This Saturday, I’ll be joining hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of other ordinary people all around the globe in a protest. What’s it about? Well…

–> We’re protesting that the US and its lackeys illegally invaded a non-aggressor country, citing pre-emptive attack as a justification. The exact same defence used by the Nazis in their Nuremberg trials. Yes, our great, freedom-loving leaders are openly following Nazi doctrine.

–>But most of all we’re protesting to try and stop this happening again.

There is little doubt now that the US is actively pursuing the doctrine set out in the PNAC document. This policy is basically one of establishing the US as the dominant superpower through a series of wars. Object lessons of the US’ might, to frighten us all into submission.

Iraq was simply the first rung on the ladder of PNAC.

How many more people will die as a result of a right-wing cabal’s psychotic plans for power? Now that the Soviet Union is long gone, what other superpower can challenge America’s dominance?

Only one: us.

We have to fight the power. We have to go beyond words and physically get on the streets, in such numbers that we can’t be ignored. It’s not enough to grumble at the news, Bush and Blair won’t hear you. We have to make the news for them to be affected.

Now is the time we most need to stand up and be counted. Our glorious leader, Butcher Blair, has made Britain into Airstrip One. We have to show him we don’t want to remain a US staging post.

Last year, we created the biggest political demonstration in British history to try and stop Blair. We did that. Last year. Not back in the 60s, not back in the 80s – last year. And even though the mass media typically obscured the true importance of that demo, it had an effect on Blair. It reigned him in, albeit marginally. We saved lives. If I can save a life simply by marching a few miles, I think that’s a good use of my time.

This is what you must realise: you have power. You can change your own life, you can change the entire world, if you’d only try. Ignore the chattering classes and the Murdoch-owned media: their agenda is to make you feel powerless and impotent. Cynicism, sarcasm and apathy will only lead you into a life not lived, a ghost life.

It’s as simple as this: if you give up your time/money to make it to an antiwar protest this Saturday, you may help to change history. Just the same as the Spanish people did when they voted out the warmonger Aznar. You very possibly may help to change US foreign policy, saving lives yet to be lost to the liberating cluster bombs of the USAF.

Even more simply, this is our world. We’re torn between madmen whichever way you look. Madmen distorting Islam and creating the horrific carnage of the WTC attack or madmen following the dictates of free-market capitalism to its ultimate reduction: war. We can’t let these madmen run our lives, we can’t let them drag us into wars that benefit only their own insane philosophies. We have to take a stand against terrorism, whether it’s carried out by Al Quaeda or our own governments.

I said this last year but it bears repeating: I’ve often heard people wonder how Hitler could have carried out such evil in Germany. Surely all the Germans knew what was going on and therefore must have been evil too?

Well, look around you. Our government, our armed forces have carried out exactly the same evil and what are the mass of the UK population doing about it? Are we storming parliament in protest? Are we imprisoning Blair? Or are we just opening another beer and sticking the telly on? How will history judge our action or inaction? Do you want to be an accessory to murder?

If the answer is no, then do something about it, reclaim the freedom that’s being stolen from you. You can do that. You can make a difference.

You can change the world and your own future.

Courtesy of
Add. See also United
For Peace & Justice.

“In the popular view, without Spain’s involvement in Iraq – 1,300 soldiers committed; the fourth biggest national contingent – the 200 who died in the bombings would almost certainly be alive, the 1,500 injured would still be in one piece. The decision to join Blair and Bush’s military adventure in Iraq, in the teeth of the opposition of some 90 per cent of Spaniards, had backfired on the Popular Party.(Source: Fox News)

“Voters turned out in force for Sunday’s elections. Many of them expressed anger at retiring Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar when he cast his ballot, jostling and booing him while some shouted “Aznar: your war, our dead.”(Source: Common Dreams)

New Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero today promised to withdraw Spanish troops from the illegal occupation of Iraq, unless the UN intervened directly.

This is a slap in the face for Blair, Bush and the other butchers of Iraq.

The people of Spain, who were overwhemingly against the invasion of Iraq, have now put that anger into the ballot box. Perhaps they were spurred on by Aznar’s blanket spin, denying any possibility of the bomb massacre being linked to Al Quaeda.

People aren’t stupid. We know when we’re being lied to, by Bush, Blair, Aznar and any other collaborator in the phony WMD furore that lead to the Iraq horror.

I wrote last year that this terrible injustice to the Iraqi people would only stoke support for terrorism and make Britain a prime target.

