Lindsey's Blog

The blame game

2007-08-16T13:27:00.000+01:00

When the going gets tough, blame Iran. Defence Minister Des Browne told the Guardian that he had 'no doubt' that the Taliban was getting weapons from Iran. George Bush is poised to announce that the US is to treat Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a 'global terrorist' organisation. Deaths in Iraq are now routinely blamed on Iranian weapons, expertise and general interference in the region.

You wouldn't think that it was the US which has lost nearly 200,000 weapons, including lorry loads of AK47s, in Iraq. Nor would it be diplomatic to point out that blame for the siting of weapons in Afghanistan or Iraq can be more justly be laid at the door of the US or Britain than pinned on Iran, which cooperated with the US in 2001 over the launch of the war on terror and played no role in the Coalition of the Willing back in 2003.

But being wrong has never stopped Browne and his ilk from continuing merrily on regardless of facts which contradict them at every turn. His predecessor, John Reid, did after all predict not more than 18 months ago that British soldiers might well leave from their present tour in Helmand without a shot being fired in anger. Some prediction. Seven soldiers have been killed there in the past ten days.

Exit strategies are daily put forward for Iraq but none of them comes to very much. There are still troops in Basra palace, the central base in the city which is under attack constantly _ 300 rockets have been fired at it over the past two months_ despite predictions that all 5000 British troops would by now be at the airport base on the edge of the city.

Despite the very strong impression given by the British media that most violent attacks are between different groups of Iraqis, in Basra 90 percent of attacks are against British troops.

As Iraq proves intractable so Afghanistan is moving up the political and military agenda. There are now more troops there than in Iraq and the rate of deaths is increasing with over 70 in total dead. There is growing Afghan disquiet about civilian casualties, mainly caused by US airstrikes.

It must be slowly dawning on Des Browne, let alone the more perceptive Cabinet members, that not only are all options in Iraq fraught with difficulties but that their troubles will not end there.
Despite talk of a turning point and attempts to blame Iran or Pakistan for the problems, this looks like a war which will get worse before it gets better. It has all the makings of a long, colonial war with increasing casualties, loss of support from the local population and a growing sense domestically that it is unwinnable.

In Germany next month there is a major demo against the Afghan war, and there is political discontent in countries as far apart as South Korea, Canada and the Netherlands. Washington's response is typical: dragoon as many countries as possible to fight there, blame the Iraqis for not being able to run their own country, and step up the rhetoric against Iran.

Meanwhile Des Browne tells us that any 'drawdown' of troops in Iraq depends on agreement with the US. No change there then.

One out, all out

2007-04-27T12:04:00.000+01:00

Even the Daily Telegraph is saying Prince Harry shouldn't go to Iraq. It is too dangerous for the third in line to the throne to risk capture at the hands of the Iraqis. But surely if it's too dangerous for Prince Harry, it's too dangerous for the rest of the British army as well.

Testimony from British troops returning from Iraq paints a very gloomy picture. Private Paul Barton, who returned from his second tour of duty this week, spoke out almost immediately on his return, telling his local Tamworth newspaper: 'Basra is lost. They are in control now. It's a full-scale riot and the government are just trying to save face.' Barton was one of the soldiers based in the Shatt al-Arab hotel, now handed over to the Iraqi army. The Ministry of Defence quietly announced some months ago that the hotel and another base in central Basra were two of the three most dangerous bases in Iraq.

Barton confirms that: 'of 40 tents in the base only five were left at the end of his tour of duty. 'We were just sitting ducks...Towards the end of January to March, it was like a siege mentality. We were getting mortared every hour of the day. We were constantly being fired at. We basically didn't sleep for six months. You couldn't rest. Psychologically, it wore you down.' His conclusion is 'We have overstayed our welcome now....We should pull out and call it quits.'

Incredibly, this information - which tallies with much information from Iraqis over recent months- did not appear in the British press until Barton went public. Yet British journalists and politicians have visited Basra in recent months. The media, which cheered this war to the echo and the politicians who voted for the war, are remarkably quiet.

Instead, they throw up their hands and say, we must stay because to go will make things worse. But the presence of the troops is making things worse. Many of the assassinations and killings taking place in Iraq today are carried out by government backed death squads - that's the government supported by George Bush and Tony Blair and propped up by the occupation troops. The US is cementing sectarian division - quite literally with the building of a wall in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Adhamiya.

The wall and others like it are described as 'gated communities' for all the world as though they were properties on an Islington estate agent's books. They have more in common with the 'apartheid wall' erected in the Occupied Territories to keep the Palestinians penned in, and have the same purpose - to isolate areas of resistance.

They are part of George Bush's 'surge' which - as with every other part of his strategy in Iraq - is not going to plan. The US and British military death toll is rising, with nearly 100 soldiers being killed in the first three weeks of April. The Iraqi death toll is rising much faster, with more than 160 killed with a single car bomb last week.

In the US, the Democrats have passed a bill in Congress called for withdrawal to begin this October. They know that the war is lost and is deeply unpopular with the majority in the US. George Bush is threatening to veto the bill. Meanwhile in Britain little stirs. Parliament says nothing on this central issue, and MPs drift towards the election of a new prime minister
seemingly in a trance.

Time for Harry to stay home but time too for a surge for peace which brings all the troops home.

The missing figures

2007-02-26T19:50:00.000Z

How can there be such a great discrepancy between the estimates of organisers of demonstrations and those of the police? Last weekend it happened again: the police put out a figure of 4-5,000, which they graciously upped to 10,000 by the end of the march. The organisers estimated 80-100,000.

You might say, you pay your money and take your choice. Except much of the coverage simply took the police figure ( and often the early figure) and didn't print the organisers' estimate. When that happens it begins to look like deliberate skewing of the figures to minimise the impact of the anti war movement. After all, if you really thought only 5,000 people turned out to oppose Trident and call for troops out of Iraq, then you would conclude the movement had declined so dramatically that it wasn't worth doing anything.

Whereas, back in the real world, most people on the march thought it was the largest for some time. Stop the War, CND and BMI gave out something like 5000 placards between them. Probably there were several thousand more placards from a variety of points of view on the march. Look at the pictures. The large majority of marchers were not carrying placards, hence the march was many times bigger than the 10,000 supposedly on it. Add to that a 20,000 capacity for Trafalgar Square (and it was full for 2 and a half hours with many people leaving or never getting to the square), the large number of coaches, the people still stuck in Hyde Park two hours after the front of the march left.

You figure it out. Even the police have admitted today that their estimate is now 20,000, which makes you wonder how they do it and why it takes so long. With all these revisions upwards, perhaps in a few days they'll agree with our figure.

Not because it's safe, but because it's dangerous

2007-02-22T20:24:00.000Z

Lord Hurd (originally plain Douglas Hurd, old Etonian and one time Tory cabinet minister) wants an inquiry into what went wrong when we decided to go to war in Iraq. Doesn't he know? It really isn't very difficult. Two million people in Britain got it at the time, when they marched through London demanding don't attack Iraq. They joined more than 100,000 others in Scotland and elsewhere.

Add to that 3 million in Spain, 2 million in Italy, 1 million in New York and millions more round the world. That's plenty of people who saw the war would make things worse, more unstable, more prone to terrorism.

The people who didn't get it sat in Westminster, the majority of MPs of both main parties who accepted lies, spin, false information and nods and winks about the 'intelligence' on weapons of mass destruction. The only inquiry should be into why the people we elect and pay handsomely to represent our interests were so wilfully incapable of doing so.

