Demonstrate against Drones - Saturday 27th April

Demonstrate against Drones - Saturday 27th April

Groups from across the UK, including CND, War on Want, the Drone Campaign Network and Stop the War, are mobilising later this month to respond to a new threat that the War on Terror now poses. From this Spring, push-button warfare will have a new home as the UK will begin controlling their armed Reaper drones from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.

Drones turn the whole world into a battlefield where nowhere is safe. Far away from any front the US uses drones to assassinate those it sees as threats to its security and interests, choosing to ignore international law and international condemnation. But drones are also expanding the battlefield even within conflict zones, as politicians and military commanders have such faith in the perceived accuracy of these unmanned systems that they are much more willing to use them in civilian areas. In short drones are 'normalising' war and simply making war more likely. Read more.

- Chris Cole, Drone Campaign Network

Join us to demand the government abandons drones as weapons of war

To find out where the march to RAF Waddington will begin, and for more information about the campaign against drones, visit the Stop the War web site.

Transport from around the UK

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Spread the petition: call on the government to abandon the use of drones as a weapon of war. Almost 3,000 people have signed the petition already, calling on the government to cease using drones. Please add your name if you haven't done so already and help spread the petition at stopwar.org.uk/drones.

TEN

Last Sunday at the Royal Court Theatre actors, artists, comedians and musicians performed to a packed auditorium commemorating 10 years since the start of the devastating war in Iraq and celebrating the enduring work of the peace movement. Stop the War would like to thank all the artists who participated, particularly Jan Woolf who produced TEN.

Stop the War will publish photos of the events on the web site soon.

"It was a fantastic multimedia critique of the ten years of mayhem, but also a celebration of a historic 10 years of anti-war campaigning." A comment from Alison, an activist in West London.

Margaret Thatcher's true legacy was the war criminal Tony Blair

Lindsey German comments on the death of former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Margaret Thatcher laid the basis for policies that wrecked the lives of many in Britain. But she should also be remembered as a warmonger.

She led, alongside US president Ronald Reagan, the escalation of the Cold War in the early 1980s, threatening a new round of nuclear weapons that could be used in the event of 'theatre nuclear war'.

She introduced Cruise missiles to Britain in the face of mass opposition, with major demonstrations against Cruise and a peace camp at the Greenham Common base in 1982. In the same year she enhanced her electoral popularity by fighting the Falklands war, and agreed the order to sink the Argentinian ship General Belgrano when it was sailing away from the combat zone. Her arms deals with Saudi Arabia were notorious.

She was the first woman prime minister of a major western power and as such some had illusions that she would represent a softer or gentler approach to politics. They were rapidly disillusioned.

Read the rest of the article on the Stop the War web site.