CND IN THE NEWS

CND in the News: 22-26 (and 27th) March 03
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1
The real reasons so many are marching
The Guardian
25.03.03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,921241,00.html

I may be in danger of sounding like Homer Simpson, but why has the anti-war movement in this country been so bloody big? Even last weekend's demonstrations, widely written off by sections of the press, struck me as being of an extraordinary size. And no, it is not obvious why such an unprecedented coalition should have come together now, and not at any other time in post-war history. This many people did not march over Vietnam, apartheid, Suez or even the bomb, when we as kids thought we would die in a great mushroom cloud as part of Mutual Assured Destruction. So what is going on?

A series of events and moods have, I think, combined to help create this movement which, however much I disagree with it, must be seen as unique. In retrospect, I now see that one great factor that prevented CND and other organisations from growing too large was people's fear of the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc. Middle Britain (by which I mean centrist Britain) might not have loved the Yanks, but it was far more scared of the Red Army.

Now, among nations, there is only America to fear, and it has never been difficult to get Britons to feel antagonistic towards the Yanks. There is, lurking, some kind of folk/race memory of the time when GIs came courting our girl-friends with nylons and oral sex, neither of which our boys could offer. Americans are pushy, insensitive, rapacious, successful and rich. We watch their films, drink their coffee and loathe them. Recent letters to me from perfectly sane people insist that the US is not a real democracy at all, but a bizarre half-way house between an African kleptocracy and an 18th-century oligarchy. Usually cited is the fact that Al Gore got more votes than George Bush in the 2000 election and lost. And though I sympathise, it should be pointed out that in two British elections since 1945 (1951 and 1974) the party that came second in terms of popular votes ended up in government.

Then there is the fact that Britain is not any more a martial nation, and hasn't been since 1918. Even so, we have had a lot of wars recently and a great deal of bombing under this government. Since early 1999, we have already been in Kosovo, Afghanistan and (with less noise) Sierra Leone. Armies, especially of civilians, get tired of being forever mobilised. Others of my correspondents are worried that if the US is victorious in Iraq, then in 2006 a lunatic Bush will invade China. Yet others expect hundreds of thousands to die in this war - one chap predicting the deaths of half the population of Baghdad.

Post-September 11 insecurity plays a part. There is quite a widespread belief that the US brought the disaster upon itself, and that Britain is now busily inviting the same kind of treatment. These days, routine security announcements can clear major mainline stations in seconds.

This is linked to the question of Palestine. You can't help noticing how, among many anti-war people, the issue of Israel and Palestine has stopped being one of those complex and drearily intractable problems, and morphed into being one of those straightforward "whose side are you on?" questions. Jennifer Johnson from Cornwall tells me that I am "pro-Israeli" because I acknowledge the right of Israel to exist. "Is it because some Jews wrote in their holy books that God had promised them the land of Israel?" she asks. "Is it because of the Holocaust? But that had nothing to do with the Palestinians." And she concludes, "The main reason for this war is to make the world safe for Israel." Jennifer doesn't say where she thinks the Jews should have gone after 1945, but that is yesterday's problem, I guess.

On BBC 1's Question Time last Thursday, a member of the audience asked - unadmonished - whether the war wasn't down to the fact that there were, "so many Israelis in the American government". A presenter on Radio 5 Live the following Saturday suggested to an expert that perhaps it was insensitive for the White House to have a press spokesman called Ari Fleischer.

Meanwhile, there is massive Muslim support for the anti-war movement. But, though no one dares say so, quite a lot of what Muslim spokespeople say is highly questionable. In a television interview with Dr Mohammed Naseem, of Birmingham's Central Mosque, he opined that if the Blair government were not soon deposed, then there wouldn't be any British Muslims left. He was not challenged on this complete nonsense.

But surely the most intriguing part of the coalition is that of the suburban middle classes, who currently have much to complain about, what with low unemployment, record low interest rates and a government busting its budget to siphon tax dosh into public services. All of which seems to have made them all the more enraged about tuition fees, the House of Lords, spin and other such issues. In the absence of a Conservative party to turn to, many of the disaffected are in a state of political priapism, frustrated but up for just about any movement going.
It is, by and large, their kids, their fabulous teenagers, who are turning out for the spontaneous demos against the war. As they should. Far better being an active citizen than a moaning passive consumer of the latest mobile phone. Some satirical words come to mind though, from Wendy Cope's poem The Concerned Adolescent.

Everywhere there is blood and
the stench of death.
Human beings make war and
hate one another.
They do not understand their
young, they reject their ideals,
They make them come home
early from the disco,
They are doomed.

I have left the biggest reason till last. There has been so much guff about the "powerlessness" of ordinary citizens that some have come to believe it. But actually, since 1997 and the Blair accession, crowds have been very powerful. Think of the Diana crowds, think of the fuel protesters and how they got tax increases frozen, think of how the countryside marchers have held up the abolition of hunting for half a decade, think how the Nimbyists have stopped all those centres for asylum-seekers from being built.

Compared to just about anything else, marching works. That is why people go.

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2
Peace prevails at the Oscar night love-in
The Guardian
25.03.03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,921220,00.html

Anti-Bush tirade from Michael Moore eclipses surprise of Polanski award

As soon as Michael Moore appeared on stage to accept his Oscar for best documentary, it was clear that this was going to be no ordinary ceremony. The maker of Bowling for Columbine, the film about gun violence in the US, poured scorn on President Bush and the war in Iraq, provoking cheers and boos inside the Kodak theatre in Hollywood.