They're still at it. Last month, the futile debate on Iraq in parliament wasn't even graced with Tony Blair's presence and the front bench prevented any vote being taken. The LibDem policy for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq this year was met with derision. One newspaper sketch writer described their view as 'unpopular' by which he meant 'unpopular in the House of Commons' which isn't quite the same thing.

Now Tony Blair has announced substantial troop withdrawal. Now the MPs line up to support him, repeating a lie which matches some of the great lies that took us to war. They say the troops are going because Basra is safe. Mark Urban on the BBC's Newsnight gave the game away on that: two of the three most attacked bases in Iraq are, according to the Ministry of Defence, British bases in the centre of Basra.

So we're not going because its safe, but because it's dangerous.

The danger is, of course, not Tony Blair's fault, as he told us at length on the morning's Today programme (it is almost flattering that all his arguments are aimed at countering those of the anti war movement, until you remember that he faces so very little opposition in parliament).

So whose fault is it exactly? Perhaps Lord Hurd and his friends in parliament will find an answer. Or perhaps the same people who brought us disaster in Iraq will vote for the sequel disaster in Iran?

The demonstration this Saturday will probably be the last while Blair is in office, the last before a vote on the Trident nuclear submarine replacement, and the last before a possible attack on Iran.

Remember, the Italians marched in Vicenza last Saturday to stop the extension of a US base, and this week the government fell over its policy of sending troops to Afghanistan. So marches do make a difference.

Wild men of the right

2007-01-26T16:22:00.000Z

Fed up with wars committed in the name of freedom? Read an interesting article in today's Financial Times by Anatol Lieven. He points out that US President Roosevelt's 1941 speech calling for war against Germany and Japan famously lists 'four freedoms'. These are freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear (by which he meant abolition of aggressive war).

Missing from the list, Lieven points out, is the freedom to vote. He suggests this is for two reasons: that the Nazis were in fact elected, and their success stemmed in large part from the failure of the parliamentary system in Germany to deal with effects of inflation, unemployment and the onset of economic slump.

How differently the question of freedom is dealt with today. 'US official and semi-official rhetoric has too often reduced Freedom with a capital "F" chiefly to the right to vote. Even freedom of expression is usually taken to mean little more than unrestricted private media ownership.'

The recent Freedom House report, partly US government funded, treats, as Lieven says, the US 'as the embodiment of democracy and support for America as a key index of virtue.'

Roosevelt had his own reasons for putting forward his particular four freedoms. But they are still wanting today: freedom from want is a freedom lacked by millions, as is freedom from fear. Freedom of worship is denied or made extremely difficult in a number of countries. Freedom of speech and expression...in Saudi Arabia? in Egypt? even in the US, where dissent is all too often clamped down on?

If some one time liberal commentators had their way, there would be even more clamping down on dissent. Sent crazy by the failure of the imperial project on which they pinned all their hopes, Hitchens, Amis and Cohen sketch wilder and wilder plans for how to save the world. Hitchens 'Facing the Islamist Menace' (winter 2007 City Journal)ends with a ten point plan which looks to me a lengthy but infallible recipe for more wars, terrorism etc which Hitchens will then declare need even stronger remedies to defeat.

His plan includes an open alliance with India on all fronts against 'Muslim fascism', energetic support for all the opposition forces in Iran, and comes out with this gem: 'We should, of course, be scrupulous on principle about stirring up interethnic tensions. But we should remind those states that are less scrupulous _Iran, Pakistan, and Syria swiftly come to mind_that we know that they, too, have restless minorities and that they should not make trouble in Afghanistan, Lebanon or Iraq without bearing this in mind.'

He quotes Martin Amis at length from a Times interview. Martin (isn't he so like his father?) says he has an urge to say the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. His suggestions for suffering: 'not letting them travel. Deportation _further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan'.

At least we wouldn't have all that hold up at airports _or perhaps we would as they would be full of people being strip searched or deported.

Martin doesn't bat an eyelid at these tactics which would be familiar to anyone who lived under a dictatorship or even fascism. Which brings me to the third Musketeer, Nick Cohen. Cohen has out a new book on the left and the war. Apparently, he equates opposition to the Iraq war with support for Hitler. Is this arrested development (he came from a Communist family but clearly hasn't caught up with Communist opposition to war and imperialism)? Or has he just boiled his brain?

Eviction notice

2007-01-22T13:24:00.000Z

You might have expected more of a media fuss. No, not about Big Brother but about Alistair Beaton's The trial of Tony Blair. He is after all still the prime minister, yet this programme ended with Blair disappearing in a police van to be put on trial as a war criminal.

Cherie took the light bulbs from no 10 when they departed. A light bulb lit up above her head with the realisation that their new £3 million house off the Edgware Road put them slap in the middle of thousands of Lebanese _yet another group of people with a grudge against Blair.

But not a single voice raised in parliament, no outrage from angry viewers. Perhaps everyone is just hoping that life will imitate art and that Blair's next stop will be the Hague. Although judging by the investigation of cash for honours he may be facing domestic proceedings first.

The silence speaks eloquently of majority opinion on the war and the warmonger. But it rolls on inexorably. Yesterday the 130th British soldier was killed, as were 25 US soldiers. Today an estimated 75 Iraqis died in a market bombing. Little of it makes the headlines, and few believe that the extra US troops _21,000 as part of Bush's surge _will do anything but lead to further deaths.

One image that did get reported was that of soldiers tied to a helicopter trying to rescue, unsuccessfully, one of their number killed in Afghanistan. The war there is getting worse. The Nato troops are calling in airstrikes because they cannot win battles; the airstrikes are killing lots of people; more Afghans are turning against the troops and supporting the Taliban.

The outgoing Nato commander told the Guardian that he wanted one more year to defeat the Taliban. That's what the US has been saying in Iraq for nearly four years now. No wonder he's worried. Especially when you consider these facts: the Taliban has increased their area of operations more than four times between 2005 and 2006, and is now effectively running parts of the south and east; direct fire attacks nearly trebled to 3,824 between 2005 and 2006;suicide attacks increased from 18 to 116; attacks on Afghan forces incresed over 300%, and those on Nato forces by 270%.

The military expect a big offensive against them this spring.

War is stretching from Helmand province to the Horn of Africa, where Somalis is the latest victim of US intervention. The rhetoric against Iran is rising again. The long war _the war on terror rebranded _ at least is an accurate description.

Blair promises us war for a generation. He and Bush are both on their way out, but the Bush gang is determined to shoot it out on the streets of Baghdad rather than admit defeat.

Expect much blaming of Iraqis for the mayhem created by the occupation; expect too more attacks on the French (and Germans) for failing to pull their weight and sacrifice their troops in Afghanistan.

Expect also an escalation of anti war protest to match this surge: already the Washington demo next weekend looks like being one of the biggest ever against the war. Our date is 24th of February _ against Trident and for troops out of Iraq _ which also promises a good response.

So we shouldn't take silence as agreement. If 82% voted to evict Jade Goody from the Big Brother house, how many would do the same to see the back of Blair?

Is this what they mean by civilisation?

2006-12-31T11:49:00.000Z

His last words: 'Palestine belongs to the Arabs'. The executioner's last words to him: 'Go to hell'. Few will mourn Saddam Hussein, especially among those of us who opposed his policies from the very beginning. But that exchange alone means that in the Arab world at least he will continue to be remembered as someone who spoke up for justice for the Palestinians and who was one of the few rulers in the region who stood up to the Americans.

