Not one more death – Troops out now |
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Gordon Brown’s first visit to Iraq as Prime Minister may have been a miscalculation. It’s certainly a hard act to pull off. It’s not just that the Tories have had a go at him for electioneering. More to the point it is difficult to paint a good news story about the war in Iraq, especially when the withdrawal of 1000 troops before Christmas turns out to be yet another example of double counting from the man that used to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. There had already been an announcement in September that 500 troops would leave Iraq this year – and 250 of them have already left. The reality is that everyone – on both sides of the Atlantic – knows that Iraq is a disaster. On September 10, Brigadier James Bashall told the Daily Telegraph that the British handover of the city of Basra to Iraqi troops and consequent withdrawal to the airport had been delayed five months because of US pressure. The handover took place in the end on September 3 – and 11 British soldiers were killed and 62 injured during the final six months. The MOD persists in claiming that the handover took place when “conditions were right”. They certainly weren’t right for the soldiers who died or were wounded in the interim – or for their families. And of course the death toll of Iraqis continues almost unmentioned
Tariq Ali, in an interview with Interpress service on September 18, explained the balance of forces on the ground thus: “You have a thin layer of politicians implanted there by the West with no real base in the country. And then you have the old American habit of shooting from the hip, dropping bombs from the air, indiscriminately killing people right, left and centre. “The result is increased resistance. I don’t like the Taliban, but if people in Afghanistan see the Taliban fighting the guys who are bombing and killing, they get attracted. It’s very simple.” In these conditions both here and in the US, it is not surprising that there is another wave of measures to crack down on the anti-war movement. Here in Britain the new Labour warmongers have colluded with the police to ban the antiwar march on October 8. But the anti-war movement won’t be cowed by these type of measures – they are a sign of the weakness of our enemy not their strength. We are ever more determined to ensure we get Troops out of Iraq – and Troops out of Afghanistan now. |
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For a time there was an attempt amongst the British political establishment to suggest that maybe that was true, but Afghanistan was going fine. More and more that myth has been exposed too. On September 28, NATO’s commander General Dan O’Neil – an American – warned that it was “likely” that some of the ground British troops had won from the Taliban in Helmand province would need to be won again if the Taliban regrouped over the winter.