“[Bush and Blair] may well, with the passage of time and the opening of archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill.” These were the words of historian Martin Gilbert in 2004. Today, he emerges as one of the panel leading the government.....
Gaza is no longer the world’s biggest prison camp, it is a duck shoot. If you would prefer not to hide behind euphemisms, it is a death camp; where people who cannot leave face daily bombardment and where even ‘safe havens’.....
26/01/07 "The other day upon the stair…’ – Blair’s leadership on Iraq"
Parliament’s first Iraq debate in three years, in government time, began in a fraud and ended as farce. As such, it was probably a fair summary of UK policy on the war and the occupation. The debate itself was dominated by three people who weren’t there.....
08/01/07 - "Mirror article - MP's in call to put Britain in dock over Iraq"
FORTY MP's have called on UN chief Kofi Annan to haul Britain through the
International Court of Justice over the Iraq war. The cross‐party group believes Tony Blair was in breach of the Charter of the United Nations
when he joined America to invade Iraq.
21/11/2006 "Bush, Blair, and the end of an Empire"
As George W Bush looks down at the ruins of his presidency he must be wondering if there is anything more he could have screwed up. The answer is ‘yes’. And, reassuringly for most of us, he will almost certainly go on to do so........
21/07/2006 "Lebanon - The destruction of Democracy"
Those witnessing the hushed exchanges between Dubya and Son at the G8 summit must have thought they were watching a political spoof. “Hey pop, Canna do the Middle East roadshow before Conodoleeza gets there? Canna, canna, canna?......
Nottingham Stop the War Coalition and Nottingham
Trent University (Clifton) Branch of the National
Association of Teachers in Further and Higher
Education (Natfhe) are sponsoring a debate: Iraq: What Should
We Do Now?
Should the Troops
Stay or Go?
It comes as something when it fell to Israel’s chief justice to remind Britain that it is the duty of the justice system to “protect democracy both from terrorism and from the means the state wants to use to fight terrorism.”
It comes as something when it fell to Israel’s chief justice to remind Britain that it is the duty of the justice system to “protect democracy both from terrorism and from the means the state wants to use to fight terrorism.”
Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South) (Lab): I, too, doubt whether there will be a Division on the order. However, if there were, I would find it difficult to vote for it. That is not to offer endorsement of or support for any one of or all the organisations on the list.
Jean Charles de Menezes. The name lived in relative obscurity and will slip away, in similar terms, over the coming weeks. It does, however, sum up the futility of much
that comes to be symbolised by 'the war on terror'
30/03/05 - "Independent Article - Labour MP's to fight on anti-war ticket"
Labour MP's who opposed the Iraq war are to defy Tony Blair by making it a key "issue of
trust" at the general election expected on 5 May. In a setback for the Prime Minister's attempt to "move on" from Iraq two years after the military action......
10/03/05 - "Dangerous manouevers in the dark"
The abrupt withdrawal of 14,000 Syrian troops from the Lebanon fills me with mixed emotions. Press headlines celebrating the end of an era of foreign military occupation it uneasily against daily efforts to justify the 150,000 US
troops in current occupation of Iraq.
In the modern world, democracy gets killed off more in parmesan shavings that para‐military coups. Little bits get sliced off the system of public accountability and, before you know it, social authoritarianism has replaced social
democracy; the democratic cheese has.....
Ogden Nash's poem wasn't written about the Parliamentary Labour Party's meeting that I had just come out of, but the words kept
running through my head. In what came over as an infantile gesture, MP's who raised the issue of Iraq.....
We should not kid ourselves about Iraq. In has an army of occupation, in charge of transitional administration. Military t seek to deliver pacification but not peace. We should
not kid ourselves about Iraq......
Parliament has grown tired of the war on Iraq . Downing St is desperate to move on elsewhere. America lurches from one panic to another at the mere mention of a possible terrorist attack. When the ‘evidence' used to throw the USA.....
