7 Years On...

I thought it would be appropriate for some political reflection of the past 7 years. It was 7 years ago today that saw 2 million people (including myself) on the streets of London and 35 million worldwide. Demonstrating against the prospect of an invasion of Iraq. An invasion which unfortunately did happen and the occupation that continues until this day, As this was the beginning of my political activity the fact that not only the invasion happened but that the misery continues to this day is something which pains me everytime I think of it.


The day also had a personal significance to me, it was the day I joined the Socialist Party, which is not inconsequential on the matter. The demonstrations were an eclectic selection of people and individuals, significantly though there was a significant amount of young people involved this was where my generation who up until this point had not been politically involved but burst on to the scene in the biggest demonstration in British history, many demonstrators including myself were not at this point old enough to vote.


Unfortunately though over the years we have seen that despite the anger against the war the demonstrations have got smaller and smaller, we have seen national demonstrations go from the size of millions to a few thousand. It is not something that we as anti-war activists should just except but something we just learn from in order to avoid these mistakes again. Days after the demo the New York Times dubbed world public opinion "the second global superpower" Yet although the potential was there for the anti-war movement it become a superpower it was unable to. For a superpower doesn't just walk the streets and threaten no further action than that ultimately the anti-war movement did not provide any reason not to go to war other than public opinion and we all know that public opinion does not concern the government.


Whilst my peers around me slowly stopped coming to demonstrations because it seemed that they were not making a difference, the demonstrations starter getting smaller and consequently there was a domino effect where we had national demonstrations with only a few thousand despite pubic opinion remaining high against the war. I can only assume that those who simply stopped demonstrating because they felt that it was not working and indeed it wasn't, so the question you ask is why did I stay.


As I already mentioned this was the same time as I had joined the Socialist Party, the members I discussed with explained al this to me at the time so I was prepared to for it,but crucially they also presented an alternative strategy for a way forward, explained the need to escalate action,such as A call for a political strike at the 2 million strong demonstration. If that happened then the course of events could have been drastically different. Subsequently in the years following up until this point I have been arguing for the rebuilding of the anti-war movement and to learn the lessons from the past, i.e. it is pointless to resign ourselves to demonstration after demonstration with no prospect of further action.


The need to learn the lessons from reason history is something I have raised within the Stop the War Coalition, unfortunately some have responded to me by saying that the anti-war movement did not fail and that it achieved so much. This is the kind of response given to me about the rise of the BNP which you can read here. Now although saying things like this is done with the intention of keeping spirits high, it would be correct to say it is a lie. What is more it is clear that we have failed, Iraq was invaded and occupied and 100,000s have died. So we need to learn the lessons and re construct the movement rather than painting a huge defeat as a victory as unfortunately some do.

I would attribute the fact that so many youth left the movement whilst I stayed to my membership of the Socialist Party, because it was through this party that I was given and extremely good political education explaining the need to escalate action on the movement would die a death. Although one might say a pessimistic outlook, it was a honest appraisal of the situation which not only prepared me for the inevitable demoralising decline on the anti-war movement but more importantly gave me a strategy of how to fight for this to be prevented.

7 years on from the biggest demonstration in British history, it is time we learn the lessons. So that we can end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

You are a Liar and a Murderer!

 Yesterday Tony Blair faced the Chilcot Inquiry over the Iraq war. An issue which had a profound effect on me personally as it was what turned me into an activist, so with my hatred of Blair all clear and out in the open what happened?

The enquiry from start to finish has been a farce declaring from the outset that the findings would not result in any prosecutions. Which brings into question the whole point of the inquiry, if not charges will be brought, if it won't result in a troop withdrawel and it obviously cannot reverse the damage caused to millions already.

Despite this Blair showed absolutely no remorse and the inquiry did not really push him all that much. Afua Hirsch from the Guardian said: 

He responded to a question about the controversial intelligence dossier with a speech about how seriously he takes the nuclear threat from Iran. He responded to a question about weapons of destruction in Iraq with a a reply about military action taken joinlty with Bill Clinton in 1998.

It wasn't restricted to simply avoiding the questions put to him George Galloway went as far as to say 

He was allowed to report that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions in general and 1441 in particular. But in fact, they weren't in breach of it. There were no weapons of mass destruction..... Blair was allowed to tell a blatant lie.

The whole thing was clearly just for show and it was put incredibly well by Haifa Zangana when she said

Undergrads would have asked more probing questions.

Of course she is absolutely right and as an undergrad myself here coming the more probing investigation albeit confined to my blog. The whole argument about the legality of the invasion puzzles me as it was taken as fact previously that it was. Despite a vote in parliament agreeing to the invasion, the British government had no jurisidcition within Iraq and the UN didn't saction it. Not that the rights and wrongs should be determined by the law of the land.

I guess the argument about whether it was legal or not is focusing on whether the infomation provided was correct or not, but once again wasn't this blatantly obvious to anyone at the time. Blair said the 45 minute claim was a minor point so didn't really matter but it was picked up by the media. Now that may be true except for one important detail, Blair nor any other government official tried to correct the misinformation of the media. Quite happy to ride it out with a Lie. He also stated that it wouldn't have made a difference if the weapons inspectors had been given more time it would not have made a difference, well he's got that right they certainly would not have found any weapons.

By looking at what Blair actually said he made it clear that this was only able to happen in the post 9/11 era and that it was possible to gather the forces to do so! That despite there being no evidence between Saddam Hussien and Al'Qaida (and how would you find a link between a secular regime and religious hardiners?) that he could no longer take the risk with countries who wanted to aquire weapons of mass destruction.  Then went on to say that they did everything to stabilise Iraq, to stop attempts to distabilise the economy by protecting the oil fields.

So it's there that Blair gives us the real reason, Oil its the only explanation why so many barbaric regimes are left alone or become good 'friends'. Throughout the whole process Blair makes it quite obvious to anyone seriously looking at it that here knew what was really going on at the time and just lied for the sake of war. He claims that it has made the world a safer place but once again this is a blatant lie and doesn't really compare well up against the facts

Blair did however tell a couple of truths, the first being that the cabinet were well informed and made the decision collectivey, it is clear that they were all in on it and Blair is just being seen now as an individual to take the blame, not that he doesn't deserve it but the rest of them do too.

The other truth which he tells is that we shouldn't ask the questions of 2003 in 2010, we should be asking the questions of 2010 in 2010. So let's do it. Why are there still 7 years later imperialist troops occupying Iraq as well as Afganistan causing terror and destruction!

Meanwhile it is clear that Blair will walk free without any problems or a care in the world, unfortunately the same can not be said for Joe Glenton who is facing a 2 year sentence for going awol and  refusing to fight in these imperialist wars