Anti-war movement in London

peacenik | 26.09.2003 10:29 | Anti-militarism | London

“Future of the anti-war movement” at the London Social Forum
What lessons does the campaign against the Iraq war hold for our future activism? The London Social Forum invites you to reflect on political strategy and network with other activists to sustain a strong and democratic anti-war movement in London and beyond. The discussion will be opened by Naima Bouteldja, Mike Marqusee and Milan Rai.

What lessons does the campaign against the Iraq war hold for our future activism? The London Social Forum invites you to reflect on political strategy and network with other activists to sustain a strong and democratic anti-war movement in London and beyond. The discussion will be opened by Naima Bouteldja, Mike Marqusee and Milan Rai.

The London Social Forum (www.londonsocialforum.org) takes place from 10.30am to 6pm on Saturday 4 October at the London School of Economics, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE (nearest tube: Temple or Holborn).

The workshop on ‘The Future of the Anti-war movement’ takes place from 11.30-1pm. Other workshops throughout the day include Palestine solidarity, and the interaction between anti-war and refugee groups.

Naima Bouteldja is involved in Just Peace.

Mike Marqusee was formerly Press Officer for the Stop the War Coalition and organiser
of Americans Speak Out Against the War. He has just published Chimes of Freedom: The Politics of Bob Dylan’s Art.

Milan Rai is a co-founder of ARROW and Justice Not Vengeance, and author of War Plan Iraq and Regime Unchanged.

peacenik
Homepage: http://www.londonsocialforum.org

Comments

Hide the following 14 comments

This is why the anti-war movement failed

26.09.2003 10:52

The anti-war movement failed because your arguments against the war were so weak. You offered no alternative to ridding Iraq of Saddam's brutal regime. You offered no alternative to countering the threat posed by Saddam. You offered no alternative to stopping Iraq getting nuclear weapons. You offered no alternative to stadnig up up to brutal dictators. History has taught us that dictators can't be allowed to do as they want the world must stand up to them. That is the only way to ensure safety and freedom.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 the world could have turned its back and ignored what happened. But that would have set a very dangerous precedent gving the green light to dictators across the world to do as they wanted with no threat of a come back from the world community.

The integrity of the United Nations was also at stake in standing up to Saddam. If the UN is not prepared to back up its decisions with military action then what good is the UN? The UN can only earn the respect of countries across the world if it is prepared to enforce its decisions with military action.

Sometimes military force is neccessary and the only option when all others have failed. In the case of Iraq in 1990 everything was done to persuade Iraq to leave Kuwait, negotiation, sanctions, etc. But in the end military forces had to be used. Britain and America did not rush into the war with Iraq in march 2003. The war was a result of 12 years of chances that Iraq had thrown away.

Rockwell

yes your right Rockwell

26.09.2003 11:20

Because the US and UK always stand up to dictators don't they. Like for example Mubarak in Egypt, the dictatoral monarchies in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Musharaf in Pakistan oh s**t I forgot they're not dictators they are our allies and are being given millions of dollars worth of arms and aid as long as they do what their imperial master say. Dont give me that crap about nasty dictators. The US and their junior ally don't give a toss about democracy or freedom and have installed, supported and armed some of the must brutal regimes ever. Somosa, Pinochet, Suharto ...... and good old Saddam himself.

sly

I was talking about the UN and the US did not bring Saddam to power!

26.09.2003 11:43

I was talking about the integrety of the UN and why it must back up its decisions with military force as a last resort. If a big strong country invades a small weak one as happened in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait then the UN must stand up for justice.

By the way America and Britain did not bring Saddam Hussein to power. The CIA may have organised the coup in 1963 that brought the Baath Party to power but Saddam did not become president of Iraq until 1979. Iraq only became and ally of the west in 1980. Before that Saddam Hussein was very anti-western and got most of his weapons from the Soviet Union. America was very suspicious of Iraq even after 1980 and only backed Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war because the Ayotollah's extremist regime in Iran was thought at the time to be the greatest threat to the Middle East.

Rockwell

Or...

