PEACE MARCH - LONDON - OCT 17th 2004

Cool!

 

Well being as we have paid for tickets to the esf i plan to pack in as much as i can as we will be at seminares til 9pm will you still be in this pub? Will some one take it apon themselves to call me if you move? how hard will it be to get from camden to the millenuim done late-ish? Any one local who can help? Sorry I am extremely demanding but I need help on this one lol,

Mistress Ailsa xxx

 

Give me a ring when you're done... am not sure about how to get to camden from the millenium, but whenever i am in London i just tend to go to the nearest tube station and ask there... they usually stick me on the right train

We can walk you guys back to the tube / taxi / whatever anyway

Love Clairexxx

 

Sorry Guys but after seeing the news footage of Iraqi mass graves and reading news reports of Iraqs appalling human rights abuses where thousands and thousands were tortured and imprisoned just for critising Saddam's regime I for one wont be going on this demonstration.


OK so the sercet intellegence reports that led us to war turned out to be unreliable but Saddam's crimes far outweigh those mistakes for example here are just a few:

The use of poison gas to murder thousands of Kurds and
Iranians.

The invsion of Iran and subsequent war which cost a million lives.

The invasion of Kuwait in 1990 which cost tens of thousands of lives and which needed half a million UN troops to reverse.

His attempt to assassinate former President George H.
Bush (Dubya’s dad) in 1993.

The way he harboured one of the bombers who attacked the World Trade Center that year.

I support you on other issues and causes but not this one. This was one war which was neccessary. I know a lot of wars aren't but this one was an exception.

 

If this were what the war was about then you would have had a case ... fifteen years ago. Many of those who were opposed to the invasion of Iraq are the same people who have been consistently highlighting the human rights abuses going on in Iraq since the 1980s ... a time when nobody in government would listen to us because that's when we were friends with Saddam and were selling him arms to use against Iran.

The humanitarian abuses of the 1980s (and the last major one, the crushing of the Shia uprising in 1991 which was a direct consequence of Bush Snr's war) are not what the war was about. I will be going on this demonstration like I've gone on the others to protest a government which was willing to lie about the threat posed by Iraq and is now willing to lie about having the interests of the Iraqi people at heart when the reason for it was always strategic, as part of America's long term energy security and full spectrum dominance agenda. Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a monstrous tyrant; so are many other world leaders, many of whom we are currently allied with. It disgusts me that our government sees the lives of the people suffering under these regimes solely in terms of the underlying strategic and economic importance of the region.

"I do believe that there was a moral case for deposing Saddam Hussein, who was one of the world’s most revolting tyrants, by violent means. I also believe that there was a moral case for not doing so, and that this case was the stronger. That Saddam is no longer president of Iraq is, without question, a good thing. But against this we must weigh the killing or mutilation of thousands of people; the possibility of civil war in Iraq; the anger and resentment the invasion has generated throughout the Muslim world and the creation, as a result, of a more hospitable environment in which terrorists can operate; the reassertion of imperial power; and the vitiation of international law. It seems to me that these costs outweigh the undoubted benefit."
- George Monbiot

 

Thousands upon thousands of Iraqi people died in the first gulf war, be very wary of emotive reports concerning mass graves. We do not yet know for sure how these people died and they may or may not be victims of Saddam Hussein.

We have to wait and see for sure, but it seems strange that these finds have been made at this point in time.

 

It seems likely they are from the reports. They are up around Baghdad. Yes hundreds of thousands of Iraqi conscripts were butchered in southern Iraq in the first gulf war, many of whom were buried in their trenches by American armoured bulldozers.

 

Yes I know Britain and America behaved wrongly by supportting Saddam Hussein in the past, but that does not make the recent war to oust Saddam wrong in itself. Even if the reasons given for the war were based on false intellegence. What is at stake is that whether it is right to overthrow a regime which is extremely oppresive and murderous.

I know that there are also many other tyrannical regimes which have been ignored by the West, but surely Saddam's regime was a case apart. For example what regime sets fire to hundreds of oil wells, pours crude oil into the Persian Gulf after it had surrendered at the end of first Gulf War.