After all, what is terrorism? It’s how people without organised, state-funded armies fight against superior military opponents. I’m making no value jugement here, just trying to establish an objective definition. By that definition, the IRA, ETA and Al Quaeda are all terrorist groups. But so were the ANC, the French Resistance and the soldiers of the American Revolution. The Iraq war has undoubtedly politicised and alienated layers of youth who will now gravitate into terrorist groups. And we are their targets.

But not according to Jack Straw:

“All I can say is that no one should get the idea that somehow if you were a country which was opposed to the military action in Iraq, you are less of a target for al-Qaida and these terrible Islamic fanatics. Not at all.” (Source: The Guardian)

Really? Does that make any sense, militarily? So, if Jack Straw was the head of, say, the IRA, he wouldn’t just bomb British targets, he’d bomb any country at random? He’d waste precious resources destroying targets that weren’t his immediate, most dangerous enemy?

By our part in the illegal invasion and murder in Iraq, we’ve not only put ourselves in the firing line, we’ve created tens of thousands more enemies. If we’ve killed around 10,000 Iraqis (the lowest estimate currently), how many relatives did those people have? Out of those relatives, how many will now see the UK and US as friends? The answer to that can be seen now in Iraq where every day brings fresh attacks against the occupying Western forces. So much for being welcome liberators. And I’m not alone in my argument:

“The head of the EU executive arm, European Commission chief Romano Prodi, agreed in an interview published by Italy’s La Stampa newspaper Monday.

“It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists,” Prodi said. “Terrorism is infinitely more powerful than a year ago,” and all of Europe now feels threatened, he told the paper.”(Source: Common Dreams)

I have very little doubt that we’ll see a major attack on the UK soon. British civilians will die as a result of our attack on Iraq, as a result of Blair’s bloodlust. I also know that every warhawk in the government will then scream that this justifies, retroactively, the attack on Iraq. Amazing logic: punch someone who hasn’t attacked you and then when he punches you back, claim that’s proof of their evil. And before some right-wing nutter emails me about 9/11 – there were NO Iraqis involved in that attack. And there is still no established link between Hussein’s regime and Al Quaeda. Although you can bet they’re recruiting in Iraq now.

I’ll leave the final words to the new Spanish leader:

“Zapatero also said Bush and his main ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, need to engage in “self-criticism”.

“Wars such as that which has occurred in Iraq only allow hatred, violence and terror to proliferate.”

“Washington has been channelling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the political opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – including those who briefly overthrew the democratically elected leader in a coup two years ago.” (Source: The Independent)

This is the truth behind the US government’s self-righteous blustering about democracy and terrorism: they don’t give a shit.

If a country democratically elects a government that won’t allow their political philosophy (free market capitalism) a toehold then, as much as the Stalinist Soviet Union used to, they’ll do their best to de-stabilise that country by pouring in funding to anti-democratic groups.

Many, many times, this funding has been direct, like that given to the terrorist Contras in Nicaragua. Sometimes, other measures were employed to get a US-friendly result:

“Jeremy Bigwood, a Washington-based freelance journalist who obtained the documents, yesterday told The Independent: ‘This repeats a pattern started in Nicaragua in the election of 1990 when [the US] spent $20 per voter to get rid of [the Sandinista President Daniel] Ortega. It’s done in the name of democracy but it’s rather hypocritical. Venezuela does have a democratically elected President who won the popular vote which is not the case with the US.’”

The most frightening thing about this US policy is the total lack of concern as to the character of the groups funded. It’s no secret that the US was a prime supporter of the mujaheddin when they were fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The US supplied arms and training to these extremists, many of whom then went on to careers in the Taliban and now Al Quaeda:

“The war in Afghanistan was the stage for one of the last major stand-offs between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The Americans at that time had the same goals as bin Ladin’s mujahedin–the ousting of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. In what was hailed at the time as one of its most successful covert operations, America’s Central Intelligence Agency launched a $500 million-per-year campaign to arm and train the impoverished and outgunned mujahedin guerrillas to fight the Soviet Union. The most promising guerilla leaders were sought out and “sponsored” by the CIA. U.S. official sources are understandably vague on the question of whether Osama bin Ladin was one of the CIA’s “chosen” at that time. Bin Ladin’s group was one of seven main mujahedin factions. It is estimated that a significant quantity of high tech American weapons, including “stinger” anti-aircraft missiles, made their way into his arsenal. The majority of them are reported to be still there.” (Source: International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism)

We don’t yet know who committed the atrocity in Spain this week. It may have been ETA but there are fingers now pointing towards Al Quaeda too. It would be a terrible irony if the Spaniards killed and injured in the bombing were paying the price for the political adventurism of the US government.

The same government now bellowing about its war on terror.

“Civil disobedience. . . is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
- Howard Zinn