By the day, the situation in the Middle East slides down a spiral of despair. Iraq is a mess. The Sharon Administration turns Israel into a rogue state. President Bush begins the trials of foot soldiers involved in photographing or conducting the torture and humiliation.....
If Blair co-operates in any way with Bush's war on Iraq it will be an act that
is not only reckless and flouts the interests of the people of this country, but
also flouts the clear views of the labour movement, both in the Labour
Party and the trade unions.
Long after the street celebrations in Baghdad have ended a more awkward reality will dawn upon the international community. 'Victory' over Iraq will not bring an end to war. It will just move the conflict on to different terrain.
Of course it was important that over half of backbench Labour MP's voted against a war on Iraq. It means that the government only has half a mandate to go in to Iraq, and no plan at all about how to get out. This is of critical importance.......
So, fed up with waiting, angry at being unable to bully or bribe the UN into supporting a second resolution, George Bush has launched a war on Iraq. He intended to do so all along. Forget that the Weapons Inspectors offered to deliver.....
It was, and still is, the most powerful rallying call of the post‐war generation. “We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind…
Even for just a brief moment, we should allow ourselves to rejoice over Iraq's unconditional offer to re‐admit UN weapons Inspectors. The angry reaction of the Bush administration (and the churlish one of our own) was entirely predictable.
Parliament’s debate on Iraq will be caught between two cynical extremes. Saddam Hussain will do whatever it takes to avoid a war. George Bush is no less determined to do
whatever it takes to avoid a peace.
The latest opinion polls show that British people oppose a war on Iraq by a ratio of 4:1. The government’s media campaigners have failed to make a case for war and Downing St’s ‘dossier on Saddam’ has been seen for what it as.....
Whatever George W. Bush may say, this is not the first war of the 21st Century. To describe the awesome destruction in New York and Washington as 'war' is to misunderstand
both what happened, and how we must confront it.
'The time for military action has not yet arisen. However, there is no doubt at all that the development of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein poses a severe threat not just to the region, but to the wider world…After 11 September......
January 2002 - "Silence Isn't Peace"
The Afghan war is over, unless you happen to live in Afghanistan. Day 100 of the war brought with it another round of bombings that the villagers of Zhawar have become accustomed to.
The war in Afghanistan has achieved little and understood less. Alan's opposition to it, and his formation of 'Labour Against the War', is an attempt to set a different agenda to peace and security issues. None of this is about being 'soft' on terrorism.
Some 50,000 people went on the 'Stop the War' march from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square in November. Why did they do this? Non‐stop American bombing had put the Taliban in flight. The sight of children playing on Kabul streets, music being played.....
America's biggest, non‐nuclear bombs are now being dropped on Afghanistan. These so‐called 'daisy cutters' have s little to do with gardening as they do with understating of terrorism.
The war in Afghanistan has achieved little and understood less. Alan's opposition to it, and his formation of 'Labour Against the War', is an attempt to set a different agenda to peace and security issues. None of this is about being 'soft' on terrorism.
Whatever the press briefings have been saying, Britain has not yet declared war on Afghanistan, nor should we do so. Every day that I wake to the news that no bombing has taken place is a celebration of the restraining role Tony Blair as played with the US....
We are repeatedly told there is overwhelming public support for the war in Afghanistan. After the first weeks of bombing, opinion polls suggested only 16% of people
opposed it. But what does this mean?
September 2001 - "Tribune article - Bomb & We Loose"
Whatever George W. Bush may say,
this is not the first war of the 21st
Century. To describe the awesome
destruction in New York and Washington as 'war' is to
misunderstand both what happened,
and how we must confront it.
Alan Simpson: Partly because I think the war is wrong full stop. It's just the wrong way of seeking to track down terrorists and bring them to justice. The second is that I am really fearful that we're sitting on the dge of a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan.....
I am extremely angry at the government's wretched support for President Bush's warmongering approach to international relations. I was tempted to resign my membership of the Party, but have
decided that it is not me who ought to go.