On any other night the attention would have been focused on the surprise victories of Roman Polanski, as best director for The Pianist, and Adrien Brody, that film's young star, as best actor.

Polanksi was not there to receive his award since he is still wanted for statutory rape and would have been arrested as soon as he stepped on stage. But the film's British writer, Ronald Harwood, who won the prize for the best adapted screenplay, dedicated his award to the absent director.

An emotional Brody over-ran his allotted time to issue a plea that "whether you believe in God or Allah, may He watch over you and let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution".

Catherine Zeta Jones, heavily pregnant with her second child, received the best supporting actress prize for her role in Chicago from Sean Connery.

"My Scotsman giving me the Oscar, I can't believe it!" she said. "My hormones are just way too out of control to be dealing with this... everyone in Swansea, south Wales, I love you."

But the 75th Oscars ceremony will be remembered not so much for Chicago winning the best picture prize, Nicole Kidman taking the best actress award for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours, or even the long, smacking kiss that Brody gave Halle Berry as he picked up his statuette, but for the many anti-war interventions.
Organisers of the event had expressed a wish beforehand that any remarks and behaviour would be "appropriate".

But as the award was announced for Moore - a man whose whole essence is to be as "inappropriate" as possible - there was never any chance that he would restrict his remarks to tearful thanks to his agent, mother and God.

Having invited all the nominees for the documentary category on stage, Moore declared: "We live in a time when we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons... we are against this war, Mr Bush. Shame on you, Mr Bush, shame on you!"

Some cheered, some booed. Backstage afterwards, accused of hijacking the show, Moore was unrepentant and told journalists: "What's great about this country is you're able to speak your mind... we kill each other at an enormous rate, more so than virtually any other country on this planet. What was the lesson we taught the children of Columbine this week? That violence is an acceptable means to resolve a conflict."

There was no red carpet this year and outside hundreds of police surrounded the theatre. A dozen anti-war protesters, some covered in fake blood, were arrested after clashes with the police.

Inside the theatre, notable for the number of black dresses and peace pins in the shape of doves, the night's presenter, Steve Martin, wasted no time in mocking the altered tone. "I'm glad they cut back on all the glitz," he said. "You notice no fancy red carpet tonight. That'll send them a message."

Pedro Almodovar, who won the best original screenplay award for his film, Talk to Her, dedicated his award to "all the people raising their voice in respect of peace, human rights... and international legality". Later, he criticised the Spanish and American governments over the war but stressed that he was not "anti-American".
Gael Garcia Bernal, the young Mexican actor from Y Tu Mama Tambien, who was one of the night's presenters, broke away from his script to refer to the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, subject of the film Frida: "If she was alive, she would be on our side against the war."

The British director Stephen Daldry, who had been nominated for The Hours, wore a CND badge, and actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins flashed peace signs as they arrived.

Peter O'Toole, who won an honorary Oscar, paid tribute to the US and spoke afterwards about how it reminded him of winning a swimming prize as a 12-year-old during the second world war.

There were some laughs. Denzel Washington told Nicole Kidman she had won her Oscar "by a nose", a reference to her false proboscis in The Hours. But the news flashes of casualties and shelling and bombs meant that reality was never that far away.

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3
The Most Rev Bruno Heim
The Guardian
25.03.03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,921147,00.html

Indiscreet Catholic diplomat who enjoyed repairing the Reformation rift

The Most Rev Bruno Heim, who has died aged 92, was proud of his own small corner in diplomatic history. In 1982, he became the Vatican's first fully fledged ambassador to Britain since the Reformation. Previously, relations between the two had been conducted, if at all, at a lower level. When first appointed in 1973, Heim was simply apostolic delegate to Britain, but when ties were upgraded between London and the Holy See, he took on the title of Apostolic Pro-Nuncio - and served in his own flamboyant way until his retirement in 1985.

Given his twin callings of diplomacy and the priesthood, Heim was an unusual figure. He will be best remembered by many, less for his place in history or his deep piety, than as an intimate of the Queen Mother, who delighted in the private dinners he cooked for her at his residence, facing Wimbledon Common. He took an equivalent delight in seeing tales of their closeness appear in the press, for he could, as even his close friends acknowledged, be something of a snob.

It should be noted though that Heim's friendship with the former royal consort was, in itself, remarkable, given the history of suspicion of Catholics within royal circles. Marriage to a practising Catholic still means losing your place in the line of succession to the throne, as the Queen Mother's nephew, Prince Michael of Kent, discovered to his cost in 1978, during Heim's period in office. It was just one of the crises in church-state relations that he handled with a mixture of aplomb and bluster.

Heim was a small, plump man with a warm sense of humour, who unashamedly loved the good life and positively exulted in the ceremonial trappings of his role. One of his passions was heraldry. He designed the coat of arms for Pope John XXIII and wrote extensively on the subject.

He was also famously indiscreet, and was always happy to gossip with journalists about forthcoming appointments to the Catholic hierarchy, where the pro-nuncio has the pivotal role between the Vatican and the local church. Sometimes, he could even manage an unChristian lack of charity, writing of one potential candidate for a mitre that his chances of success were limited by his tendency to "wear his menu on his habit".

Perhaps Heim's greatest coup was in finding the obscure Abbot Basil Hume of Ampleforth (obituary, June 18 1999) amid the north Yorkshire moors, and, in 1976, persuading the Vatican to appoint him as Archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. It proved an inspired choice, with the charismatic Cardinal Hume restoring his church to the mainstream of national life and, by sheer force of his own, intensely spiritual, personality, exorcising the ghosts of the Reformation that had hitherto haunted the English psyche.