It wasn't always so. Saddam was brought to power with the blessing of the Americans, who provided intelligence to help him root out his Communist opponents, hanged by him as he was hanged yesterday. Iraq was encouraged to wage war against the new Islamic Republic of Iran. The US helped with arms and intelligence, including the provision of chemical weapons which filled its victims' lungs with blood. Throughout the 1980s these weapons supplies continued, and when the outcome looked too evenly balanced, the US intervened even more directly on Iraq's side. As the war neared its end, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft, killing 300 people 'by accident'.

Saddam stopped being a friend and ally when he went too far and invaded Kuwait, even though April Glaspie, US ambassador to Iraq, led him to think the US would not intervene.

Just as they were able to make him, they were able to break him too. War in 1991, bombing and sanctions for 12 years, another war and invasion, capture, trial and then execution. All made in America: the trial, imprisonment and execution had little to do with the Iraqis who had suffered so much under him. Saddam was 'handed over to the Iraqi authorities' from the Americans only at 5.30am; he died at 5.55am.

And what a gangster operation it was: the only man not hooded was the condemned man, the final exchanges were argumentative and insulting, the whole episode was filmed and all except the actual death shown on state televison.

Those who waged war in the name of enlightenment values will perhaps draw the parallels with the public executions where crowds lined what is now Oxford Street to watch the condemned on their way to Tyburn tree. It was regarded as a mark of civilisation that such executions were abandoned over 100 years ago, and any capital punishment more than 40 years ago. Yet we allow this barbarism to take place under the guise of punishing dictatorship.

Most dictators will not fear similar punishment: their countries are crucial staging posts in the increasingly frenzied trips by Tony Blair to find peace in the Middle East, any prosect of which has been destroyed by his and George Bush's policies.

Those policies are tearing the region apart, and increasing terror threats elsewhere in the world. Yet it was announced on the same day as Saddam's execution that John Scarlett, the man who sexed up the dossier to tell us the lie that Saddam's weapons could hit British interests in 45 minutes, is to be knighted for services to diplomacy.

George Bush is reportedly thinking of sending even more US troops into Iraq 'to finish the job' in a country which has been destroyed by the invasion. And while many of us might feel that a new year holiday in Robin Gibb's Florida villa comes pretty close to hell, Tony Blair remains unpunished and unaccountable for his role in the disaster.

So when are these criminals going to be caught?

Or does it explode?

2006-12-21T10:47:00.000Z

George Bush's latest reason for continuing the war in Iraq? 'One thing we cannot do is give up on the ordinary moms and dads across the Middle East'. The ordinary moms and dads do seem to have given up on him, however. The standing of the US and Britain has never been lower in the region, given a further ratchet downward by Tony Blair's pre Christmas crusade there.

Blair's preaching somehow made me think of the great poem by the black American Langston Hughes, 'Dream Deferred' which goes like this

What happens to a dream deferred?/Does it dry up/Like a raisin in the sun?/Or fester like a sore-/And then run?/Does it stink like rotten meat?/Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?/Maybe it just sags/like a heavy load./Or does it explode?

The grievances of the Middle East towards the west represent such a dream deferred: the injustice to the Palestinians, the continuing crime of the Iraq war and occupation, the support for vile and dictatorial regimes such as Saudi Arabia, the many visible and invisible hurts of the old colonialism and its new counterpart.

Democracy in the region is preached but not practiced by the west, which turns a blind eye to imprisonment and torture, and only supports elections when the outcome is right. So the Hamas victory in Palestine has been undermined from day one, with the loser being promoted as the victor. The autocratic monarchs and unelected dictators are plied with arms and shielded from criminal investigation by the British prime minister.

Meanwhile Iran, which has seen in the past week real elections (where the president's supporters did badly) and real protests against the president, is back up there as part of the axis of evil.

No wonder ordinary moms and dads see this as doublespeak and hypocrisy. Silence should not be seen as acquiesence. And when there are explosions of mass protest across the region, no one should be surprised.

A spectre is haunting Westminster

2006-12-05T13:13:00.000Z

It is said that generals always fight the battles of the last war. The same could be said of the Labour government over Trident. It's back to the 1980s as far as they're concerned. The spectres of Michael Foot in his donkey jacket at the Cenotaph, of Thatcher and Reagan sneering at the disarmament movement, still haunt those whose greatest fear is being denounced by Rupert Murdoch.

How else do we explain the government plans to replace Trident, a system which can't even be used without US permission, designed to fight an enemy that doesn't exist, at the astronomical cost of £25 billion (and rising)? And it's been sold to us by Blair with the argument that it would give Britain greater independence from the US!

They don't seem to have noticed that life has moved on. The Cold War has gone, we are deeply embroiled in unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and large numbers of people believe that the US and President Bush present the greatest danger to our security. And at a time when hospital closures, student tuition fees and housing shortages are all presented as the only alternative because the money isn't there and because governments can no longer spend on public services, the money for Trident seems all the more obscene.

The people who sold us WMD, the 45 minute claim, the legality of the war and the dodgy dossier are at it again. They find a willing and credulous audience among MPs. Cabinet ministers tell us that we need Trident to combat North Korea and Iran. Really?

After the debacle of Iraq there is really no reason why this spin should be listened to nor why Labour MPs should follow their government into the voting lobbies. Public opinion is divided on the issue, but is much more heavily against Trident when the cost is raised. MPs made a very big mistake in voting for the Iraq war, as many now recognise. They are in danger of repeating that mistake.

The British parliament now has the record of being the most supine among the belligerent powers. Even in the US, there is much more official inquiry into what went wrong. Tomorrow James Baker's Iraq Study Group is due to report. There has been much talk about whether US troops should withdraw or in George Bush's words should make a 'graceful exit'. Disgraceful exit might be more like it.

Whatever the conclusions of the report, it will tacitly acknowledge that the US has lost in Iraq and that the occupying powers have presided over an ever worsening situation. It's a shame our parliament can't even muster a debate on the subject.

Don't even think about it

2006-11-16T15:42:00.000Z

I took my degree at the London School of Economics in the early 1970s when it was unusual for having a very high number of overseas students. They came from all parts of the world, and many of them were in political exile: from apartheid South Africa and white minority rule Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe); from Franco's Spain, the colonels' Greek dictatorship; from Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Shah's Iran (it was estimated that one in three Iranian students in Britain was a spy for his secret police, SAVAK).

I have thought about many of those people this week as I hear more and more stories about students facing the prospect of the authorities spying or allowing spying on 'suspicious' students who might be attracted to terrorism. A meeting organised by the students' union at the University of East London on Tuesday spelt out opposition to this approach. A thought police in the colleges was unacceptable, and would lead to people being demonised on grounds of race or religion. Students doing certain courses would be more open to suspicion. Students regarded as 'extremists' would be singled out.

Back then, we assumed that there would be people informing these repressive reginmes on individuals. But we never dreamt that college authorities, encouraged by a Labour government, would be talking about spying on students.

If that had happened in the 1970s, political exiles would have had a very hard time, would have been thrown out of colleges and perhaps deported to sometimes torture and even death. It would also have created a climate of fear where we would have found it impossible to discuss in a free and open way, which should be an essential of any university.

