Bruce Kent speaks in Swindon (report)

Disclaimer: this is not a full transcript of the meeting, not do I claim to cover every point which was raised. Rather, it is my attempt to summarise the more important issues, and spread Bruce Kent’s important message a bit further than just the people who were in that room.

Lord Stoddart, formerly the Labour MP for Swindon until 1983, chaired the meeting, and passed on apologies from Kate Hudson of CND, who had also been scheduled to speak about the situation in Iraq, but unfortunately had to pull out at the last minute due to circumstances beyond her control. As it happened, he stepped into the breach and delivered a fine summary of the current situation in Iraq, and the recent history leading up to where we are now.


===== Contents:

1) Lord Stoddart’s speech
2) Bruce Kent’s speech
3) Questions and answers
4) My thoughts
5) Footnotes
6) Announcements



===== 1) Lord Stoddart’s speech


He said that he hates war, but did not consider himself a pacifist (there being a definite difference between the two, which is not apparent to many outside the anti-war movement), and he believed that there were circumstances when war was the only option (Iraq 2003 not being one of those circumstances). However, he respected pacifists for standing by their beliefs.

He reminded us of the original case put forward by the UK government for invading Iraq – doctored intelligence leading to the lie that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which could be used to target UK military interests in Cyprus [1] at 45 minute’s notice. This was most likely the major factor which swung the majority of MPs in that crucial vote just days before the invasion, and many of them would not have supported the invasion otherwise.

He also reminded us that Tony Blair had claimed that Saddam was trying to arrange a supply of Uranium from Niger – something which even the CIA said was a lie.

Of course, once it became apparent that there were no WMD on standby in Iraq, Bush and Blair had changed their story and claimed that the objective of the war was to remove an evil dictator who had used chemical weapons (supplied by western governments) against Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds, and who had tortured and imprisoned anyone who opposed him (Abu Grahib? Guantanamo Bay?). This is a different story to the one he was telling immediately before invasion. On 25th February 2003, Blair said in a commons debate that he was willing to let a disarmed Saddam stay in power in Iraq:

“and even now, today, we are offering Saddam the prospect of voluntary disarmament through the UN. I detest his regime—I hope most people do—but even now, he could save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully.”

Source – the Hansard official record of parliamentary proceedings:  http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030225/debtext/30225-05.htm#30225-05_spmin1

The real reason for invading Iraq, said Lord Stoddart, was that Bush and Blair had agreed two years previously on this course of action, and that Blair had cooked up the fantasy of WMD in order to drum up support in parliament for the invasion. Only war could achieve the goals the US government had for Iraq - a permanent military presence to ensure strategic control of the region (and did someone say oil?).

He extended his sympathy to the loved ones of the British soldiers whose transport plane was shot down in Iraq a few days ago, but pointed out that while every British death is being counted and mourned, the occupation forces aren’t even trying to count the far higher number of Iraqi deaths.

Moving on to the current situation in Iraq, over eighteen months after Bush had unilaterally declared “mission accomplished” from the deck of an aircraft carrier, he compared it with the situation before the invasion.

Before: Electricity, water, fuel, all in fairly good supply
Now: Electricity and water frequently cut off, and long queues for petrol – in the country with the worlds second largest oil reserves.

Before: A secular, secure and stable country [2].
Now: Terror, bombing and shelling.

He also pointed out recent reports of £8 billion of money intended for rebuilding the country, lost. The auditors just don’t know where it is.

He believed that the governments of the US and UK would try to use the recent Iraqi elections as a vindication of their illegal invasion, but he reminded us that he had fought (in the political sense) more elections than any member of the cabinet. He believed that democracy was the only way forward, but that we haven’t even got democracy right here yet. The US is also far from a genuine democracy, after all Bush was originally brought to power on a minority of the vote, some highly suspicious amendments to the electoral register, and legal wrangling which culminated in the presidency being decided based on the ratio of Republicans to Democrats in the supreme court.

Lord Stoddard then moved on to describe the current situation in the UK – is democracy better here now as a result of the war?

The public are held in a state of fear, where the houses of parliament are surrounded by ugly concrete blocks and guards toting machine guns, and where access to parliament is more restricted than at any time since Charles the first [3] [4]. He said he was more scared of those guards than of any terrorist.