After his own retirement, Heim used to like to tell the tale of how he had discovered that the Vatican had been on the point of naming the worthy, but uncharismatic, Bishop Derek Worlock of Portsmouth (obituary, February 20 1996) to the Westminster job. It took all Heim's accumulated experience of four decades in the Vatican's diplomatic corps to undo what was about to be announced, reroute Worlock to the vacant archbishopric of Liverpool, and convince his superiors of Hume's merits.

With Heim's active assistance and encouragement, Hume went on to show an equal talent in managing the Vatican over subsequent appointments to the hierarchy, never ending up with the sort of dogmatic conservative that would have been anathema to him, but which Rome was fond of imposing - against local wishes - during the pontificate of John Paul II.

"I have been responsible for all the appointments," Heim boasted shortly before his retirement, with his usual lack of discretion, "except that to Nottingham. I was away when that was made and can bear none of the blame".
Though they were very different temperamentally, and often instinctively took opposite sides on the great dividing questions of modern Catholicism - Hume ever the conciliator and pastor, Heim a more robust traditionalist, who saw it as his duty to ensure that the letter of the church's law was followed - the pro-nuncio was happy, for the most part, to stay in the cardinal's shadow.

Occasionally, he would step into the limelight, as when he exerted strong pressure on Hume to discipline the then Monsignor Bruce Kent, the Catholic priest at the head of CND in the early 1980s. Hume's instinct was to allow Kent a free rein, but Heim, among others, was stern in pointing out that canon law forbade priests to get involved in politics. In the end, Hume held out against such promptings, though, in 1987, Kent left the active ministry.

Born in Olten, Switzerland, the son of a stationmaster, Heim took a doctorate in philosophy at the Thomas Aquinas University (Ang- elicum) in Rome. He was ordained a priest at the age of 27, and began life as a humble curate in Basle, before moving, during the war years, to be chief chaplain for Italian and Polish internees in Switzerland. With the peace, he joined the Vatican's diplomatic corps, serving in Paris, Vienna and Germany. His first senior job was as apostolic delegate to Scandinavia in 1961, with the title of Archbishp of Xanthos. In 1969, he was named pro-nuncio to Egypt, staying there until his arrival in London.

He secretly hoped, he once admitted, that the Pope might have forgotten that he had reached the statutory retirement age of 75, and so he would be able to stay on in London. But it was not to be. He retired back to his native Olten, where heraldry, cooking, Christmas cards from Clarence House - and the occasional enthusiastic burst of keep-fit - more than occupied his time.

• Bruno Bernard Heim, priest, born March 5 1911; died March 18 2003
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4
Not in a soldier's name
The Guardian
22.03.03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,919491,00.html

He wasn't a pacifist. He'd done his military training. Franz Jägerstätter was a devout Catholic, a peasant farmer with a wife and children. He knew the difference between a just and an unjust war. When Hitler attacked Russia, he said: "This is aggression. I will not serve." Not even his patriotic bishop could change his mind. He knew the cost: imprisonment and execution.

Today, as his widow celebrates her 90th birthday, that bishop's successor is asking the Pope to beatify him. Had Hitler won, he would still be dammed as a traitor. The church, as religious institutions tend to do, bends with the prevailing wind.

At Nuremberg, Hitler's foreign minister Ribbentrop was executed for waging an aggressive war, but so too were his top generals, Keitel and Jodl. The fuhrer's orders were not accepted as a valid defence. They had beheaded the conscientious objectors; the leaders were hanged. Who were the true patriots?
Today in Israel, some children of Holocaust survivors, though only too willing to defend their country, refuse to be part of a brutalised occupation force. As many as a thousand reservists are refuseniks, with as little support from the rabbinate as Jägerstätter had from his bishop. Reviled by many, they are surely the true patriots and heirs of the uncomfortable prophets of Israel.

The same dilemma now faces the men and women of the US and British armed forces. "Theirs not to question why, theirs but to do and die," will no longer wash. Many of them are Christians. The issue is both legal and moral. Christian leaders in the US and in Britain - and worldwide, across all denominational divisions - oppose this war; so do eminent military men. Desmond Tutu stands alongside Jimmy Carter. They say no. There is something like a global consensus that a preemptive war, with no UN backing, is unwise, immoral and illegal.
Interviewed by television crews in the desert, the officers and men on the frontiers of Iraq put a brave face on it all. "We're here to do a job." But killing, and being killed, isn't just a job. At least, some of them know it. Once in the service, it is very, very hard to quit. Comradeship is no mean virtue.

But in the US, it has become an issue. The Quakers, in North Carolina, have established a hotline to counsel disturbed members of the armed services. It is much in demand. Many Americans are devout Christians. Do they listen to church leaders, or do they follow their fundamentalist president, who still believes in crusades? It is tragic and ironic that Christian fundamentalism plays unwittingly into the hands of the Islamic fundamentalism it purports to despise.

The New York-based, veterans' association, Citizen Soldier, estimates that, of the 1.4m service men and women, around 1,000 each year seek to leave the forces on grounds of conscience. As many as 20,000 have sought advice during the past year. The memory of Vietnam still weighs heavily. We, in contrast, have forgotten Suez. Our cause cannot simply be presumed to be just.

