi-British ties, once more banging the drum against Iran. In an interview no the Today programme from Riyadh he announced (to the usual challenging questioning)that 'We are working on the basis that Iran will not meet the proposals from the Security Council on the 30 day deadline'.

Those familiar with the build up to war on Iraq will note the satisfaction with which Straw confidently predicts this outcome. First the west draws up a timetable, uses international agencies to put pressure on said regime, when it fails to comply denounces it for for 'defying the international community', and so begins another war.

Straw also said Iran is 'likely to provoke a nuclear arms race across the region.'

A bit late to worry about that I would have thought. Israel, India, Pakistan and Russia all have nuclear weapons. Iran does not and has only claimed to have enriched uranium for use in power stations _ its legal entitlement under international law.

So why should the country without weapons be accused of provoking a nuclear arms race? Puzzling.

While Jack is in Riyadh, will he be lecturing the Saudis about democracy and women's rights? I do hope so.

But it seems we'll have to wait a long time for oil rich Saudi Arabia to receive the accolade of rogue state which is reserved for the likes of Iraq, Iran and now Venezuela.

Meanwhile mere mention of 'Islamic Republic' means open season on Iran. While the 'international community' talk of peace they prepare for war. Unfortunately some of the left fall for all this. Their hatred of the Iranian regime blinds them to the fact that the old imperialists are at it again. There's a lot of not so hidden Islamophobia about.

I was reminded of this when I spoke at a NUT conference fringe meeting in Torquay at the weekend when the debate on faith schools came up. Apparently some people who opposed such schools claimed that they might lead to increased terrorism.

I don't remember such arguments being used to oppose Catholic schools when the IRA's campaign was at its height in the 1970s. In fact, the fuss about faith schools seems to really get going when people talk about Muslim state schools, even though there are hardly any. I get particularly fed up when people talk about Muslims as an undifferentiated mass as if there weren't Muslim socialists, or feminists, or liberals, or trade unionists.

When you characterise one religion or race in this way, then you're being bigoted. That's true even if you talk about secularism and women's liberation. In fact if you're a socialist or on the left, then you should know better and support the right of the oppressed to be treated equally with everyone else. So let's stop putting the bar higher for Muslims than we would for trade unionists or peace activists. Then we can debate the real issues.

And then maybe we can fight the real enemy.

4/19/2006 05:05:00 PM | Permalink

The Guilty Men

Monday, April 17, 2006

Donald Rumsfeld in trouble again hardly makes headlines, but this really does seem to be another fine mess he's got himself and his mate Dick Cheney into. Now he has some of the most prestigious retired generals and military leaders in the US calling for him to go.

In a rather nonchalant response, Rumsfeld has cited the thousands of retired military men who haven't yet demanded his resignation. But when you have the former commander of the 82nd Airborne, the former commander of the 101st infantry, and the former head of CentCom, Anthony Zinni, against you, then surely you have to worry about them moving their tanks onto your lawn.

So far Bush is holding on to Rumsfeld for fear of opening up a hole in his government which can swallow up his vice president as well. However, we shouldn't be in doubt how serious this is: what the US military fear more than anything is that the disaster of Iraq can be repeated in Iran with even worse consequences spreading out across the region.

Rumsfeld is being blamed for ignoring military advice, underestimating the Iraqi resistance and refusing to fund enough troops for the occupation. Guilty on all counts, but he's not the only one. These same generals backed the illegal war without making their reservations public. The military has brought us Fallujah and Abu Ghraib.

None of them expected so much resistance, and none believed they would have to answer so many political questions domestically about the war.

Today the Financial Times and the Independent both have editorials calling for Rumsfeld to go. Not really very brave, is it, when even the US military are turning against the hawks, and when millions around the world drew this conclusion before we laid waste to a country killing more than 100,000.

One brave man is Flt-Lt Malcolm Kendal Smith, imprisoned for 8 months with costs of £20,000 for refusing to serve in Iraq. The court martial's verdict and the judge's summing up reeked of the establishment closing ranks. The 'orders are orders' line of the judge was expressly rejected at Nuremburg. But what the hell: we started an illegal war, now we've got to defend it.