Many of them were branded terrorists, extremists and subversives. Some undoubtedly now are middle aged pillars of the community in countries whose politics have changed dramatically in 30 years. They had to fight for their rights then, and we are having to defend democracy now, by resisting the incursions into college political life.

Our People's Assembly this weekend has students, trade unionists, Muslim activists, Stop the War members, coming together to discuss the relationship between war, Islamophobia and the attacks on civil liberties. It's followed on Monday by a big rally in Westminster called by the British Muslim Initiative on religious freedom.

They couldn't come at a better time, as we face open season on Muslims where 'radicalism' = 'extremism'='terrorism'. Where do we draw the line? Are people who understand the grievances of terrorists the same as terrorists? Are those who attend anti war meetings or marches 'extremists' or merely people expressing their political opinions?

Support is coming from new and sometimes unexpected quarters. Claudia Roden's books on Middle East cookery and Mediterranean cookery have been regular companions of mine over the years and I have found out a lot about the region as well as the food by reading them.

She describes the People's Assembly as a 'community bridge-builder,' and says, 'As an Egyptian Jew who was born and lived in a Muslim world where there once reigned harmony and respect between religious communities, as a Jew who feels deeply hurt when Jews are demonised and who knows what that has led to in the past, I feel very sad and worried that we have come, in Britain, to demonise a religion that I respect and people who are my friends'.

With her, actors Prunella Scales and Timothy West, academics, MPs and trade union leaders, the Muslim community is gathering support which it desperately needs to organise a fight back.

Halloween in the House of Horror

2006-11-01T16:29:00.000Z

What will it take for Labour MPs to vote against the Iraq war? Clearly more than 655,000 Iraqi dead, a disastrous occupation, and polls which show 62% of people in Britain want the troops pulled out immediately.

Yesterday, Margaret Beckett, in a speech which must amount to an insult to her own intelligence, let alone everyone else's, claimed that the time was not right for an inquiry, that any vote for such an inquiry would give succour to terrorists, and that Iraq was heading towards democracy.

No wonder there are problems imposing democracy on the Middle East when we base it on our model. Because yesterday was an appalling day for democracy. The government won not because of the superiority of its arguments, not because most of its own supporters even believe those arguments, but because Labour MPs meekly trot into the division lobbies to vote along party lines, regardless of the consequences.

Calling it a debate gives the wrong impression. Most of the time the chamber is pretty empty, filling up at the beginning and the end, when suddenly the various ministers and other members of the payroll vote appear, vote as they're told to and go off for other more important business.

The parties which tabled the debate, Plaid Cymru and the SNP, should be congratulated for getting it onto the agenda and for uniting so much opposition behind them. They managed to win all the parties apart from Labour and forced the pro war Tories to oppose the government, however pathetically. Their arguments were good, but simply not answered.

Perhaps the most idiotic question to them was what did Iraq have to do with the people of Scotland and Wales? The best known anti-war MP, George Galloway, was not even called to speak.

All credit, too, to the 12 Labour MPs who joined the opposition. But why so few? Some abstained, although this only helped the government. No doubt many will say they could not go into the lobbies with the Tories. But Labour MPs went into the lobbies with the Tories when they took us to war.

The truth is, those MPs who voted with the government this time have let the anti-war movement, and the majority of their constituents, down. Just like those who voted for war three and a half years ago. Except this time, there really isn't any excuse.

Only bad options

2006-10-23T09:05:00.000+01:00

'The week the war unravelled' was Saturday's headline on the Independent. It's still unravelling. The director of public diplomacy(sic) in Washington's bureau of near eastern affairs has retracted his weekend claim that the US 'failure' in Iraq stemmed in part from 'arrogance and stupidity'.

The US has admitted that it can no longer continue its operation of trying to control Baghdad. The town of Amara, handed over by British forces in the summer, has once more erupted in fighting between the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army.

George Bush has now compared the war on Iraq with Vietnam, which can't be a great idea two weeks before an election where the Republicans look like getting pasted over the war.

Ever since General Sir Richard Dannatt's bombshell two weeks ago, the ground has been cut from beneath the feet of the pro war lobby (itself an ever dwindling group of people reliant on the indefatigable Christopher Hitchens to keep it in good heart).

The problem for the war party is there is a momentum here which may be unstoppable, even if Donald Rumsfeld is sacrificed, as is now being talked about.

I am frequently confronted by journalists and military who say 'we have to stay and finish the job'. Or, in the words of Margaret Beckett and Tony Blair, we 'have to hold our nerve' (as if the occupation of Iraq was a trapeze act at the circus). There's one simple flaw in this argument: it isn't getting any better. In the words of Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who helped run the occupation in Iraq, 'there are only bad options for the coalition from now on.'

There is no job being done here apart from occupying a country the majority of whose population want the troops to leave. There is no reconstruction, no improvement in people's lives.

Even most pro war elements now understand this. When you have Dannatt and Greenstock both saying things can only get worse, you know that Blair is pretty much last man standing in Whitehall.

The solution isn't, however, sending in more troops _ or asserting that if only more troops had gone in three and a half years ago then things would have gone swimmingly. The problem here is not implementation but the principle involved. When you occupy someone else's country you are going to find the population against you.

So let's not occupy countries and pretend we are doing them a favour, or that the morass we find ourselves in is 'progress'.

In Afghanistan there is still a lot of talk about finishing the job. But the occupation has presided over the demise of the Taliban, the election of a pro western government, the rise of the Taliban, and the growing unpopularity of the pro western government. Meanwhile no women's liberation, no reconstruction.

Doesn't that mean it's going backwards?

The fashion and thought police

2006-10-16T15:22:00.000+01:00

The war on terror has created some unlikely allies. When George Bush told us he was bombing Afghanistan in order to liberate women, many found that particularly hard to take. One of the more distasteful features of the wave of attacks on Muslims in recent weeks has been the sight of feminists lining up to support Jack Straw in his demand that women should not wear the veil in his presence.

Women who claim they believe in liberation really should know better. The women’s movement of the 1960s was anti racist, coming out of the civil rights and anti war movements in the US. It was against cultural imperialism for the same reasons. Indeed, many African Americans turned to traditional dress to reject western culture and to assert their identity.

Why are people who espouse their ideas today attacking some of the most oppressed women in the name of liberating them? Why are they backing a privileged man who is in a much more powerful position than his constituents by supporting his version of 'What not to wear'? New Labour's very own equivalent of Trinny and Susannah no doubt has many delightful versions of integrated outerwear. But shouldn't we be telling him it's none of his business?

Some feminists assume that any Muslim woman who wears the veil or the hijab does so because of social and family pressure. Even when Muslim women assert in the strongest possible terms that this is not true and that they have made this choice themselves, they are not believed. The term for that is patronising. It's bad enough to be patronised by a man like Jack Straw but when others join in you could forgive most Muslim women for thinking that they are not being treated as serious human beings but as the goods of their husbands and fathers.

A pretty sexist assumption when you come to think about it.

Another unlikely ally is General Sir Richard Dannatt. It's a once in a lifetime thing when you think about it for the head of the army to denounce a war in which his soldiers are engaged. But that's what he's done and there's nothing Tony Blair can do about it. The US wanted to tell Dannatt off but even Blair couldn't allow that.

So vindication for the anti war movement. But the more they lose on the war the more they attack Muslims. That's true of Dannatt as well, who clearly thinks it's all been downhill since the 1950s and who fears the 'Islamist threat' in Britain.