Saddam's regime in its 24 years before it was overthrown had been responsible for countless death and suffering and contiuning death and suffering. We know that every war results in a certain amount of death and suffering itself, but the amount of death and suffering had Saddam's regime been left in power would have been far greater in the long run. Remember people in Iraq risked imprisonment, torture and even death for merely criticising Saddam's regime. And freedoms which we take for granted like a free press, the right to strike, the right to a fair trial were unknown in Iraq. People were tortured, mutilated and executed on a mere whim without any hope of ever getting justice for themselves or there relatives.

Now at last Saddam and leading members of his regime will face justice for crimes against humanity.

 

Might I just point out that this forum is for sharing information regarding parties and protests? If you want to discuss issues raised, there are plenty of other forums where this can be done. Debating these issues here just clutters up threads making the information in the threads hader to find.

 

This is simply not true. Saddam's worst excesses were the Anfaal against the Kurds, the Iranian war (we armed and supported him) and the massacre of the Shia (which we allowed to happen). There's no evidence whatsoever that these kinds of abuses were going on at all in the last 13 years. Saddam was pretty much contained and his regime was militarily and logistically crippled following the first gulf war.

President Karimov of Uzbekistan is currently committing far worse human rights abuses than this, as are the theocratic rulers of Saudi Arabia. Difference? We're strategic allies with them. The whole humanitarian justification is one big fat LIE.

 

True, sorry. It's not the right place to debate the merits of the protests themselves, but when someone comes along getting their facts wrong in an attempt to diminish the importance of the protest it's hard not to get involved...

 

Yeah, I totally understand. Just a general comment for people to ponder really.....

 

yeh, thanks Dok... I've put a few forum rules up now just to make that clear to people

I love a good debate myself and don;t want to stop any of them, but this isn;t really the right place.

Like Dok says it just makes it harder for people to get the info they want and arrange to meet up with each other.

I'll see if we can split the debate off and move it to the main forum

Love Clairexxx

 

Grur, I can't go . I have 10 pence in me wallet and I think i'm going to have to work in the college canteen on sunday to gain some money to get out of here.


So sorry! Have a great march though!

Love,
Sunny
xxx

 

Awww was looking forward to seeing ya!

Never mind, will see you soon me hopes

Thanks for the well wishes

Love Clairexxx

 

That still makes Saddam one of the worlds biggest ever war criminals and his past atrocities are jusification for ending his regime and bringing him and others responsible for the atrocities to justice. Not only that but ousting Saddam has paved the way for democracy and freedom in Iraq. Yes I know there are other vile regimes, I for one would support the ousting of Mugabe the butcher of Zimbabwe and think lack of action by Britain and America over his abuses is appalling. But that does not make action to remove Saddam wrong.

Now we all know that there is massive resistance to US and British forces in Iraq, but these resistance movements are no freedom fighters. The international left here are making the same mistakes they made when Russian invaded Afghanistan in 1980 and they supportted the Mujihaden who were reactionary Muslim fanatics. Instead we should be supportting the democratic and progressive movements in Iraq such as the non othordox muslim Kurdish leaders and parties such as the Worker Communist Party of Iraq, which is now free to operate. And the call to withdraw all British and American troops is too simplistic it will leave Iraq in the hands of reactionary muslim extremists. What we should call for is the replacement of British and American troops with a UN peace keeping force made up mostly of troops from neighbouring arab countries who the Iraqi people can trust.

 

TreeHouse, did you miss Claire's post?

She started a new thread for your debate.....

http://hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38294

 

What other issues do you support "us" on? I am intrigued.... cos so far I havent seen any support of anything "we" (whatever we is) stand for on here...

With confuddlement and (still, barely) an open mind.... Clairexxxx

 

He's just a fucking troll. Or a Tory. Either's better of dead, so take your pick.

 

Well I have been involved in the left far longer than you. I went on the anti-poll tax march, the anti-criminal justice bill marches and CND marches. Aswell Mayday anti-capitalist demonstrations. That is one of the reasons I thought the war on Iraq was right because people in dictatorships have no right to protest or any sort of political action however benign. Therefore removing such regimes is a good thing even if the cost is high in the short term. The left haven't always opposed every war either, thousands of left wingers and anarchists for example volunteered to fight in the Spanish civil war against dictator Franco between 1936 and 1939.