The MOD tried to make out he was one odd isolated individual, a one man Stop the War campaign as a defence analyst told me on BBC's Good Morning Scotland. Now we know the isolated _and decidedly strange_ one is Donald Rumsfeld.

4/17/2006 10:35:00 AM | Permalink

Here we go again

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

In the film Dr Strangelove the military was out of the control of the government. In the US it's the other way round. The US military tried to withdraw the option of a nuclear attack in its plan of aggression against Iran, but the White House refused to allow it.

That's the claim of Seymour Hersh, whose New Yorker article has caused such waves. He brought us the revelations about Abu Ghraib, so should be taken very seriously when he quotes a source saying George Bush wants Iran to be his legacy.

Well I suppose even Bush and Blair aren't stupid enough to say they want Iraq to be their legacy. But Hersh makes very frightening reading. The simple truth is that they are going to attack Iran unless we stop them. Rather depressing is the recycling of arguments which were used four years ago against Saddam Hussein.

President Ahmedinajad of Iran is, according to the US, the new Hitler. The argument goes that if Hitler had been hit by air attacks in 1935 there would never have been the Second World War or the Holocaust. Hence the public duty of waging a war on Iran.
In fact, war becomes almost an issue of health and safety.

In 1935, of course, no government would have dreamt of attacking Hitler _their royalty and politicians were beating a path to Hitler's door, impressed at his repression of trade unions and the left, ignoring his racist policies against the Jews.

But is Iran an aggressor against its neighbours and the wider world? I spent Saturday evening with Iranian friends who showed me the full page ad in the Financial Times, placed by an American Jewish organisation, showing Iran at the centre of a series of concentric circles of attack.

Incredibly the outer circle reached Britain. Iranian missiles landing on Surrey? Even the WMD dossier only claimed Saddam could hit British interests in Cyprus _ and that turned out to be a pack of lies.

Iran is in fact surrounded by nuclear powers _Israel to its west, India and Pakistan to its east, and George Bush planning a tactical nuclear strike from Washington.

But no one wants to aim sanctions or airstrikes at them. Yesterday the St Pancras coroner's court found Israeli troops had unlawfully killed Tom Hurndall, just weeks after it found they had murdered cameraman James Miller.

What's our government doing about that?

4/11/2006 08:05:00 AM | Permalink

Danger: pensioners at protest

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Woke up to a beautiful sunny spring day but then the news that Helen John and Sylvia Boyes have been arrested under the terror laws for protesting at Menwith Hill base against nuclear weapons.

These 'terror grannies' are the latest in a long line of protesters who have fallen foul of the government's laws, in this case the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.

We've already had the Brian Haw law, which stops us from assembling or using a megaphone within a mile of parliament. A loophole made Brian exempt from that law but the rest of us can be nicked for using a megaphone by the London Eye, Charing Cross station and other dangerous centres of subversion.

The new laws will extend prohibited buildings to include royal palaces and government offices. 'Persistent activity by protesters places them at risk of being mistaken for terrorists.' Oh, so it's for our own good then.

That must be why the government is using more taxpayers' money to appeal and force Brian off Parliament Square.

I was interviewed on Birmingham radio about Helen, who I know as a longstanding protester going back to Greenham Common. I was asked if it was violent to use bolt cutters and a hammer to get into the base.

Have they seen Menwith Hill? It's hardly disproportionate violence to cut the fence of a base which is a blot on the Yorkshire landscape in every sense.

After Walter Wolfgang (82), arrested under terror laws for heckling Jack Straw at Labour's conference, John Catt(81), stopped outside same conference for wearing anti Blair t shirt, Helen and Sylvia (in their 60s and ten grandchildren between them), are we seeing a pattern here?

Will pensioners have their heating allowance withheld until they promise not to go out demonstrating? Their bus passes suspended unless they agree not travel in the direction of Menwith Hill or Lakenheath?

Only last week Condoleezza was telling us how keen she was on our right to protest. These bases are US territory on British soil, so perhaps we can appeal to her?

4/06/2006 12:36:00 PM | Permalink

MOD madness

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

After the gruesome twosome's dance of death in Iraq, where Condoleezza Rice told reporters 'the international partners, particularly the US and Great Britain and others who have forces on the ground and have sacrificed here, have a deep desire and, I think, a right to expect that this [political] process will keep moving forward', we should be in no doubt who runs Iraq's 'sovereign government'.