He condemned the idea of imprisoning someone without trial, without evidence, without knowing what they are suspected of, especially where that decision is made not by a judge or a jury, but by a politician. He also condemned the proposal to extend those powers to UK citizens, and to their friends and family, saying it smacks of fascism.

No, he concluded, democracy is not better here, it is worse. Previous Labour leaders such as Clement Atlee, Nye Bevan, nor Michael Foot would not have taken this course, and he promised to use his position in the House of Lords to oppose these plans.

To round up his speech, Lord Stoddart spoke of withdrawing British soldiers from Iraq. Opposition to the war and occupation is not the same as not supporting the troops, he said – the best support we can give them is to bring them home, out of harm’s way [5].

Lord Stoddart then introduced Bruce Kent by reading his biography, for the benefit of those too young to remember his high profile in campaigning against nuclear weapons during earlier decades:

“Bruce Kent was born in London in 1929, went to school in Canada from 1940 to 1943, served as an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment from 1947 to 1949, studied Law at Oxford University 1949-52, was ordained a Catholic priest in 1958, and was Catholic chaplain to the University of London from 1966 to 1974. He served as General Secretary and Chair of CND between 1980 and 1990. He was Chair of War on Want from 1974 to 1976, President of the International Peace Bureau from 1985 to 1992 and is currently Vice-President of CND, and Chair of the newly-formed Movement for the Abolition of War. [6]”

He is respected by both his supporters and his opponents.


===== 2) Bruce Kent’s speech


This is a very threatening time in history, said Bruce Kent. He urged anyone who had not done so, to read a novel called 1984 by George Orwell [7], because that is where we are heading. Goebbels, the propaganda minister in Nazi-era Germany, said “Tell them they’re under threat and they’ll do what they’re told”. We are conditioned to think we are under threat, in order that we will accept increasingly draconian restrictions on what have previously been considered basic human rights.

In 1945, following the end of the Second World War, The UK and US, amongst other countries, signed up to the Charter of the United Nations, which prohibits going to war except in the face of aggression, and then only under the control of the UN Security Council – the invasion of Iraq was not in accordance with this charter. The UK has also ratified the International Criminal Court, which has the jurisdiction to try war crimes.

When Saddam was using chemical weapons at Halabja, neither the Labour nor the Tory party were interested in his war crimes, because at that time, Saddam was “our” ally against the revolutionary Islamic regime in Iran –until he became too powerful.

Bruce Kent pointed out that the Middle East must be rid of WMD completely. Rather than the vain hunt for WMD in Iraq, and the current sabre-rattling over Iran’s nuclear programme, it would be more sensible to start with nuclear disarmament in Israel, the one state in the region which already has nuclear weapons. After all, if one state has them, it is only natural for the others to want them.

Looking at the alternative courses of action which could have been taken in 2002-2003, but which were not explored by the US/UK coalition, he suggested a few possibilities:
* Human rights observers
* Restrictions on travel for Iraqi diplomats, so that they faced arrest if they left the country
* Bribery of Iraqi generals – although this may seem an immoral option, it would certainly be cheaper (in both monetary and human cost) than the war which happened.
Unfortunately, none of these options were explored by the coalition, because as Lord Stoddart had earlier pointed out, only war would fulfil the aims of the US in the region.

He compared the global annual military budget of $1000 billion, with the $2 billion given in aid to the victims of the recent tsunami, and with the cost of resolving the world’s major problems, such as:
$24 billion to prevent soil erosion
$50 billion to provide safe clean water
$15 billion to provide health care for everyone
$5 billion to eliminate illiteracy
$19 billion to eliminate starvation and malnutrition
Taken in this context, it seems utterly crazy to spend such a phenomenal amount of money on raising armies, just because everyone else is doing the same.

He pointed out that although France and Germany were at war twice during the twentieth century, it would be unthinkable now for them to do so again. Similarly, Norway and Sweden traditionally had a very hostile relationship, until they decided that it was pointless being hostile, and to open their borders and co-operate. He believes that following this model, we must continually enlarge the areas of the world where non-violent solutions are the norm, making war unthinkable.

