This left Blair in a sticky condition! He had supported Bush in the war, had failed to find any weapons of mass destruction, and now was losing his popularity. At this point, he must have considered renouncing anything to do with Bush, unless, of course, he is stupider than he looks, which, I think, would be quite hard! However, he realised that, unless he did something positive to earn popularity back, he would lose the next general election.
One of Bush’s main excuses for the war was that Saddam and broken too many laws. However, it is quite obvious that he was just being greedy, and was doing for the money. Also, the State of Israel has broken just as many UN laws. Has America waged war against them, in support of Palestine? No. In fact, quite the opposite! Britain and America have been freely selling arms to Israel, knowing that they would be used against Palestinians. (Therefore, we in Britain should, no, must boycott Israeli and American goods (Israeli goods have a bar code beginning with 0810).)
What has been gained by this war? The answer is nothing. At least, nothing positive: At least twenty thousand Iraqi civilians have been injured, and the Iraqi death toll is estimated to be between eight and ten thousand! The UN’s word about permission for a ‘legal’ war now counts for nothing: having ignored it once, why will Britain and America bother obeying it in the future? And this war has cost billions of dollars. Only a week and a half ago George Bush put forward another six billion dollars! And that is English billions, not American, so that is $6,000,000,000,000!
And then, having lied to us, and gone against what, we, the population wanted, Blair invited over his ‘play’mate to Britain. But, of course, George Bush wouldn’t want to come unguarded, would he! It had cost us, yes, that is right, us, the British population, over six million pounds. He has had Buckingham palace half re-built ‘for his safety’. He has had his bomb-proof limo flown over, and a bomb-proof helicopter. Over a hundred personal bodyguards, some in uniform others not, and, worst of all, they have been ordered, by Bush, to shoot out at anything at all suspicious!
And it is perfectly clear that he has not wanted here. There have been mass ‘sit-in’s outside Buckingham Palace, organised by Voices UK, a peace group. Thousands, although the news claims only hundreds, gathered yesterday. And that wasn’t even the big demonstration! The real demonstration will be today, Thursday, at five o’clock. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are expected. But however many there are, police will give the news figures at least ten, if not one hundred, times less.
All over the country, against bush’s visit, there have been huge demonstrations. There was a huge (for Oxford) Oxford demonstration, organised by Oxford Stop the War Campaign (www.stopwar.org.uk), Oxford Students Anti-War Movement, and Brookes Stop the War. Hundreds turned up, for the first time since the major demos against the war, meeting either on Gipsy Lane, outside the main block of Brookes University, at the Plain, or on one of the other minor detours. The atmosphere, like at all demonstrations, was simply superb. Loud music, with strong, steady beats came from the front. Many slogans, like “Bush, Bush, we know you. You’re father was a killer, too!” or “Who let the bombs out? Bush, Sharon and Blair”, the latter being sung to the tune “Who let the dogs out”! There were placards, banners, models of Bush, and bicycle lights showing in the darkness.
So is there anything at all positive that has come from this harsh war? Yes, but only just. Saddam Hussein had been thrown from dictatorship, and has also been captured, found hiding in a hole in the countryside. But the Iraqi majority supported him against the coalition troops! And at what cost. All that was needed was a simple assassination, not a full-scale, bloody (with two meanings) war.
And, we, the people, did our very best to be heard. There were mass demonstrations, not just nation-wide, but Europe-wide! A demonstration on 15 February attracted a record-breaking turnout of about one million protesters, attracting worldwide attention. On the same day, Millions more marched throughout Europe -- in Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Rome and throughout the continent. In Damascus, 200,000 marched. Tens of thousands marched in Buenos Aires. In Toronto, 80,000 took to the streets. Amnesty International section heads from over 50 countries around the world, representing over 1.6 million members, delivered a petition to Tony Blair urging the UK government to abide by international law in the Iraq war. They also called on the UK to use its influence to ensure that its allies obey these laws, as required by Article 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. On the first day of the military action against Iraq, AI Greece organized a vigil in front of the Greek parliament in Athens together with 9 other Greek and international NGOs (Medecins Sans Frontieres, Medecins du Monde, Greenpeace, ActionAid, WWF Greece, Mediterranean SOS Network, Citizens in Action, and three youth organizations: Happy Children, Happy Youth, and ARSIS). The Dutch section organized a public action in front of the Dutch government building on 18 March 2003, just before the start of the debate on Iraq in the parliament. In the South Korean capital, Seoul, more than 2,000 people marched on the city centre to oppose the sending of South Korean troops to Iraq. A quarter of a million people took to the streets in the city of Sydney. One march, shortly before the annual Labour Party conference, started in Hyde Park and was followed by a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by speakers including Tony Benn, filmmaker Ken Loach and Labour MP George Galloway. George Galloway said "Foreign occupiers are not the solution to Iraq's problem, they are Iraq's problem."
These views are all summed up in the posters used in a Paris demo, ‘NON A LA GUERRE! NO TO WAR!’
I think that, quite simply, Bush and Blair, the (B)liars, have got to go. They deserve to be tried for war crimes, and to be convicted!