26.09.2003 12:24

"If a big strong country invades a small weak one as happened..."

when the US invaded Iraq
when the US invaded Afghanistan
when the US invaded Iraq the previous time
when the US invaded Panama
when the US invaded Vietnam

... and the list goes on.

Those invasions were more than justified!

26.09.2003 13:15

America invaded Iraq to liberate it from the genocidal, tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein and to remove the threat to world peace posed by him!

America invaded Panama to stop Noreiga because he was involved in smuggling cocaine!

America invaded Afghanistan to eliminate Al Qaeda and its terrorist training camps and to capture Osama Bin Laden after the Taliban had refused to hand him over or allow America to destroy the terrorist training camps. This was in response to a massive terrorist attack on US soil in which nearly 3,000 American civilians were killed by Al Qaeda!

America did not invade Vietnam, it went to the aid of South Vietnam which was being attacked and invaded by North Vietnam.

Rockwell

warmongering drivel

26.09.2003 14:33

As usual Rockwell you are partial with the truth.

The CIA has been shown to have used an offshore boat attack as a pretext
to attack Vietnam.
Noriega was disobeying his masters in the US. (just like saddo)

The US wants to control the whole region,if not by military then by
economics.(i.e. Nicaragua).

Why is it that the US also has several of it's previous 'client' dictators
living in 'retirement' in the US, having either served their purpose or been
thrown out.

As for Saddo,Of course he was happy to take soviet money for a while,but when the Iranians kicked out the US backed Shah,he was even happier to take the even greater
rewards from the US etc to defend US interests.
The Us only imposed sanctions after 1st gulf war to stop islamic militants taking over
until the US was ready to invade. As per R>Perle and the PNAC from 1998 onw.
And it only happened cos Bush was put in power and after 9/11. Before that Saddo
was not seen as a threat to anyone. Statements from Condo Rice and C.Powell and
our own Gov.

Of course,nothing is said about the threat from Israel.

greenlantern

3000 ....

26.09.2003 14:38

3000 civilians killed is indeed a terrible crime.

But that's approximately the number of civilian casualties reported in the US invasion of Panama, and substantially less than the number of civilians killed by:

* US-led sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s (UN agencies have estimated the sanctions to be responsible for somewhere between half a million and a million deaths due to lack of medical supplies etc);

* US atomic bombs dropped on Japanese cities in 1945;

and either similiar to or much less than the number killed in the 1973 coup in Chile, which was actively supported by the US admistration (Nixon, Kissinger et al) -- I've seen figures ranging from 3000 into the tens of thousands for that one. I could go on...

your arguments don't stand up

26.09.2003 15:20

Your arguments don't stand up. Iraq can't be liberated from Saddam's regime because America has also done bad things in the past. What sort of argument is that?

You admit the Saddam's regime was one of the most brutal and evil there has ever been but deny that action should be taken against it because other bad countries have been let off by the UN. Again another weak argument which doesn't stand up.

The whole point is was it right or not to invade and liberate Iraq from Saddam's brutal despotic regime. I think most people would agree that it was. The Iraqi people are now free from one of the worst regimes in the world. Britain and America have also pledged that they will bring democracy to the people of Iraq. No matter what bad things Britain and America did in the past they were right about Iraq!

Rockwell

?!

26.09.2003 15:50

> 1980. Before that Saddam Hussein was very anti-western and got most of his weapons from the Soviet Union.

Are you rewriting history?
Saddam was the powerbase from the day the CIA/British sponsored coup overthrew the only legitimate government to have existed in Iraqi history from the time the British set foot there.
Did you you know why the elected government was was overthrown?
This is the CIA/British sponsored coup of 1963 that overthrew Abd al-Karim Qasim, someone who had almost kicked out the western oil companies, wresteld the oil production into a national entity and forged the strongest friedship in the area with the then Soviets.

This allowed Saddam to come back to Bagdhad.

Saddam was in exile in Egypt as he botched up the 1959 CIA/British sponsored coup!

Further Saddam was only a thug with no backgroud in education to stand up alongside the nationalistic and still left leaning Baath party which was led by eminent academics in society that demanded educated leaders.
The baath party lost control briefly to democratic forces 1963-1965.
Another coup was needed and this time Saddam was behind General al-Baqir as deputy secretary general of the Baath party. Saddam was just muscles whereas al-Baqir was popular enough to be accepted by the Iraqis. A bit like ex-CIA director Bush as vice president and Reagan as the front.

