A third of people in the UK think the war in Iraq was justified but six in 10 believe it was a mistake, a BBC survey suggests.

While 29% said taking military action against Iraq in 2003 was the right thing to do, only 5% of those questioned felt safer now.

The survey also found that more than half of people questioned said they would distrust the British government if it said military action were needed elsewhere because a country posed a threat to national security.

And while 5% thought Britain was a safer place since the Iraq war, 55% said they felt the country was less safe.
(Source: BBC News)

I’m amazed that even 5% of people think Britain is safer since our illegal invasion of Iraq. These people must be unaware of the bombing campaigns that we’re now targets of. And the fact that the police can shoot you seven times in the head as a suspected terrorist and then get away with that murder. They even get promoted for their part in their ‘regrettable mistake.’

Beating up innocent OAPs in their own homes, RFID passports, trigger-happy police death squads roaming our streets with impunity – welcome to the new police state.

Welcome to Blair’s Britain!

“There has been an abject denial of the impact, the humanitarian impact, of the war, the huge displacement within Iraq of up to 1.9 million people who are homeless because of the war, and those people who are homeless and never got back to the homes after Saddam Hussein was overthrown,” UNHCR spokesman Peter Kessler said.

He said the international community had to step in to help address their food, health and education needs.

Syria says it is home to 1.2m Iraqi refugees, with up to 800,000 in Jordan.
(Source: BBC News)

The international failure that Peter Kessler highlights is a product of ideology. Here’s how:

Bush & Blair portray the invasion of Iraq as a selfless quest to remove Saddam Hussein, huge reserves of WMDs and bring democracy to the oppressed Iraqis. According to Bush, this high moral crusade was completed, brilliantly, way back in 2003:

Yes. Despite the fact that there were no WMDs and the invaders cared more about oil than people, it was ‘mission accomplished,’ complete with staged media spectacles:

So… Bush, Blair and the oil-hungry neocons behind the invasion have taken great pains in constructing their propaganda war. According to them, the Iraqis would be jubilant at the removal of Hussein and welcome the US military much as the French had welcomed them when they ousted the Nazis.

But the opposite has happened. Now the US forces are viewed as occupying invaders and are the targets of an “insurgent” movement every bit as determined as the French Resistance. Four years after Bush declared ‘mission accomplished,’ Iraq is a bloodbath and, naturally, innocent civilians are fleeing the carnage.

To acknowledge this desperate humanitarian situation would be to acknowledge that the invasion of Iraq was a selfish, imperial act that has resulted in nothing but despair for the Iraqi people. It would be to acknowledge that the plight of the ordinary Iraqi was never a concern for the invaders.

Therefore, as Kessler says, the Iraqi refugees get brushed under the carpet. We don’t talk about them, despite the fact our actions created them. Just as we don’t mention the 655,000 Iraqis we’ve murdered in order to liberate them from tyranny.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of US cities for a second day of protests against the war in Iraq.

Rallies were held in New York, San Francisco, Portland and in other cities ahead of Tuesday’s fourth anniversary of the start of the conflict.

Organisers said thousands marched through Manhattan calling for troops to come home and for President George W Bush to be impeached.

Amid near-freezing temperatures, the New York protesters carried placards reading “Drop Bush, Not Bombs” and “Four Years Too Long”.
(Source: BBC News)

Think of how difficult it must be to be antiwar in America, to hold a basically left-wing position in the most right-wing Western country. A country that shouted freedom on the one hand while persecuting people on the other, a country where schools often start the day with a Nazi-esque pledge of allegiance to the Fatherland und Gott.

We have it easy here: when we march, we aren’t faced with opposing marches of pro-war nutters because, frankly, Blair probably couldn’t get a five-a-side team out on the streets to support his lunatic warmongering. He is political dogshit now, waiting to be scraped off the pavement.

But that’s not the case in the US where the pro-war lobby has the big media in its pocket and hence the hearts and minds of many Americans. These are the people who still believe that there was a link between 9/11 and Iraq because they still believe Bush and the other neocons’ lies.

I can only applaud the courage it must take to stand up for peace when you have the braying and bullying of neocon neo-Nazis in your ears. To those who marched in the US, bravo!