There is a dull pain in the pits of our stomachs. There are tears waiting to break out from our eyes. There is an ache in our jaws as we try to pull a smile for our friends and comrades. Somehow the words when they come out in debate and discussion, fail to hide the quiver of melancholic and helpless compassion.

Our impassioned efforts for peace has been crushed, in extremely slow motion, by the juggernaut of Empire. One by one, with an air of inevitability we have been patronised, ignored and in quite a few instances, attacked. Every ounce of Hope has, till now, been met with a ton of despicable deceit. We are deeply distraught and thoroughly disgusted that the world’s citizenry have been betrayed and sold into slavery of the military industrial complex, led by a handful of vacuous barbarians with grandiose titles of President and Prime Minister.

The fourth estate has been raped and relegated to the red light quarters of any thinking human being’s conscience. Apart from a few brave ones who have dared to confront the deception and donned the mantle of truth, the vast majority have blanketed themselves with make-up and the malodorous dung-heap of outright lies, untruths and disinformation. Free press, now, stands as an oxymoron.

About a fortnight ago, the British parliament voted for a war against Iraq against the backdrop of strident pleas of “No War on Iraq! No War on Iraq!” The earnest desperation in the strident voices was far more striking than the “piece to camera” of the BBC political editor’s smug expression, or his even more smug hyperbole.

And then a precious few days back, the people of the world, lost. The bombs and missiles spoke, drowning out all pleas in thunderous explosion. The first casualty was truth; the second, humanity and the third, civilisation. The suited barbarians, with appropriately serious expressions, now adorn the TV screens and papers with cries of “freedom”, “liberation” and “democracy” dripping from bloodthirsty lips and with arrogant conviction.

Since the 20th of March 2003, the criminal superpower and its appeasing allies have begun to accelerate, exponentially, an ongoing and outrageous genocide. They have started to use frighteningly destructive munitions than ever used in the last 50 odd years. The tactics of “shock and awe” have begun to take effect. No! Not necessarily on the Iraqis – they are too busy burying the dead and scrounging for food and water- but on world opinion.

Each thundering blast awakens another batch of souls to the evolving circumstance and the realisation of what we, the people, have done at the ballot box by electing murderers in sharp, Savile Row clothing.

Beyond the new stirrings within the anti-war and peace movements in the world over, each missile and bomb has stirred to life the feelings of Arab pride. After much drama and posturing, after months of media hype and stage management, the guns of the West have fired...

And shot themselves, quite successfully, in the foot.

It is almost a guarantee the persons haunting the corridors of Project for a New American Century and other such cowardly cabals of the fascist neo-cons, would never have dreamed of Iraqi exiles, under the threat of death from Saddam, would be voluntarily and determinedly, boarding buses in their thousands to protect their land and align themselves on the side of Saddam Hussein and his cohorts. Worse news followed with the smoothing over of Muslim factions by issue of several fatwas by Imams in Egypt, Iraq and Iran, essentially to espouse Iraq’s defence, whether Shi’a or Sunni. The defence and tactics of Iraqi forces, right or wrong, has inflamed Arab and Muslim pride, after years of discounting their opinion or giving them any respect.

Regardless of consequences, the growing confidence of fighting the good fight, bodes ill for those egomaniacs who thought that they could be patronising, albeit benevolent Emperors who want ex-Enron layabouts suck on Iraq’s oil reserves!

In the number-crunching by overnight flock of Middle-East analysts, or the vulture-like positioning of corporate bids and tenders for Iraqi reconstruction, or the media coverage of asset degradation and poignancy of coalition funerals; not a single mainstream TV channel, in the USA or UK, has managed to mention a simple figure… the estimated death toll among the civilians of Iraq.

Hey, guys? Aren’t we supposed to liberate these folks from Saddam’s tyrannical grip? How can we be greeted with hands full of flowers when the hand is left clutching a door handle of a marketplace shop and the body lying elsewhere? No answer…

No, we are too busy castigating Al Jazeera for showing images that spoil our dinners, while surreptitiously haggling for footage of the same. Our “unbiased” and suitably camouflaged journalists have either been kicked out of Iraqi cities for being “too unbiased” or are “in bed” with stories of halitosis, constipation or rancid armpits. It would be farcical, if it were not for hundreds of real life and death stories that we are creating each and every day on the Iraqi streets. These stories ought to rate higher in humanity’s estimation. They are the stories of human potential, lost or mangled, for eternity. These stories are of ordinary people who have no guns, no anaesthesia, no emergency airlifts, a dire lack of medicines and just a simple question “Why are you bombing us?”

Don’t all rush to answer! We ought to defer this one to our wise and sanctimonious warmongers.

Till now, there have been up to 545 verifiable civilian deaths and more than 4,500 civilian wounded. It would be a wild conjecture to ascertain that how many of those would survive, given the state of Iraq’s health system, courtesy our “humanitarian” sanctions and continued “softening and ground preparations”.

And how many thousands have we butchered for the temerity of holding a gun, in the cause of defending their own violated country? Or are they not entitled to do so? They are dying by thousands for the sake of the so-called security of America and, almost certainly have never set foot closer than 5,000 miles of its shores. The closest that they have ever come to Americana is the searing and jagged shrapnel that tore away their life and buried itself in their guts.

We cannot discount our own 137 needless deaths, sacrificed on behalf of stoking the warm and glowing feeling among our cold, grey leaders with over-sized egos.

We mourn all the dead! Right or wrong, theirs or ours! Our conscience demands a tear or two at the heartbreak and grief of all our own brothers and sisters, whether they be here or there…. Arab, Caucasian or otherwise.

So, today, we are allowed to cry. We are allowed to hold our common humanity in our arms for comfort and succour. Today, we have respite to heal, to wash our wounds with our tears. The sad and inevitable fact is that today will be one of many impending todays!

Unless, from tomorrow, WE, THE PEOPLE, forcibly wrest our right to co-exist in peace, with our myriad mosaic of cultures and beliefs, from faceless, monolithic corporations and their puerile proxies that continuously fool, lie and betray us.

From tomorrow, let us join the hundreds of millions that have already come out in peaceful marches and vigils the world over.

From tomorrow, let us join the quiet billions that have condemned this on-going barbarism by writing an anonymous letter or by standing bravely alone, in a spring downpour at dusk, guarding a spluttering candle, lighting the encircling gloom.

Three decades ago, a smaller number of people than today, stopped a wrong war. It was a war to expand markets and obtain theatre control. A song from that period, sung evocatively by Joan Baez, captures the feeling and hope for today:

Like these flowers at your door
And scribbled notes about the war
We're only saying the time is short
And there is work to do.
And we're still marching in the streets
With little victories and big defeats
But there is joy and there is hope
And there's a place for you!

And you have heard the voices in the night, Bobby
They're crying for you
See the children in the morning light, Bobby
They're dying!

Let us stop this catastrophic carnage immediately!

LET US STOP THE WAR NOW!!!!


- Avijit Dutta
- (Member of Mid Sussex Global Peace Campaign and can be contacted at  peacelad@yahoo.co.uk)