The latest twist in the war against Muslims is the announcement that the Department for Education wants university lecturers and staff to spy on Muslims or people who are 'Asian-looking', and report them to Special Branch. This government document claims those from 'segregated' backgrounds are more likely to be radical than those who have 'integrated into wider society'.

How can they tell? I take that to mean if you wear the veil or hijab you can expect to be spied on or reported to the authorities. So it's What not to wear with a nod to McCarthyism. Nothing like destroying democracy in the name of saving it.

Straw should hide his face in shame

2006-10-05T18:04:00.000+01:00

What's more despicable than a foreign secretary who takes us into an illegal war and then tries to distance himself from it for electoral reasons? What about a former foreign secretary who attacks Muslim women wearing the veil for electoral reasons?

Jack Straw has added his unwelcome voice to the bidding war over who can make the most headlines by attacking Muslims. He had a hard act to follow with John Reid, whose bid for the Labour leadership is based on ratcheting up the attacks on civil liberties and on the Muslim community.

Even David Cameron at the Tory conference, oh so liberal on gay marriages, doesn't think there should be Muslim only 'parallel' areas (actually there aren't), and that Muslim schools should accept one quarter non Muslims, in the name of ...well, in the name of not being exclusively Muslim. Next they'll be saying mosques should reserve places for non Muslims as well.

With this political background, I'm not surprised that a Muslim owned dairy in Windsor has been attacked by thugs. When the main political representatives in the country declare that it's open season on Muslims, no wonder those who want to attack them see it as a green light.

Let's examine this argument a minute. Jack Straw has told Muslim women who wear veils that they should take them off ...in the interests of getting a good look at their mouths and noses. When Jack Straw went on the Today programme today we couldn't see his face but his odious message was all too comprehensible.

Surely rather than attacking the victims of racism, the government should be defending them. It is up to the women themselves to choose what they wear and when they wear it. If Muslim women in veils are good enough to vote for Jack Straw, they are good enough to speak to, however they are dressed.

The difference between the government attitude today and five years ago is palpable. Then, government spokespeople went out of their way to attack the scapegoating of Muslims and to preach race harmony. Five years, three wars and two military occupations later, the last refuge of these scoundrels is to scapegoat Muslims for the consequences of the war.

Jack Straw should cover his face in shame.

Heads and tales

2006-09-28T11:11:00.000+01:00

Mozart was used to rows over his operas, but not ones like this. The German opera company, Deutsche Oper, looked like abandoning its production of Mozart's Idomeneo because it contained a scene depicting the severed heads of, among others, Jesus and the prophet Mohammed. The company were advised by police that this might lead to demonstrations of the sort seen round the Danish cartoons or, more recently, the Pope's pronouncements on Islam and violence.

There doesn't seem to have been any evidence that this was likely to have happened. But clearly now Muslims are fair game for being accused of supposedly irrational or violent behaviour. Nor was there any alleged threat from irate Christians protesting at Jesus being shown in this way (even though there must have been far Christian protests outside theatre and cinemas than Muslim ones _ remember The Last Temptation of Christ and Jerry Springer the Opera).

In fact there was no threat from anyone at all. The sensible course of action should have been for the show to go on, with those offended by it being able to react in one of two ways: not going to see it (still the most popular form of protest against art), or organising peaceful protests outside it to make a point.

That is now what is happening, but not before the damaging intervention of the German government in the form of its Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel, who heads up a grand coalition of right and left, is desperate to make her mark on the world stage and is trying to join the so far exclusively boys' club of warmongers. Her foreign policy is increasingly lining up Germany with Bush and Blair.

Merkel has stepped in to denounce 'self censorship', claiming that it plays into the hands of terrorists and extremists. Except this wasn't self censorship, nor was the opera threatened, even in the wildest dreams of the Berlin police, by terrorists. But Muslim bashing, in a country where there are 2.6 million of them, and where the far right made gains only last week in Merkel's home state of Mecklenburg Vorpommern on an anti immigrant platform,is just too tempting for any of that to matter.

Which brings me to our own dear leader, who can make a better speech than Gordon Brown. Not difficult. He told us on Tuesday that the war on terror will last a generation. It won't be his grandchildren who are dying if that is the case.

There must have been hollow laughs around the Middle East when he announced that he wanted to achieve peace there by next May. There is the small question of his bloody record, but a man of Blair's ignorance shouldn't be allowed anywhere. He stated once again that 9/11 predated the Iraq war, so underlining the supposedly irrational and crazed nature of Islamic terrorism. Except bin Laden made clear after 9/11 he was reflecting three widely held grievances: the injustice to Palestinians, sanctions and bombing of Iraq, and the presence of foreign (US) troops on Saudi soil.

There are foreign troops now in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon _and across the region,we have occupied Iraq, and the Palestinians are worse off now than then. That's why 50,000 of us marched at the start of Labour's conference in Mancehser _even the police have upgraded their figure to 30,000.

That protest more accurately reflected opinion than the unthinking hysteria inside the hall on Tuesday. Don't they know there's a war on? But then, denial always works until you can't deny it any more. They all leave their parallel universe today to find a reality where 16 US agencies say Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism and where the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq deteriorates by the day.

That's the real future facing Tony Blair.

A life changing experience

2006-09-22T13:55:00.000+01:00

Writing this from a windowless room in the Days Inn here in Manchester. Thirty years ago they would have built council houses, now they build these chain hotels and student residences.

Much excitement for the big day tomorrow. Lots of press, the peace camp has been a big success. We spend our morning planning the speakers' list, dealing with the press, organising the stewards' meeting, phoning the London office to hear that the train has sold out.

Police are all over the city centre as they prepare for the big security shutdown for the Labour conference.It's not hard to see how it's come to this: Tony Blair has to be protected from the people who voted for him nearly ten years ago but are now moved to demonstrate against him. How the political climate has changed when politicians have to be protected from the people in this way.

I noticed the amazement at John Reid being heckled in Waltham Forest earlier this week. It has been described as rude, which kind of reduces politics to a dinner party. It doesn't strike me as rude or wrong for those in public life to be challenged in a robust fashion. Or for people who defend illegal wars and colonial occupations to be confronted by people who sound angry.

What is surely wrong is for politicians to be surrounded by a sterile area into which neither protest nor criticism can encroach.

Anyway, that isn't going to work for them tomorrow when the streets of Manchester will be filled with our protest. There'll be no hiding place from the sight and sound of the demo.

I did a meeting last night at Manchester university where freshers are just turning up for the new year, with Malcolm Kendall Smith and Yvonne Ridley. Malcolm went to prison for several months for refusing to serve in the air force in Iraq; Yvonne was a Daily Express journalist captured by the Taliban during the Afghan war, who later converted to Islam.

I thought as they spoke on how much this war has changed all our lives, and how many more Iraqis, Afghans, Lebanese and Palestinians have had their lives changed for the worse. Five young Muslim women came and spoke to Yvonne and I afterwards, all concerned at the attacks on Muslims and keen to demonstrate. Another young woman was almost in tears when she thanked Malcolm for the stand he has taken. Yvonne and I talked afterwards about how women are the backbone of the movement.

The movement has achieved a tremendous amount; without us this wouldn't be central on the political agenda, and without us Blair's crisis wouldn't be terminal. The message tomorrow to Gordon Brown is 'don't even think about going along the same road, or you'll find yourself in the same mess.'