Most military chaplains are understandably reluctant to wrestle with this problem. They are both pastors and serving officers, and hardly trained to be prophets. Soldiers are trained to obey. Yet even military law makes it illegal to obey an illegal order. And even a legal order may conflict with an informed Christian conscience.
The issues raised are of great moral complexity at one level; at another, they are simple. To win this war may prove relatively easy; to win the peace will not. The winners will appear only before the court of world opinion; the losers alone will stand trial. But all will be the losers if war is once again held to be the legitimate pursuit of political ends by other means.

A few, whose names we may never know, will have refused to fight. At a level that embraces and transcends politics, we may all be in their debt.

• Canon Dr Paul Oestreicher, former director of the centre for international reconciliation at Coventry cathedral, is a vice president of CND

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5
100,000 expected at London peace march
The Guardian
22.03.03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,919487,00.html

Airports halted, roads blocked, and flags burnt

More than 100,000 people are expected to demonstrate today in central London, the anti-war coalition said yesterday as peace activists continued to protest around the world, stopping airports, blocking roads, holding vigils and burning British and US flags.

Greece was shut down by a four-hour general strike and hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in Dublin and in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Middle East, with people laying siege to fast food restaurants and British and American banks.

The scale of yesterday's protests in Britain was not as great as on Thursday, when tens of thousands of people, including many students and schoolchildren, disrupted city centres.

But traffic in Parliament Square, London, and Sheffield city centre was brought to a halt by hundreds of cyclists chanting anti-war slogans. Sixteen people were arrested in Manchester for public order offences during a protest which blocked a main road.

Today's march in London is expected to be considerably smaller than the one in February which attracted more than 1 million people.

"We had two months to organise February's protest and just four days for this one. But we expect one of the biggest demonstrations ever held in Britain during wartime," said John Rees, of the anti-war coalition.
He expects protests and vigils to continue throughout the war, but does not expect another national rally.
Protests are expected in more than 2,000 cities worldwide over the weekend, but organisers are unsure of numbers.

"We will not hear of many until much later," said a spokesman for International Answer, a US anti-war group. "But we do know that the protests against the Vietnam war built up over time. We can expect the same."
Meanwhile, Greenpeace dropped thousands of "No war" leaflets over RAF Fairford air base in Gloucestershire shortly before eight of the 14 B-52 bombers based there took off for Iraq.

The environment group said that it had alerted the air base, the civil aviation authority and the police beforehand. Gloucestershire police said they were taking no action over the protest.

"I know the flight time to Iraq and I keep on looking at my watch and when six hours have gone by, I know what will be happening," said Adele Perret, 27, who is with the peace camp outside the base.
"All we can do is pray for the people out there and for the pilots."

In Liverpool, where there have been major protests for three days, peace protesters faced a backlash from a small pro-war rally.

Extra police officers were drafted in to patrol a peace march after word of a rival, impromptu pro-war demonstration was circulated.

Workers across the Irish Republic downed tools at lunchtime yesterday in protest and peace vigils were held outside all post offices in a demonstration organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
Tomorrow tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in peace marches in towns and cities throughout Ireland.

The strike in Greece shut down airports, banks, roads, and stores. More than 200,000 people demonstrated in major cities and consumer unions called for a boycott of American products, from clothes to films.
Meanwhile, the Electro Hippies collective, an online anonymous group of "hacktivists" specialising in computer demonstrations and sit-ins, was yesterday trying to jam the official websites of the British and US governments.
It called on tens of thousands of people to "stop up the official electronic mouthpieces of the major powers behind the war".

The Stop the War coalition march to Hyde Park starts at midday. Meeting points, as on February 15, are Gower Street and Embankment. Details www.stopwar.org.uk and 020-7053-2153/4/5/6. CND will hold a peace vigil in Whitehall from 11am

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6
Planned anti-war protests
The Guardian
21.03.03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,917615,00.html

Stop the War Coalition:
The group, with CND and the Muslim Association of Britain, has organised another national Not in our Name demonstration in London on Saturday March 22. Meeting points will be Embankment and Gower Street at noon. Contact 020 7053 2153

CND
CND is opposed to the war in Iraq, with or without a second UN resolution. CND will protest at Whitehall at 11am on Saturday March 22. They will join the march from Embankment to Hyde Park at noon.

Scottish Coalition for Justice Not War
The organisation plans to hold a sit-down protest in Glasgow, gathering at George Square at noon on Saturday March 22. The march will be around the city and, if police attempt to stop it, protesters will immediately and peacefully sit down on the road. They will not try to force their way past the police. In Edinburgh, protestors will gather at the Scottish Parliament (provisional).
Scottish Coalition for Justice Not War

Irish Anti-war Movement
Mass demonstrations have been called in regional centres at 2pm on Saturday March 22. These are in Dublin (assemble at Central Bank Plaza, Dame Street), Cork, Waterford, Galway, Derry and Belfast. People are being asked to wear white armbands or ribbons.
www.irishantiwar.org

Birmingham University Against the War Society
Urging protesters to attend the national demonstration in London on Saturday March 22.
Tyneside Stop the War Coalition, Newcastle
Will be protesting at the national demonstration in London on Saturday March 22. A train has been provisionally chartered from Newcastle (call 07761 818384 for details).
www.tyneside.sdf-eu.org

Oxford
Protesters are being urged to bring banners, music, voices, inspiration and anger to the national demonstration in London on Saturday March 22.