So there is the reason why Saddam was in the background doing the dirty until 1979 when he took power as the party chief to coincide with the Iranian revolution.
Now you cannot blame the CIA for having a man as stand by when they had the Shah doing the dirty for them? Yes the west had both Iran and Iraq under their control but still fucked up.
Still true, the Baath party was left leaning until Saddam now fully backed up by the US started wielding supreme power by killing all local oponents within the party itself.
The man invaded Iran.
The fist chemical attack took place on Iranians as early as 1980. The west either ignored the Iranian reports or simply released blank meaningless statements against chemical weapons.
As the Scott report revealed to small extents there was clear arming of Saddam on chemical weapons and long distance delivery systems from the UK.
It was given the biggest boost by vice president Bush who was running the 'show'. Then came the big chemical attacks. Halabja, 1988 looks a joke. That was Saddam's history for you Rockwell.

Now you definitely should know that the Iranian revolution was backed by the Soviets.
At the height of the war both sides had armaments from the wrong side of the cold war. Iran had Sha's legacy the Iraqi army was a Soviet used weapons dump.
so they went on buying parts and ammunitions.

NOw comes the really funny part.
Guess how Bush sold the weapons systems Iran required?
Go read up.
IT features cocaine, Noriega, Panama, Nicaraguan death squads ....the whole works.
It makes you a real fool Rockwell. Grow up.

ram

Problem, Reaction...

26.09.2003 17:50

One way which has proved effective in getting rid of genocidal dictators, is for the USA to intervene, lay waste the region and commit the genocide themselves. Mass slaughter, that's the answer, then there will be no more poor people for despots to oppress.

Solution

rockwells lies

26.09.2003 19:22

Can't be bothered to answer all Rockwell's lies, just the one he keeps repeating; that Saddam wasn't our friend till the Iran war and even then we weren't big friends, which is complete bullshit. The US and the Shah supported the Kurds against the Iraqi regime because Iraq was more in the Soviet than American influence, however, in 1975 an agreement was reached between the Shah and Iraq, and a hidden part was that Iraq would wean off the soviets and become become under American influence. That is why Kissinger famously said you shouldn't confuse covert operations with missionary work (or something) (because the kurds then got slaughtered and repressed by the ba'athists, now america's friends). Both the US and Soviets opposed the 1979 revolution, the soviets even more because they dictated over many islamic areas, had the afghan problem, etc. The US still gave him chem, bio, etc weapons, and maggie thatcher violated her own sanctions to aid saddam.

afdaf

Finally..

26.09.2003 22:46

Saddam was no more than a tool.He still may have a use hence his airlifting out of Iraq at the fall of Baghdad. Much like Osama his demon status is preserved to provide a backup for engineered bad events on the world stage
For this he must be demonstrated to be still alive and active and capable of offering periodic recordings for airing on al-Jazeera
It is truly a puppet show
And they think we're fooled?

America invaded Panama to reposses the canal

27.09.2003 17:56

Nothing to do with Noriega and his cocaine dealing while on the CIA payroll. The lease on the Panama Canal was supposed to expire in 1999, but, unlike Britain giving back Hong Kong to China (which is too big and powerful to invade), the US decided they were going to keep it. Of course, Britain tried to keep Suez from Egypt when its lease expired, and that didn't quite work.

It's quite refreshing to hear from someone like Rockwell who has all the official explanations down pat and in one place, as he does. You can tell these reasons are lies because they are absolutely shallow and vacuous. Any attempt to explore the basis of an alternative reason deeper than just the skin is known as subscribing to a "conspiracy theory".

Has he got explanations for the US invasion of Cuba and Grenada?

goatchurch

welcome goat

28.09.2003 19:35

for all your questions the answers lie in places like this

http://www.jbs.org/visitor/campaigns/canal/
and some understanding of the willingness and zeal of the millions of 'folk' who need action locally topreserve thier 'freedom'.

Hope this is helpful.If in doubt abd think I may provide answers please ask.

ram