Shots being fired: official

2006-09-19T14:28:00.000+01:00

Afghanistan is tougher than we thought, says Des Browne, the latest to follow in the footsteps of Geoff Hoon and John Reid as Defence Secretary. Well it's certainly tougher than they told us. Remember Reid telling us only six months ago that British troops were going in as peacekeepers and would probably leave without a shot being fired.

Already then it was well known that the US troops were being defeated by the Taliban. That's why they withdrew and demanded that the British troops took over in Helmand province. Since that happened shots have been fired every day, and the number of British soldiers dying has risen.

It is painful to watch the young British soldiers talking with obvious shock about the strength of the Taliban, and even express admiration for them militarily. They are facing not peacekeeping but battles involving hundreds of forces whose scale has not been seen by the British army for decades.

The Taliban has gone from defeat and exile 5 years ago to growing support in the south of the country. Why? Because they are the only force arguing for resistance to the occupation and opposing government corruption. International aid supposedly for reconstruction has been squandered, going to NGOs and charities and not to the Afghans who so desperately need it.

The British government bleats that the other NATO powers are not doing their fair share: another way of looking at it is that most European governments have not been foolish enough to send their troops to the most dangerous part of the country. The Polish government recently announced another 1000 from February (no rush then)but this has led to a major political crisis. They're brewing here and in Canada too whose troops are bearing the brunt of casualties.

So now that's Afghanistan tougher than we thought, Iraq tougher than we thought. Perhaps the thought might cross the minds of Browne and his colleagues that these wars are unwinnable and that withdrawal will turn out ot be the only option. But how many lives will be lost before they own up to the truth?

As our march approaches on Saturday, I discern a growing anger with the politicians over these issues and an increasing linking of them to wider politics. The NHS is being privatised and butchered while we replace Trident and spend billions on wars and occupations.

The meeting in Sheffield last night with Tony Benn demonstrated that. Over 800 people in a wonderful meeting agreed with our analysis of the war but also applauded those who spoke of opposing NHS closures, attacks on trade unions, and campaigning round issues from Trident to disability to racism. We're a movement mobilised against these wars but also for a better world.

Not good news for Tony Blair when we all turn up in Manchester on Saturday.

By the way, I see John Reid has told Muslim parents to keep their children away from extremists. I suggest they keep their children away from John Reid _otherwise he might slap an ASBO on them or lock them up for 90 days.

Dead man walking

2006-09-12T13:01:00.000+01:00

I went to the TUC in Brighton yesterday for the Stop the War fringe meeting. On a beautiful warm evening we filled the meeting room in the Albion Hotel. The platform was a clutch of general secretaries (from the TGWU, PCS, UCU and NUJ), myself and John McDonnell MP, who is standing for leader when Blair stands down.

The mood of the meeting was defiant, horrified at Blair's complicity in the Lebanon, determined to oppose future wars and committed to mobilising for the mass demo outside Labour's conference next week on September 23.

Watching the reaction to Tony Blair's speech at the TUC today, I felt very proud of our movement. British trade unions have nearly all developed a strong anti war policy over recent years and they have always given backing to our demonstrations and campaigning.

So Bob Crow _who helped us steward our first really big demo in September 2002_held up one of our 'Time to Go' posters in the hall before leading the RMT delegation out of the hall in protest at Blair. Other delegates wore 'Time to Go' t shirts as they sat grimly listening to what must rank as a poor speech even by Blair's standards.

I can only imagine how badly received certain parts were: the defence of Israel, the call to remember the dead of 9/11 without remembering the dead of Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, the justification of his wars in the name of eradicating terrorism while failnig to notice they have actually exacerbated terrorism.

And then there were no questions on the war!

There can be few in the hall who don't wish Blair would go now, even though not too many seem enthusiastic for Gordon Brown. I know Blair wants a tour which will see him exit on a wave of euphoria: with appearances on Blue Peter and Songs of Praise, and visits to the Millennium Dome and the Angel of the North. He doesn't have to bother _ there would be a wave of euphoria if he went now, and an even greater wave if whoever succeeded him changed foreign policy so we weren't waging illegal wars and occupying other people's countries.

Remarkably, most commentators barely mention the war as the reason for Labour's political meltdown. Yet Lebanon has broken Blair. MPs who reluctantly backed the war in Iraq could not stomach Blair yet again following Bush. That's why more than 100 Labour MPs wanted parliament recalled in the summer and why so many signed letters calling for Blair to go.

The TUC reception was the worst ever for a Labour prime minister. Whatever deals have been done with Brown, Blair is now dead man walking. Definitely time to go.

More unions have come on board with sponsorship of the demo next week _ the latest are the RMT and BECTU. Something's going on in the unions, and the 23rd is going to be a big one.

When the tough get going

2006-09-04T11:01:00.000+01:00

I look forward to John Lloyd's columns in the Financial Times magazine every Saturday with a sense of anticipation which is rarely disappointed. The column is called 'The Ideas Department' although a better title might be 'The One Idea Department'.

For Lloyd, former Communist, former industrial editor of the FT, is obsessed with one question: the fight against Islamic fundamentalism and the defence of liberalism. So obsessed is he that virtually every week he returns to the theme, abandoning in the process old liberal concepts of multiculturalism and defence of civil liberties in favour of the new robust liberalism which demands that those who come to this country have to live by 'our rules' _whatever they are.

Perhaps a good editor would tell him to give it a rest and write about something else, but in this case Lloyd is the editor.

He was at it again this week. In response to a new book by an American conservative which seems in synopsis to suggest that the Muslims/ Mexicans _generously allowed in as immigrants _ are about to take over Europe/ the US, Lloyd argues for a third way.

But that will require liberals to get some backbone, to 'end the sloppy equation of being liberal with always saying yes'. The battle is to win over the hearts and minds of those who see themselves as primarily religious. 'The struggle will be _is now_at times a military or police matter', says Lloyd without missing a beat.

Let's look at these military or police struggles. Are we supposed to accept that the mayhem in Iraq, Afghanistan or Lebanon in recent years will be tolerated by the people there because it is part of the wider argument for pluralistic liberal societies? Does anyone believe they will be grateful for being invaded and occupied? Does Lloyd think that the rounding up of young Muslim men in London, the taking apart of their houses and the fear instilled in their families is leading to more dialogue and civilised behaviour?

Or could it be that the military and police matters are alienating people around the world? That they may not see integration into a society which treats them like this as desirable or possible?

Lloyd castigates separatism in all its forms, citing the black power movement of the late 1960s in the US which did not want to integrate into US society. Hardly the same as second generation Muslims _the ancestors of US blacks arrived in slave ships hundreds of years before and had suffered slavery and discrimination ever since, so they had rather a strong point.

But look why integration was right: Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, according to Lloyd. If that's all they can expect in 40 years time, no wonder most young Muslims aren't looking to his model of integration.

Perhaps another way of looking it is that liberal society has failed. It has brought us war, racism, inequality on scales that few would have expected maybe 30 years ago.But instead of looking at its own faults, it is turning on some of the people who have gained least.

Hence liberals who support war and attacks on mulitculturalism. As John Lloyd says, 'tolerance has to be tough _ on the causes of intolerance.'

Which means it isn't really tolerance any more.

Welcome to the new Middle East

2006-08-15T15:17:00.000+01:00

I was reading recently how the most modern armies are increasingly frustrated by the mismatch between their firepower and their ability to win hearts and minds. Some of us would say that it is precisely the shock and awe of their weapons which builds hostility to them around the world and makes it so hard for them to win popular support in their own countries, let alone in those that they attack.