Camsaw (Cambridge Students Against the War)
Will be protesting at the national demonstration in London on Saturday March 22. Contact 07931 855888
Camsaw

York Against the War
This group will be protesting at the national demonstration in London on Saturday March 22. Coaches will be leaving Memorial Gardens at 7.45am. They will also be taking part in the protests at the US military base at Menwith Hill.
www.yorkagainstthewar.org.uk

Hull Stop the War Campaign
On Saturday March 22, the campaign will attempt to disrupt the US military communications base at Menwith Hill, near Harrogate. They are also urging people to attend the national demonstration in London. Contact 07831 396895 or 07812 838701.
www.stopthewar.fsnet.co.uk

Labour Against the War
A Labour party and trade union campaign for an end to military action in response to the events of September 11 2001, it is urging all Labour party members and trade unionists to attend the national demonstration in London.

No War on Iraq Liaison
This group brings together representatives of the anti-war movement inside and outside parliament to promote discussion about the political and diplomatic alternatives to the Iraq crisis.
The group is asking people to attend the national demonstration in London.

Arrow
Members of this non-violent resistance group will joining the Stop The War Coalition national demonstration.
Disobedience
This newly-formed open network of groups and individuals is calling for street blocking actions to bring the whole of London to a standstill at the national demonstration.

Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors
Its aim is to eliminate weapons of mass destruction from Gloucestershire. It has organised a national demonstration on Saturday March 22, called Flowers to Fairford, at USAF Fairford, one of only three B-52 bomber bases in the world. The group is asking protestors to bring wreaths and bouquets to lay at the base from which B-52s will leave to bomb Iraq.

Media Workers Against the War
Run by volunteers working in all types of media, this site provides anti-war news, views and updates on the international peace movement. Members will take part in the national demonstration on Saturday.

Our World, Our Say
The group gives people the opportunity to express opposition in a direct way in order to put pressure on the government. Members will march past Whitehall at the national demonstration in London.
USA
On Saturday March 22, regional demonstrations have been called in cities all around the country at 11.30am.
www.internationalanswer.org

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7
How I learned to hate the bomb
The Guardian
21.03.03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,918627,00.html

Scientist Joseph Rotblat is more qualified than most to speak out against the current conflict - he was part of the team that developed the first atomic weapon. He tells Stephen Moss why he has spent most of his life campaigning against his creation

Joseph Rotblat says the world is facing its most dangerous moment since the depths of the cold war - yet this amazing 94-year-old issues his warning with such animation, such an absence of rancour or gloom, that a meeting with him inspires not suicidal depression, but a belief in the life-force and our capacity to pull through.
His office in Bloomsbury, central London, has the air of a doctor's surgery. He sits at a large desk surrounded by mountains of correspondence that testify to his 60-year battle against war, and above all against the nuclear weapons that he helped to develop as part of the wartime Manhattan project. He spent five years making nuclear weapons possible - and the rest of his life trying to make them obsolete.

He has no time for George Bush or this war. "Three reasons have been given for attacking Iraq," he says in his heavily accented, rapidly delivered English. "One is to get rid of weapons of mass destruction; the second is to destroy the link with al-Qaida; the third is to get rid of a bad regime. It depends which day of the week you talk to them, or perhaps to whom you talk, which one is emphasised. My personal opinion is that none of these three matter really. The decision to get rid of the regime was made a long time ago; it is nothing to do with al-Qaida. It is part of a policy of pursuing US dominance."

Rotblat looks back further than the mid-90s Republican position papers spelling out that Saddam had to go. He argues that the US has been pursuing global dominance since the end of the second world war, and has used nuclear superiority to underpin its ambitions. "From the very beginning," he says, "the development of nuclear weapons was used to give the US a dominant position in the world. At the beginning, they were determined not to allow any other nation to have nuclear weapons."

After the progress made in reducing nuclear arsenals in the 80s and 90s, Rotblat believes that Bush's willingness to embrace pre-emption will now restart the arms race. He says the US administration is developing new nuclear warheads in contravention of its treaty obligations and may resume testing - a move that would undermine the comprehensive test ban treaty. "If they begin testing," he says, "other nations will also feel that they are not obliged to keep by the moratorium. I am particularly concerned about China. China abides by the rules, but is itching to upgrade its nuclear arsenals. There will be a new arms race."

America's nuclear missile defence programme is likely to have the same effect. "Nuclear missile defence does not give 100% protection," says Rotblat. "Even at its best it may be 95%, so a few weapons will still be able to get through. For China, which doesn't want to be at the mercy of the Americans, the only way is therefore to have a very large number of missiles. Say the US manages to make NMD 90% effective - if you increase your arsenal tenfold, the same number of missiles will get through."

"Once Bush gets away with this war, his strategic standing in the world will go up," warns Rotblat. "This will encourage him to move on to other nations - North Korea, Iran, possibly other countries in the Middle East - and gradually American policy will be imposed on the rest of the world. But other nations will not accept it. I don't believe that China will accept it. I don't believe India will accept it."

Rotblat reserves special scorn for the double standards that the US applies to Iraq, which has abandoned its half-baked nuclear programme, and Israel, which has deliverable nuclear weapons. "The asymmetry is obvious," he says. "People have stopped talking about the possibility of Iraq having nuclear weapons - they only talk about biological and chemical weapons - but Israel already has nuclear weapons. They keep saying, 'We will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East', but everybody knows they have them. I don't know what sort of world we live in that allows this absurdity."

