Our Italian friends are correct, the pressure really is on us here in Britain to ensure that if the US decides to attack Iraq, then it will do so in isolation.

If there is to be a successful anti-war campaign though, it cannot rely on the Stop the War Coalition which, although it has been successful so far, is rightly seen as being strongly influenced by the organised left and therefore not completely representative of the entire anti-war movement.

It is time for individuals and groups to organise themselves and arrange their own protest or direct action as part of a national movement that requires no central control.

The Stop the War Coalition (as well as CND) has been amazingly successful and should be supported, but if it is allowed to monopolise the protest movement then the individual creativity which the movement thrives on will be lost.

As Franklin Roosevelt said, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself".

This is why radical activists who wish to offer an alternative to the Stop the War Coalition intend to meet on Grosvenor Square on Saturday 30 March outside the American embassy for a Picnic For Peace, impromptu reading of the US Constitution and other assorted activities.

We will then march to Trafalgar square along an autonomous route. Every single activist who attends this event will be making a diffference . . . help us to stop World War 3!

More details to follow!

The UK never stopped the war on Iraq, we've been maiming ang killing 100,000's of children for over ten years. It's just not 'newsworthy' anymore.

B-2 is right, but don't forget this time the problem is to stop the battle over Baghdad, the battle Saddam Hussein called "the mother of all the battles".
This means Saddam could attack Israel...

I have a suggestion running on from Tony Benn's speech at the March demo. He said that the moment we hear about Iraq being attacked by US or British, that we should stop what we are doing and for one hour commit non-violent civil disobediance to bring the trains, the buses, the schools, the colleges, our workplaces, etc. to a standstill.

I would like to suggest that everyone tries to form small affinity groups and the we network through indymedia to co-ordinate an exact time to strike. In London and other major cities, small groups of people could put chains across the roads at junctions and padlock them to railings and stage non-violent sit-downs. By working in small groups a great many of these events could occur at different venues within the city and in a short amount of time could cause gridlock. The police may be aware of the time of the campaign, but we would have the element of surprise in choosing our targets. Such an action would surely provoke media coverage and be a powerful message to the government that we the people do not want their bloody war.

I hope this idea can be taken up and spread with the help of indymedia, and through organisations such as ARROW and Stop The War. Perhaps even the Socialist Workers could do something useful for once, put down their newspapers, and form affinity groups for this action.

Feedback and help to spread the idea would be welcome here.

One suggestion might be to perform the acts on the first day after media coverage of an Iraqi attack at a certain time.

What do you all think?

It's a top idea. Takers?

Pete above says:

I would like to suggest that everyone tries to form small affinity groups and the we network through indymedia to co-ordinate an exact time to strike.

I say, form affinity groups = great idea.
Network + co-ordinate through indymedia = bad idea.

If/when it happens there wont be time to arse around on the net trying to decide when to take action or protest... just do it :-)

oh and let's try and not give excuses for indymedia to be shut down, if ya wanna get into co-ordinating stuff set up a mail list or if possible hold a meeting and just post ir report results to indymedia.

peace.