So what is missing from the picture before we can make this a reality? Primarily, there can be no peace without social justice for everyone. There must be an end to the situation whereby people in affluent countries like ours consume far more than is good for us, while elsewhere 5 billion children are dying each year from entirely preventable causes.

Speaking about how to bring about the required change, he pointed out that most people think they have no control over their own destiny. We leave school having been conditioned to think that life is just something which happens to us, not something we are in the driving seat of. There are always some who believe that they do have some control over the future, and they are the people who make great things happen. Every major social advance, be it abolition of slavery, votes for women or whatever, was started by a few small people who were considered dotty by most other people. The same applies to the activists of today who are campaigning for an end to war, for a GM-free world, for action on climate change, and myriad other issues.

Finally, Bruce Kent addressed the burning question of “What Can I Do?”. Well, he didn’t provide a complete and all-encompassing answer, but on the subject of bringing about an end to war, he had the following advice:

* Support the Make Poverty History campaign. War and the preparation for war is the single biggest cause of poverty in the world. We must make the connection in people’s minds between war and poverty, and get that huge military budget spent on solving all the real problems in the world.
* Sign the petition calling all countries to comply with their obligations under the NNPT (Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty), to disarm all their nuclear weapons [8]. After all, it is hypocritical for Bush to tell Iran or North Korea that they are not allowed to develop nuclear weapons, when he has his finger on the metaphorical button of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.


===== 3) Questions and Answers


Lord Stoddart then opened the meeting to the floor for questions, after saying that the UK should not have any nuclear weapons but has thousands, pointing out that the US is the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons in anger, and encouraging us to imagine how that $1000 billion military budget could be better used. Here are some of the points raised during this session:


Under Saddam, Iraq was united and secular. Now, the Kurds, Sunnis and Shia all want to rule themselves. Meanwhile the US will not want to relinquish control, because the US economy relies on control of the Middle East.

While Israel has nuclear weapons, we cannot expect other states in the region not to also want to be nuclear-armed. Of current interest is Iran, described by Bush in his latest State of the Union address as “the world’s primary state sponsor of terror”. The US government have been pressurising Iran for several years to abandon their research into nuclear technology. Tehran has repeatedly claimed that the research is purely for energy purposes, which is permitted by the NNPT, meanwhile the US has more nuclear weapons than any other country, is not decommissioning them, and is even researching a new generation of “more usable” nuclear weapons”, all of which is in clear breach of the NNPT. The NNPT cannot work in one direction only like Bush seems to think– it obliges ALL signatories to disarm their nukes.

The permanent military bases being built in Iraq make it yet another forward base from which the US can launch their next war, in much the same way as the 110 US military installations in the UK make our country a forward base for US wars.

Bruce Kent mentioned his attempt during earlier CND days to drop the “weapons” part of “nuclear weapons”, as they cannot really be considered a weapon, any more than a gun which fires in both directions. Although the target of a nuclear strike would be utterly devastated, the radioactive matter which would drift round the globe on the air currents would harm the target, the aggressor, and everyone else in more or less equal measure. As it happened, there was no real enthusiasm for this idea in CND.

One questioner gave an example of the hypocrisy and party-political opportunism displayed by members of opposition parties. James Gray, Tory MP for North Wiltshire, is now claiming he didn’t support invasion of Iraq, and using the issue as a convenient stick with which to bash the government. However, he was one of the many members of Her Majesty’s Opposition who failed to be an effective opposition during that critical vote in March 2003, and voted in favour of invasion.

The Impeach Blair campaign was mentioned. Lord Stoddard was very keen to have a debate in the House of Lords on whether to impeach, however this is not constitutionally possible at the moment, because if Blair were impeached and put on trial, it would be the Lords who would judge him. It would therefore be wrong for the Lords to pronounce him guilty beforehand. If however, the motion for a debate on impeachment in the Commons succeeded, it would be possible to force a debate on the subject in the Lords.

