Dear Ms Campbell,

I read the news each day with a greater sense of dread and sadness. Slowly but surely, the world is being dragged into a conflagration that may kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people before it is over. Our country is at the forefront of this mess, helping pull the ropes that will surely tip the world into the depths of global war.

These are strong words, and many people will not accept the fact that things are this serious (I find it hard myself), but this inability to accept is a symptom of fascist warmongering. In 1939 Hitler used strikingly similar tactics and psychology to draw the German Nation into World War Two as President Bush is using the draw the Americans (and us, on their coat tails) into this possible World War Three.

Witness: The paternalistic and over-simplistic, fear-mongering speeches with the "with us or against us" logic. The arbitrary demonisation of races and nations. The use of national catastrophe to engender fear and hate (for Hitler it was the burning of the Reichstag, for the Bush Cabal it is 9-11). The constant appeals to patriotism and the vocal and violent denunciation of anyone who dissents (what does the blanket term anti-American actually mean?). The use of selective reporting and tight control over mass media to mould an uninformed and loyal population, willing to believe anything you tell them.

People in the developed world have a very strong instinct to maintain the status quo and keep hold of their home comforts and luxuries. This instinct is only natural and, in times of peace, with benign leadership, it is not a problem. The problem comes when a county's leaders start to deliberately use this to cover up their misdoings. The first reaction of a comfortable people to an accusation of nefarious intentions of their leaders is disbelief. They are unwilling to believe that things have gone drastically awry and they fight to maintain a "cosy" version of the situation in their minds - denouncing the harbingers of bad news as "conspiracy nuts" and "unpatriotic". If the leaders in question control 90% of the media, it is relatively simple to reinforce this cosy world-view and steer the people away from the raw truths. It is only when the effects of the bad leadership become unmissable (young men coming home in body bags, bombs raining from the sky, food shortages etc) that the majority of people start to question the underlying causes of their misfortune. Sometimes by then it is too late.

If the demons outside the borders have been provoked enough so that their retaliations cause genuine and understandable, personal hatred by the populace, escalation is then the only possible course. I pray that things haven't yet gone this far in our current situation. In our current crisis, Islam is the "demon" that has been constantly provoked. Since the 1945 the following major provocations have been seen (amongst others):

Support of Israel's brutal oppression of Palestine - this is probably the longest standing insult to Islam that the West has in its history and is still going on today as the US and Britain fund and supply the Israeli army in its dirty work.

Iran / Iraq war, funding and encouragement - Early in the war Iran enjoyed many covert arms shipments from the US but as they began to win, Iraq was provided with chemical and biological weapons by the US and Britain! This is a classic example of Western States provoking and sustaining a war between two Islamic nations as a means to control them. According to a New York Times article in August, 2002, Col. Walter P. Lang, a senior defence intelligence officer at the time, explained that D.I.A. and C.I.A. officials "were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose" to Iran. "The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern," he said. One veteran said, that the Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas." "It was just another way of killing people - whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference."

Arming, training and subsequent abandonment of Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan - It is widely accepted that the US covertly armed and trained the Islamic warriors of Afghanistan to allow them to defeat the Russians in the 1979-1989 Afghan war. Once that war was won (and the Soviet Union had collapsed), the US then abandoned Afghanistan to the murderous terrorist-trained Mujahideen forces and the country soon fell into chaos and messy civil war.

Toppling the Taliban - although the Taliban was a brutal regime (is it any wonder when you consider the above point?), the most recent Afghan war was yet another example of a US-led western attack on a Muslim country.

Is it any wonder then, that many Muslims feel that the US and, by association / occasional support, Britain feel that Western "democracies" are pursuing a racist crusade to crush and destroy their culture and people around the world?

The Prime Minister's recent speech warning of coming terrorist attacks against Britain did not tell me anything I did not already know. We will continue to be a target of Islamic terrorism (often called "freedom fighting" by the people involved) if we continue to give support to the proposed war in Iraq and the "war on terror" in general. Terrorism cannot be fought using bombs. Terrorism is usually a symptom of oppression and injustice. Terrorism is the only way an impoverished and wounded people can hit back at their oppressors. I am not condoning violence, but trying to illustrate that in bombing Iraq "back to the stone-age" we will create legions more "terrorists".

The anti-war movement in Britain is getting larger by the day. I talk to lots of people around Cambridge and have met almost no-one who supports this racist and imperialist undertaking. I was at the Stop the War Coalition rally in London on the 28th of September and was amazed by the huge cross-section of society that was represented there. At least a quarter of a million people of all ages, races and religions. The grass roots opposition, being organised is vast and gaining more supporters each day despite a corporate media blackout (the biggest peace rally in Britain ever, received much less air-time than John Major's affair with Edwina Curry). This is what democracy looks like and if you, our leaders, do not realise this and start to listen, then you will soon find yourselves out of power, forced into insignificance before the rising tide of popular opinion.

We need to stop arms exports now. We need to stop warmongering now. We need to stop dependency on fossil fuels now. We need to bring about global fair-trade and an end to profit motivated, military-industrial hegemony now.

Please sign up as a supporter of The Stop the War Coalition today and show your constituency that you are ready to make the world a better place for all of humanity instead of continuing this cycle of suffering. I look forward to seeing your name on the list of individuals included in the coalition:

 http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

I am currently compiling a petition for the following from members of your constituency:

"We the undersigned wish to see Anne Campbell listed as a supporter of the Stop the War Coalition to indicate to her constituents her heartfelt commitment to global peace and prosperity for all."

I would appreciate it if you could pass this message on to your peers in Parliament.

Yours Sincerely
Daniel Alan Tomlinson
Cambridge Resident