They can win the military battles without much difficulty, they say, but they repeatedly stand to lose the political argument.

There's a lot in that. Although even on the military front, the big powers aren't doing so well. The US and Britain have not defeated the resistance in Iraq, the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and Israel _the biggest military power and the only nuclear power in the Middle East_has failed in its objective of crushing Hizbollah in Lebanon. This is despite bombing roads, bridges, flats, oil refineries, airports and petrol stations.

Hizbollah is in fact much stronger in Lebanon than a month ago, its support hardened and widened by the Israeli aggression. To many people it is regarded as the victor in this particular battle. In Israel a major political crisis is brewing as the Israelis contemplate the unthinkable _defeat.

When it comes to hearts and minds, however, things are much worse than that. The invasion of Lebanon, overlaid on the other disasters in the region, has created far more opposition to the US, Britain and Israel, and far more support for those who oppose them.

Don't think this will stop Bush and Blair in their tracks though. As Seymour Hersh spelt out in such detail in his New Yorker article, the US was fully informed and behind this attack, which was planned long before the capture of two Israeli soldiers (whose release has not been included in the ceasefire)_the incident which formed the alleged basis for the war.

It was clearly seen by the US as the first phase in the war against it major adversary in the region, Iran. Since the Lebanon ceasefire, attention has now turned again on the Iranian regime. We shouldn't expect Bush to be chastened by his proteges' failure in Lebanon.

The last refuge of this scoundrel government faced with a foreign policy running the gamut from disaster to catastrophe is to play the terrorist card. Iran= Hizbollah=terrorism=people who blow up planes by concocting bombs out of Lucozade bottles. Home Secretary John Reid is agitating for 90 day detention as a result of the alleged plot uncovered last week for the 'British 9/11.'

It takes people's minds and newspaper headlines from the war and the growing rebellion against Tony Blair within the Labour Party. It also builds up hysteria against young Muslim men in particular and there is growing disquiet, I think, in the Muslim community about these repeated raids.

Don't get me wrong. Such attacks have nothing to do with genuine protest against the war or anything else and if there is evidence then these people should be arrested and charged. But we have been here before.

The Forest Gate brothers had equally lurid headlines about a chemical bomb, chemical vests and so on. One was shot. The police now say there was no evidence. There was the alleged plot to blow up Manchester United football ground by Iraqi Kurds.They were all released without charge. Then there was the supposed ricin plot in north London, used in 2003 by Colin Powell as evidence of terrorist threats in the lead up to war.

Except there was no ricin and no plot.

Too much media speculation and intelligence leaks simply cannot be stood up. If that keeps happening, no wonder people become cynical of government motives.

History lessons

2006-08-08T12:45:00.000+01:00

In the early 1930s many people campaigned to make aerial bombardment illegal. People realised that the development of aircraft could herald a new and bloody form of warfare. So it was seriously suggested that planes could only be developed for peaceful purposes and that bombers would be outlawed.

History shows how tragic that campaign's failure was. In the 1930s, the fascist powers intervened on the side of Franco in Spain. The bombing of the ancient Basque town of Guernica, so dramatically portrayed by Picasso, was only the most famous. Then followed the Second World War where many of the cities of Europe were damaged or destroyed from the air.

My home city of London was one of them. My primary school still had its air raid shelters (used to store old desks and sit on in the summer). London suffered the Blitz from 1940 to 1941 and then the rocket attacks from V1s and V2s in 1944 and 1945.

The Israeli hawks now justifying their attacks on Lebanon repeatedly try to draw parallels between those bombings and what is happening in north Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister of Israel and Likud hardliner, said recently that Britain and the US bombed the German city of Dresden in response to the V2 attacks and they should therefore understand Israel bombing Beirut.

He was at it again on the news last night, saying that Londoners suffered similar to Israel during the Blitz. There are analogies between the Second World War and the present situation, but not the ones Netanyahu thinks there are.

Take weapons. The V2 was a state of the art rocket, the weapon of mass destruction of its day. It resulted in very high civilian casualties, there was no warning and no defence against it. It could be fired hundreds of miles. Compare this to Hizbollah's Katyusha rocket, also first developed in the Second World War, which has only limited range. The discrepancy in casualties tells the story. While over 1000 Lebanese had died by yesterday, just under 100 Israelis had (two thirds of them soldiers). Israel's attacks are closer to the blanket bombing carried out by the major powers on Britain, Germany or Japan.

Or take attacks on civilians. In 1949 collective punishment was outlawed by the Geneva conventions because of the Nazi killings of civilians in response to supposed terrorism by the resistance in countries such as France and Italy. The resistance came from the local people and was supported by the local people. The Italian town of Marzabotto saw around 2000 mainly women and children killed by the SS in response to partisan attacks. In the tiny hill town of Civatella more than a hundred men including their priest were massacred while attending mass on the town's saint's day.

Yet in Lebanon and Palestine the illegal collective punishment of civilians has been used repeatedly supposedly to attack Hizbollah and Hamas. Precisely because Hizbollah and Hamas have mass support, including representatives in government, this punishment both targets the whole population and tends to increase support for the organisations.

The treatment of the Lebanese government today has parallels with the Munich settlement in 1938, when Britain's prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, dealt with Hitler to the advantage of Germany and to the disadvantage of Czechoslovakia. Today, Britain and the US are willing to back Israel's invasion of Lebanon in a UN resolution which gives nearly everything that Israel wants while denying Lebanon its sovereignty.

Netanyahu uses the Second World War because he knows that the Holocaust, the most terrible act of that or any war, means so much to Jews everywhere. But the more you look at the parallels, the more you see Israel not as a small power defending itself, but as the biggest and best armed aggressor in the region.

You figure it out

2006-08-06T21:39:00.000+01:00

What a march. Called at a week's notice, in the middle of the holidays, and we still got 100,000. Nearly all the coaches from outside London were full and turned people away. The police said 20,000, although this was a figure revised down from the 30-50,000 they were saying informally at 1pm _and loads more joined after that.

These police figures have a political edge. On February 15 2003 the police figure officially issued was 750,000. They later revised that to 1 million but not before Rupert Murdoch's Sunday papers had quoted the lower figure _ the only papers to do so. We put it at closer to 2 million, backed up by a poll and an urban geographer who calculated it was over 2 million.

So the aim is to minimise the protest, although it has less and less effect the bigger the marches are, because so many people go on them, tell their friends and family, and become used to _if no less angry at_ the under- or non-reporting.

Some of the media are rather predictable, though. I think it must be compulsory for BBC journalists to ask 'but it won't do any good, will it, what's the point of marching?' type of questions. Surely a more apt question should be directed at cabinet ministers. 'Why do you repeatedly ignore mass protests even though the protesters have a record of being proved right about Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror?' Some hope.

It's claimed Blair was in Downing Street when the march passed so he must have heard the cries and boos which went on for more than two hours as people stopped to lay children's shoes at the Cenotaph and then went to the rally in Parliament Square.

The march united a great wave of people against what is happening in Lebanon, Palestine and across the region. But even as it was ending, the press was hailing the possible UN resolution as reason for a ceasefire.

Today there's even more of that. The inconvenient opposition of the Lebanese government to a settlement which would allow Israel to occupy part of its country is blithely waved away. The presenter of tonight's Channel 4 News chided the Lebanese representative to the UN, saying surely the main thing is get a ceasefire.