Rotblat came to the UK from Poland as a young, ambitious nuclear physicist in 1939. He had a grant to study at Liverpool University with Sir James Chadwick, the discoverer of the neutron. He had recently married, but because his stipend at Liverpool was only £120, he did not bring his wife Tola with him. On the eve of war, he returned to Poland to fetch her, but she was suffering from appendicitis and the doctor would not allow her to travel. He returned to the UK, travelling through Germany almost on the last day before war broke out, and made arrangements for his wife to follow. A few days later, Poland had been overrun, his wife was trapped, and they never met again.

"I never found out what happened to her," he says, his lip quivering. "My mother and brothers survived and eventually I managed to bring them over to England, but they had lost touch with my wife. In a way I never gave up looking for her, because I never remarried, but I never discovered what happened to her. She was obviously dead, but I never knew the circumstances and to me it was still an open book." But in a way he did marry again: having lost his first wife to war, he chose as his second bride the cause of peace.

Rotblat had seen the possibility of an atomic bomb even before he arrived in the UK. "In February 1939 I was still in Warsaw, about to leave for Britain, when I read a letter in Nature about the discovery of fission by Frisch and Meitner. They discovered that if you take a uranium atom and hit it with a neutron, it breaks up into two parts and that releases energy. When I read this paper it occurred to me that something else should take place in addition to what they had announced, namely that more neutrons should come out in the process.

"At that time I was doing experiments on the scattering of neutrons by uranium - a process very close to what they were doing. It didn't take me long to carry out a search for these extra neutrons, and indeed I found some. I immediately realised the enormity of that observation, because it opened the way to the store of energy in the nucleus. The amount of energy released in each nuclear reaction is very small, but if you could repeat this process time and time again very quickly, you would have a mighty explosion. I could see the possibility of the atom bomb straightaway, but having seen it, I decided to forget about it."

He forgot about it until the outbreak of war, when he feared that the Germans would make the bomb first. "I was afraid that if Hitler acquired the bomb, he would use it to win the war. That decided me. My rationale was that if Hitler acquired the bomb, the only way we could stop him using it is if we also had the bomb and could retaliate - in other words, the concept of nuclear deterrence which has up to this day been used."

Rotblat worked on the development of the atomic bomb in the UK and then, along with Chadwick, joined the Manhattan project in the US. He stayed for a year before resigning - the only scientist to abandon the project. "In 1944, Chadwick, who was head of the British mission, told me that the Germans had given up on the bomb. I immediately said, 'Good - in that case I can resign'. My purpose was that the bombs should not be used - this was deterrence. When I learned that the Germans had stopped development, I hoped that the project would be stopped, but it wasn't." He remains convinced that the decision to drop the bomb on Japan was in part to demonstrate US superiority to the world, and above all to the Russians.

Military intelligence at Los Alamos was appalled by his resignation and accused him of being a Russian spy. "They had a dossier on me and I could have been in dire trouble," he says. "What saved me was that whoever gathered the intelligence put a number of things into this dossier that I could easily prove to be wrong. Eventually they apologised, though they never destroyed the dossier and I found it hard to get a US visa after the war."

He swapped nuclear physics for medical physics and became a professor at St Bartholomew's hospital medical college, applying his expertise in radiation to cancer treatment. He decided not to return to communist Poland - whatever US intelligence might believe, he had opposed the party since being told at a meeting in his 20s that he was "there not to think but to listen". He became a British citizen in 1946 and in the 1950s was instrumental, along with Bertrand Russell, in establishing the Pugwash conferences, which aimed to bring scientists from around the world together in the interests of peace and disarmament. "Remember your humanity and forget the rest," implored Russell's original manifesto. Rotblat has been doing that ever since, in the face of accusations in the 50s and 60s that Pugwash (named after the Canadian town in which the first conference took place in 1957) was a communist-front organisation and that he was a fellow traveller.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 and given a knighthood in 1998. But when he received the latter honour, the Daily Telegraph was still keen to echo vestigial doubts about whose side he had been on. "For almost 40 years," it said sourly, "he did everything he could to undermine the foreign and defence policy of successive British governments." The paper called him "woefully naive" and labelled him, with pejorative intent, a "CND icon". In fact, although he was a founder member of CND, he left within a month because he preferred multilateralism to unilateralism; he also successfully resisted communist infiltration of Pugwash. As for naivety, is that not merely what a cynic calls optimism?

He retains that optimism, even in the face of conflict in Iraq. "The one ray of hope is that I have noticed a very pronounced move by people, ordinary people, against the war - not just war in Iraq, but war in general. There is a feeling that we need not immediately use military means to resolve a conflict. This is a good sign and it will not go away."

"War turns people into mindless beasts," Rotblat once said. "Even scientists who are normally highly logical lose their rationality when a war breaks out. People who detest barbarism start to act in a barbaric way. This is the insanity of war."

Yet all is not lost. "I have had two objectives in my life," he says. "The short-term objective is the elimination of nuclear weapons; the long-term objective is the elimination of war altogether. As the years have gone on, my hopes of seeing the long-term goal have gone, and now I'm not sure that I will see the short-term goal either. But other people will take up the fight. The present phase will pass, and if we can avoid a nuclear holocaust in the age of Bush, then I think there is hope."

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8
Four anti-war protesters charged
BBC News
21.03.03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2872213.stm

Peace protesters began to gather in the city centre at lunchtime
Four people have been charged after an anti-war demonstration in the centre of Oxford.
Two men and a woman were charged with obstructing a highway and a third man was charged with threatening behaviour.