In the undergrowth things are stirring at the Ministry of Defence. A meeting yesterday discussed the impact of an attack on Iran, while John Reid wants that boring old 20th century international law changed. The Geneva Conventions just tie governments' hands, allowing prisoners of war rights and standards of treatment. And then people start complaining about camps like Guantanamo Bay, or about torture flights and extraordinary rendition.

Even worse, they are hampering us from carrying out pre emptive strikes. True, we did launch one against Iraq in 2003 but that had to be dressed up as countering the threat of WMD. Dr Strangelove Reid wants to be able to do that everywhere. Iran, Venezuela..the world's our oyster.

Our protests at the BBC today have had some impact. Went down to Broadcasting House for our London event where we got a lot of press but mostly from abroad (and to be fair BBC local radio). One interviewer was amazed that we should think the BBC biased. Well, after Greg Dyke admitted that before the war the BBC went out of its way to get pro war voices on Question Time, opening up extra phone lines to get more pro war opinions,prevented its senior editorial figures from going on anti war marches, setting up a special committee to monitor coverage of the Iraq war, can you blame us for being suspicious?

Especially since he was sacked for his pains.

4/04/2006 04:20:00 PM | Permalink

Destination Baghdad

Sunday, April 02, 2006

So Jack and Condi's final destination was not Liverpool's museum on slavery but Baghdad. In the interests of democracy of course. I wonder whether her commitment to the right to protest will be extended there. Will the green zone resound to the cries of 'Condoleezza Rice go home'? Somehow I doubt it.

If you want some light relief this Sunday morning then do read John Rentoul's column in today's Independent on Sunday. He's had a very bad week because of our protests and those of the Indonesian students who criticised Tony Blair. He calls them 'brainwashed teenagers' and claims our demands are for 'even more of a bloodbath than there is at the moment.'

A bit of a nerve coming from one of Tony Blair's most slavish cheerleaders, but never mind. He may have lost all connection with reality since he describes Rice as 'a leading dove in the US administration.' He praises her democracy speech in Egypt last year but omits her later visit where she didn't mention the d word. Maybe that's because her old mate Hosni Mubarak locked up his main opponent shortly after that dangerous flirtation with democracy a contested election.

By the way, John, the chant is 'say hey, say ho, Condi Rice has got to go'. And that does scan.

4/02/2006 10:36:00 AM | Permalink

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Well, whose idea was the Condoleezza Rice visit? I bet they're popular now! What a PR disaster this has turned out for these experts in spin. Everywhere she has been met by large protests:at the Blackburn school on Friday, outside the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, last night in Liverpool where at least 3000 gathered on the Catholic cathedral steps, today when a thousand mainly locals braved torrential rain in Blackburn on the last day of her tour.

It's not just the size of the protests but the support. LIPA students turned their backs on Rice. Blackburn school students refused to go into school. Jennifer John sang Imagine at the concert but then went on to an unscheduled Give Peace a Chance. That's a really brave thing to do and apparently Straw was furious.

It's also the hundreds and thousands of little things that make up a demo: the homemade placards and the different slogans that come forward; the bands like the samba band in Liverpool; the coffin which a kind Liverpool undertaker lent us free of charge on condition we returned it (I hope he's got it back); the music and poetry and creative ways people express themselves.

So these demos were real carnivals of protest where everyone felt great and that we'd achieved a great thing. The north west has said she's not welcome here. Even the civic reception with Muslim leaders looked very sparsely attended on TV.

There are a lot of thanks due to a lot of people but especially Merseyside
Stop the War Coalition, and Blackburn Stop the War and their colleagues across Lancashire. Also to Carmel and her family for all their hospitality and eveyrthing else.

Got back to London after 4 days of travelling, speaking and demonstrating, to find Jack Straw dismissing the protests. He'd thought the one in Blackburn was small. It din't feel like that or sound like that either. Anyway, how big is big? The 2 million who marched before the war who he ignored, the 100,000 who marched two weeks ago in London. Are they big enough for you, Jack?

In one way I suppose we should be grateful to Condoleezza for building such big protests which will only help Stop the War in the north west. Maybe they'll send us Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld next.

4/01/2006 06:49:00 PM | Permalink