How would we feel if Sussex was invaded and London bombed, and we were told that to stop the bombing we had to put up with the invasion? The fact that journalists can even put it like this shows how much they accept the government agenda.

The next couple of days can be very important, and those of us who demonstrated need to make clear that we don't accept a ceasefire which penalises Hizbollah, the Lebanese people and the Palestinians but allows Israel to continue its aggression. Peace can't be at any price.

The gathering storm

2006-08-04T17:43:00.000+01:00

This morning we received signatures for our statement calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon from 200 people on the Isle of Barra, in the Outer Hebrides. Tom in our office tells me that this represents a fifth of the island's population.

Probably none of them will make our demo in London tomorrow, but they are only a fraction of the movement which is building into a great crescendo of protest. One of the sheets of signatures had attached to it a Labour Party membership card to be returned to number 10.

Our office is in an incredible state. Dozens of people pass through every day and at any time there are 20 or 30 in the building. The sandwich bill alone adds up to £50 a day. There are people of all ages here, but especially young people who are outraged at what has happened.

Two young people from Kuwait brought in a flyer for a benefit in east London on Sunday night. A young Saudi has been leafletting different parts of London all week. Young women with and without hijabs are making placards, loading the van, looking for banners, photocopying and phoning.

The stewards' meeting tonight promises to be big with people from all over.

Demonstrations can't happen _ or not on the scale we expect tomorrow_without this level of organisation and commitment. And movements only thrive when they begin to harness this energy and commitment in all sorts of different ways. It was like this when we first began almost five years ago, over the war in Afghanistan. It was like this in the run up to the Iraq war, and again in November 2003 when George Bush came to town.

So this mood and involvement is something special again. It seems to me the biggest crisis Blair has faced since the war itself, as even those Labour MPs who backed him so loyally over the previous wars are turning against him.

Even at this last minute people are booking tickets on coaches, leafletting tubes and getting their friends and families to come. If we are right, this will be very large, and will catch the mood and the moment. A perfect storm is gathering, and the prime minister is at its centre.

A blow for civilisation

2006-08-02T15:39:00.000+01:00

What a grim start to August this is. Three British troops killed in Afghanistan, another hit by a mortar at a camp in Basra (the first British soldier to be killed in this way). Dozens killed every day in Iraq. But more than anything else the Israeli aggression on Lebanon.

There are now 10,000 Israeli soldiers on Lebanese soil. This assault on a supposedly sovereign country is one of the most atrocious actions at a time when atrocities come thick and fast.

I have often wondered how in the 1930s the 'international community' turned a blind eye to or even condoned Mussolini's attack on Abyssinia or Franco's overthrow of a democratic government in Spain. Yet today we have governments, including our own, refusing to call for a ceasefire in Lebanon on the grounds that it would not achieve a sustained settlement in the region.

True, given the historic injustice meted on the Palestinians since 1948, which will not be solved by a ceasefire.

Would it, on the other hand, stop the killing of refugees, the rising death toll of children, the bombing of hospitals, the destruction of Beirut, a city only just rebuilt after the last war, and the destruction of the last vestiges of peace in the Middle East?

Most people, excepting Tony Blair, George Bush and the Israeli government, would probably think that was worth it.

On the subject of the prime minister, his speech in California seemed to me very far from the coded attack on George Bush spun by Downing Street. It consisted of an echo of the 'axis of evil' speech _ the 'arc of extremism', an attack on Iran and Syria, and a retread of the 'clash of civilisations' theory. His contempt for Labour opinion was demonstrated by him delivering it while loving up to Rupert Murdoch and Arnold Schwarzenegger in a swish California resort.

Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about western civilisation replied he thought it would be a good idea.

The more you see of the 'war on terror' the more you can can see what he meant.

I have, incidentally, seen no reference in the press to the fact that Baalbek, the latest target for the Israelis, is the site of some of the most dramatic and beautiful ancient Roman buildings, including massive temples to Dionysus and Jupiter. So much for civilisation.

I visited Baalbek three years ago and shudder to think what is happening to the town and its people now.

This week I ended my holiday early to come back for our emergency demonstration this Saturday in London. Our office is buzzing as I haven't seen it for a long time. We have more people in it than I've ever seen, the phones, e mails, inquiries, don't stop and people constantly come in to pick up leaflets, posters, make placards.

We have a great route, from Hyde Park via the US embassy and Downing Street to a rally in Parliament Square. I think it will be a mega demo. Which will be a small blow for civilisation against the Bush and Blair barbarians.

The world turned upside down

2006-07-17T14:19:00.000+01:00

Are we in the world of Alice Through the Looking Glass or 1984? I can't quite believe how bad are the responses to Israel's attack on Lebanon, and wonder why we have entered a world where lies are truth, where everything is the opposite of what it should be.

My increasing sense of disbelief began with Tony Blair's statement a couple of weeks ago that the Muslim community in Britain had grievances against the West which were 'false'. You might not agree with those grievances, but they are based on fact: Britain did invade Afghanistan and Iraq; the situation does go from bad to worse in both countries; Britain does back Israel as a key ally in the Middle East and does little to help the plight of the Palestinians; and Britain does support some of the worst dictatorships in the Middle East.

The feeling has come back to me in recent days. The BBC news website reports today that Tony Blair and UN secretary general Kofi Annan have called for an international force (aka Britain and the US) to be sent to Lebanon..to stop attacks on Israel. Tony Blair explained this is to 'stop the bombardment coming over into Israel and therefore gives Israel a reason to stop its attacks on Hezbollah'.

Sorry? Hezbollah kidnapped 2 Israeli soldiers and Israel responded by bombing Lebanon, blockading its ports and airports, bombing its roads, and killing so far more than 130 Lebanese civilians.

Yet the main news channels in Britain led yesterday on 8 Israelis killed by a rocket in Haifa, only then going on to mention 16 Lebanese dead in Tyre, bombing of civilian convoys and the fact that Lebanese/Israeli deaths are running at a ratio of more than 5:1.

This painting of Hezbollah as the aggressors against 'plucky little Israel' is sickening enough. But then there's the accusation that Iran is arming Hezbollah. And who's arming Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East and the one possessed of the largest and most deadly arsenal? Israel is the biggest recipient of US military aid, and the only state in the world that can buy arms directly from US arms corporations without the oversight of the US government.

No wonder then that the G8 gathering of the world's largest powers meeting in St Petersburg issued a statement effectively allowing Israel to continue its state terror against its northern neighbour. It contains the following: 'The immediate crisis results from efforts by extremist forces to destabilise the region and to frustrate the aspirations of the Palestinian, Israeli and Lebanese people for democracy and peace.'

Well, the Palestinians' aspiration for democracy and peace was expressed through the democratic election of a Hamas government earlier this year, which the Israelis are trying to destroy. Hezbollah is in the Lebanese government and has mass support. So who exactly is attacking democracy?

We're in a new phase now with this war. As one person put it at our Stop the War steering committee on Saturday, the attack on Iran has already begun. That's why Israel, the US and Britain are so keen to go for Hezbollah, because it makes it easier for them to attack Iran. The threat as they see it of a greater Iran stems from the failure of the occupation of Iraq. And we may be witnessing the changeover from the main reason for war being Iran's nuclear capability to the main reason being its role in terrorism.

Don't expect anything good.