Some 90 police on horseback patrolled the demonstration of in the city's Cornmarket on Thursday evening.
About 1,000 protesters, including schoolchildren and students, turned out.
'Very angry'

Demonstrators had begun gathering in the city centre at lunchtime, shortly after the British and American assault on Iraq began.

Nuala Young, of Oxford Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), said: "I feel very angry that they've gone ahead in such a manner.

"I worry that they will do carpet bombing and engulf Baghdad.
"We feel that Saddam Hussein has no connection with terrorism and that there must be another item on the agenda - oil.
"Other countries, aside from the US, including China, will need more oil by 2020."

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9
Faith leaders urge early end to war
BBC News
21.03.03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2872391.stm

Faith leaders have called on political leaders to secure a "just, lasting and secure peace" in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said war with Iraq could only be "a limited means to an end".
He was joined by five of Britain's most senior religious leaders from three faiths outside Lambeth Palace as he read out a joint statement.

The comments came as the Muslim Association of Britain urged Muslims to use Friday prayers to pray for peace.
Hundreds of mosques across the UK are expected to take part in the special prayers.

Protests against the war are also expected to take place across Britain throughout the day.
Dr Williams, who has been a vocal opponent of a war against Iraq, said the rights of civilians innocently caught up in the conflict had to be protected.

"We pray that early efforts to achieve a just, lasting and secure peace both in Iraq and throughout the Middle East may follow swiftly in the footsteps of war.
"We urge those with the power to help make real this vision to remain true, amid the clamour of conflict, to that noble and vital purpose," he said.
And he called for unity between religions.
"This is a conflict neither about religion nor between religions.

Anti-war protests
He was joined by the Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Free Churches Moderator the Rev David Coffey, Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks, the chairman of the Council of Mosques and Imams UK, Dr Zaki Badawi, and co-president of Churches Together In England the Rev Esme Beswick.
On Thursday Christian and Muslim leaders appealed for unity between faiths amid concern over rising tensions.
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland and The Muslim Council of Britain urged religious communities to come together to pray for peace.

Meanwhile anti-war protesters have taken to the streets across the UK.
The Stop the War Coalition said protests had taken place as far apart as Cornwall and Aberdeen.
In Manchester protesters blocked the roads and a several people were arrested.
An further anti-war demonstration is planned for Saturday in central London, which is expected to attract tens of thousands of people from across the country.

Other protests are being planned include a CND rally outside a US air base in Harrogate and a demonstration outside RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.

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10
Welsh troops prepare for PoWs
BBC News
22.03.03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2875245.stm

Many hundreds of Iraqi prisoners are expected to be housed in the prisoner-of-war camps being constructed by Welsh troops located near Basra in southern Iraq.

The Pentagon claims "thousands" of prisoners have been taken as coalition forces - with tanks of the Queen's Dragoon Guards scouting routes of advance - tighten their grip on Iraq's second city.
It is claimed 8,000 troops of Iraq's 51st Infantry Division may have surrendered to US marines advancing towards Basra.

Troops of the largely Welsh Queen's Dragoon Guards, also known as the Welsh Cavalry, are building prisoner-of-war camps in southern areas of the country which are now controlled by US and UK forces.
A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: "We are conscious about how we treat prisoners-of-war and that their treatment is in line with the Geneva Convention."

Meanwhile, the advance of 1,500 Turkish commandos into northern Iraq has been called "rather chilling" by the Cynon Valley MP, Ann Clwyd, a veteran campaigner on behalf of the Kurds.

Threat
Turkey says the use of its forces is necessary to secure its borders and to "prevent terrorism".
But Ms Clwyd, who visited the Kurdish-held area of northern Iraq three weeks ago, said Turkey should withdraw its forces as there was no threat to its sovereignty.

She told the BBC: "There is no military or terrorist threat to the Turks - I just find that a very poor reason for crossing the border once again into northern Iraq and de-stabilising the area.

"The Kurds seem to fear the Turks almost as much as {they fear} Saddam Hussein.

"Maybe also Syria and Iran might also think they've got a reason for coming in - I think it's a very bad move and Turkey should retreat."

The wider coalition advance comes as rear-guard elements of the Welsh Cavalry have been deployed to build fence-lined camps with feeding and medical facilities for the Iraqi prisoners.

Conditions
The PoW camps are large in size, taking coalition forces "quite a while" to build, an MoD spokeswoman said.
Conditions in the desert are said to be very hot but the sand storms of recent days have abated.

The Welsh Cavalry's Scimitar tanks were part of the initial operation to secure a beachhead on the coast of the Gulf close to Iran.

They were said on Saturday to be spearheading a route north toward Basra, from where troops may push further north to Baghdad.

About 2,000 service men and women from Wales are stationed in the region, providing a range of frontline and back-up expertise as part of the US-led coalition to oust the Iraqi regime.

Legality
But the Labour peer and historian Lord Morgan of Aberdyfi has called into question the legality of the war in Iraq.
Professor Kenneth Morgan said the conflict runs counter to Labour's fundamental values and traditions.
He said: "The fact that Saddam's regime kills thousands does not in any way justify similar actions on our part."
Soldiers' relatives admit to a "nerve-wracking" wait for news and many have urged the public to get behind UK troops.

But demonstrations against the war have continued with a 24-hour vigil underway in Bangor and anti-war campaigners saying they are to take part in a protest in London.

Around 700 peace marchers have brought the centre of Aberystwyth in to a standstill.