A member of the Peace Tax Seven spoke of their actions in withholding the portion of their taxes which is used to fund war. They are aiming to get a judicial review to grant the right for citizens to refuse to fund war. He asked us to ask our MPs to support Early Day Motion 116.  http://www.peacetaxseven.com/


===== 4) My thoughts


I found Bruce Kent to be a truly inspiring speaker, and to some extent, I feel it was a shame that on this day he was mostly preaching to the converted. If he is coming to your town, please go and see him, but also please do your utmost to persuade associates of yours who may not have opposed the war initially but are now starting to see the lies behind it, to go, and to listen to his reasons for ending war. I am only sorry that my shorthand skills are too poor to capture all that he said, so I cannot share it all with you now.

Listening to Bruce Kent was like a breath of fresh air in a foul world full of militarists and right-wing commentators all taking about the need to build up armies, produce more weapons, and restrict the rights of ordinary people, in the interests of “defence” and “security”.

Defence against what, exactly?

For too long, the word “defence” has been misused to describe to the squandering of huge amounts of public money on imperialist wars, and on subsidies for companies which sell all manner of devices for killing and torturing to all manner of repressive regimes around the world [9].

Security for who, exactly?

Security for those who gain power and profit from injustice, security from those who seek to bring about a more just world. The best way of ensuring our own security is to stop exploiting the developing world via “free trade”, enforced privatisation and other such global capitalist schemes, and instead to let everyone produce / grow whatever they do well wherever they do it well, to pay a fair price for what we import, and not to force Eskimos to buy our metaphorical ice. And if that means that we need to curb our excessive consumption, not buy a new mobile phone every two months and not buy an entire new wardrobe every season just because the shops tell us our existing clothes aren’t fashionable any more, then so much the better.

If the western / developed world stopped exploiting the rest of the world so much, there would be less resentment of the west in the rest of the world, and the few extremists who would like to recruit potential martyrs to attack us will find their supply of volunteers drying up.

The biggest challenge facing the anti-war movement at the moment, in my humble opinion, is how to reach out to, and re-engage, all those ordinary people (i.e. not activists) who joined us on the streets on 15th February 2003, but who after the invasion decided they’d failed to stop the war and just went back to their lives. Also, we must reach out to all those who were deceived by the WMD lies and initially supported the invasion, but have since seen through the lies. Politicians like Bush and Blair keep on about how their actions have spread “democracy” around the world, but the form of “democracy” practiced in the UK actually means that the people have not had a chance to hold Blair to account since he signed our country up to the “War on Terror”. This year, possibly in May, we have our first opportunity to remove him and his fellow warmongers from power in a general election. If we sit back and do nothing, then most of the electorate will just vote for whoever the Sun tells them to, like normal. We need the electorate to take a fresh view of the situation, undistorted by the warped lens of the corporate media, in order that the next government is one committed to genuine democracy, equality, social justice and peace.

After the meeting, a few people adjourned to the pub round the corner, a traditional venue for a bit of socialising after the regular organising meetings. One topic of conversation which came up was the history and geography of the Middle East. We recognised that most people are entirely ignorant of how the map of the Middle East came to be how it is today, and the involvement of European powers in shaping the current borders as a carve-up of the area following the First World War. Certainly in my history lessons at school, we didn’t learn anything about the Ottoman Empire and their involvement in WW1, and I grew up under the impression that the whole war consisted of a line of machine guns and trenches in Europe where millions were slaughtered with the aim of moving General Haig’s drinks cabinet a foot closer to Berlin. Although tragic and unnecessary, clearly this was not the whole story (see  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I for more information).

There was also some discussion over whether Iraq was a genuine geographical entity, or yet another artificial creation of European colonial ventures of past centuries. Does it make sense for Iraq to exist as a single country, or would it be more sensible for the Kurdish, Shia and Sunni areas to secede and form their own nations? Is it even valid to talk about Iraq as being divided along these lines, or is that just another artificial division superimposed on the region by the corporate media, as one of our previous distinguished speakers had said? Certainly, the area known as Mesopotamia has been a seat of civilisation since ancient times, sometimes called the breadbasket of the world because domestication of wheat is believed to have originated there [10]. George Galloway pointed out at his appearance at a public meeting in Swindon during November 2003, that Iraq held the world’s greatest library at a time when his ancestors were still running around wearing nothing but blue paint!

And so the idea was raised of a teach-in on the subject of the history and geography of the Middle East, and how it came to be how it is now. Nothing confirmed yet, but if / when it is, it’ll be advertised on the Swindon Stop the War Coalition web site’s events page:  http://freespace.virgin.net/swindon.stopwar/events.htm


===== 5) Footnotes


[1] No-one has yet managed to give me a legitimate reason for there being UK military interests in Cyprus, as it is not part of the UK, and is currently split between Greece and Turkey. Presumably it has something to do with its proximity to the Middle East.

[2] Pre-invasion Iraq had rather more religious freedom than many predominantly Muslim countries. Don’t forget that Saddam’s deputy, known as Tariq Aziz, was actually a Christian.

[3] Charles I was the king of England until executed during the Civil War, in 1649.

[4] One of the measures planned in the Serious Organised Crime and Police bill, along with restrictions aimed at criminalizing anti-vivisection campaigns, is legislation designed specifically to remove Brian Haw’s permanent anti-war protest in Parliament Square, and to outlaw protests at Trafalgar Square and Downing Street -  http://www.parliament-square.org.uk/defend.htm

[5] In a similar vein, peace campaigners in the South West are planning a peace camp at Brize Norton, the air base where British soldiers fly out from, and where the coffins come back to. The plan is to engage the soldiers and air base staff in dialogue, and to find common ground in opposition to the politicians who would send them to their deaths. See  http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire/display/21881/index.php

[6] Movement for the Abolition of War:  http://www.abolishwar.org.uk/

[7] In the book 1984, George Orwell described a chilling vision of the future, in which the world is divided into three superpowers which are perpetually at war, with two in alliance against the third. It doesn’t matter which is the ally and which is the enemy, only the fact that we are at war. “Big Brother”, the face of the ruling elite, watches over everyone via the telescreens which are installed everywhere. The protagonist, Winston Smith, works in the “Ministry of Truth”, the main business of which is continually re-writing history by “correcting” newspaper archives to suit the current aims of the rulers. Absolute patriotism and loyalty is required of all citizens, to the extent of actively believing all government propaganda, and not questioning any discrepancies. Failure to do so is considered “thoughtcrime”, and dissenters have a tendency to disappear. Associates of the disappeared have a tendency not to notice the disappearance, for fear of disappearing themselves. For more information, see the WikiPedia entry at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

[8] The petition for nuclear states to honour their obligations under the NNPT can be downloaded from  http://abolition2000uk.gn.apc.org/

[9] See  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2003/dsei/ for reports of a huge arms trade fair held in London during 2003, over the second anniversary of 9-11, where anti-terrorism police powers were widely used to harass protestors whilst protecting the dealers in death from any inconvenience.

[10] Of course, now, US biotech companies have decided that they know more about agriculture than the farmers who have been practicing seed saving and selection for thousands of years. Read about Paul Bremer’s Order 81 on intellectual property, and the biotech’s attempts to sell ice to metaphorical Eskimos:  http://www.theecologist.org/article.html?article=487  http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=6


===== 6) Announcements


On 15th February, the second anniversary of that historic day when millions of people took to the streets of London and other cities around the world to say Not In My Name, Swindon Stop the War Coalition will be holding a symbolic protest at the Cenotaph in Regents Circus from 12-1pm, with a pair of empty boots for every British soldier who has died in this illegal war. Please come along, and if you have a spare pair of boots, please bring them. In London, there will be a mass die-in at Parliament Square, and other events are being held around the country – see  http://www.stopwar.org.uk for more details.

On 19th March, there will be a national demonstration in London, probably the last one before the general election. Coach transport leaves Regents Circus college, Swindon at 10am, tickets £12/£6, phone 01793 612409 to book your place. See  http://www.stopwar.org.uk/coach.asp for transport from elsewhere in the country.

There will be a peace camp at Brize Norton from 21st to 24th April – see  http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire/display/21881/index.php for more information

Swindon Stop the War Coalition hold regular organising meetings on the first Tuesday of each month, and anyone who wants to get involved is welcome, regardless of political affiliation, religion or other arbitrary characteristics. See  http://freespace.virgin.net/swindon.stopwar/events.htm for details of the next meeting, and other events coming up.