March
The march on the mid Wales coastal town was arranged by CND Cymru and includes pensioners and children.
Welsh Assembly members who have spoken out in favour of the war have been warned they may be targeted by anti-war protesters.

The National Assembly's Presiding Office said they may face physical damage to their property, and urged them to be vigilant.

The Muslim community in Wales has expressed its sadness at the start of the military campaign.
And the seven bishops of the Church in Wales have also called for prayer and reflection in response to the hostilities against Iraq.

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11

War inspires new voice of the youth
BBC News
27.03.03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2889525.stm

Teenagers are supposed to be consumed by apathy. But when the attack on Iraq opened last week, who were first on the streets to protest? School children. Michael Williams, 16, tells what got him motivated.
When I came back from the demonstration last week, I was really charged up and on a high. It was inspiring to be surrounded by people of my generation who are not prepared to compromise; not prepared to say 'oh, okay then, I'll support the war'.

The war is a big issue at school. There are anti- posters and leaflets around and people are talking about it, arguing, disagreeing. Certainly a lot of strong feeling.

The majority are against. Some people feel really strongly against and some are less worried. Actually, a few support it.

Whatever side you're on, everyone agrees that America will win in Iraq. They'll win the war, but the big question is what will happen then. The effects of this war, not only in Iraq but what happened with the UN, are going to be felt for years to come.

Now you might be able to say that's all in the future, but it's people of my age who are going to have to deal with the fall-out. Over-population, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism - when these problems come home to roost we are going to be in the frontline. We'll be dealing with the consequences.

It's not accurate to say that teenagers are apathetic and only worried about trivial things. In terms of traditional politics, we may not be tied to one party, but I've seen people younger than me get fired up about this war - they're old enough to know what's right and wrong.

Message to No. 10
And it's patronising. At the demo last week, Tariq Ali told us: 'Don't let yourselves be patronised.'
The thing I got really angry about was that people said: 'oh they're just demonstrating to bunk off school; sloping off is their motivation' as if teenagers are always looking for the easy way out.

Well, if we're going to talk in stereotypes, then I could just as easily say 'they're just a bunch of clueless old fools'. But I'm not lowering my argument. Patronising us is just short-sighted.

Yeah, I did take time out of classes to go to the demo, but it wasn't to make a point against my teachers, it was about sending a message to the government. We're not going to school, we're going to have our say about this war.

Inspired to act
Lots of people from my school went down, and not just sixth-formers like me. A couple of pupils had even organised a trip. The staff weren't too happy about people dropping out of lessons, especially the younger ones.
But the fact is the war has enfranchised more people into the role of activist.

I'm not totally opposed to war. I can see a situation in which the military must be used as a last resort.
But this has to be through the UN. I think that's the heart of the issue. The UN being undermined is quite possibly a more important issue than the war in Iraq.

It has set a precedent and it could put back global co-operation. Does this mean that in the future the US can stray into very unreasonable conflicts?

I think about it, but the war doesn't seem very real to me. I don't know anyone who's gone out to fight. The concept of war can be quite exciting to a young man, someone my age, especially with all the news coverage.
But I'm trying not to lose sight of the bigger picture and the fact that people are dying in Iraq because of what our country is doing there.

I know our protests will not stop the war. But we're saying that we won't be walked over and ignored.

Some of your comments so far:
There is a reason why you have to be aged 18 and above in order to vote. School "children" lack the maturity, intelligence and experience to enable them to have a useful opinion. Their views should be heard, but only taken lightly. I'm sure many will look back on this in a few years time when they have matured and realise they spent too much time following the crowd.
Wayne, UK

Let's hope that these young enthusiastic voices are not dimmed by the hum drum of society once they reach working society.
Robyn, UK

The only good thing to come out of this war is the politicisation of British youth.
Kevin, UK

The last few weeks have been great, they have reminded me what youthful naivety looks like. When I was the same age it was animal rights and CND, I am now 35 and a little more realistic. All I would say is at that age it all looks very clear, black and white, right and wrong. As people grow older they change, their outlook on life changes too (everyone does). I think its probably a good balance having generations with different view points
Jez Daughtry, UK

Michael Williams does not offer an alternative to war. Oppressive regimes will not just go away.
Hazel , UK

Well this is a good thing as I'm also a teenager and here teenagers in Pakistan are very curious to go and take part in the war as we believe this is a war not on Iraq but on Islam.
Fawad Imam, Karachi, Pakistan

Well done Michael! And all the other young people who are not afraid to stand up and be counted, if I were a teacher I'd be marking your protest down as a citizenship field trip and you'd be getting an A*!
Marc Rothera, UK

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12
Thousands at anti-war rallies
BBC News
23.03.03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2874627.stm

Protesters head for Hyde Park
Protests against war with Iraq have been held in London and across the UK - the biggest rallies since the invasion began.
The march through the capital, culminating in an afternoon of speeches in Hyde Park, attracted a crowd of about 200,000 people, according to a police estimate.
The Stop the War Coalition said half a million had attended, still well down on the massive march on 15 February, with fellow organisers CND saying the total was between 200,000 to 300,000.
But the day ended in confrontation with reports - denied by the Metropolitan Police - that riot police had charged a crowd of protesters who had blocked traffic in Oxford Street.
'Missiles' allegation
Scotland Yard said officers had merely established a cordon to prevent protesters throwing objects at them.
A spokeswoman said: "As demonstrators were making their way along Oxford Street our officers came under fire from bottles and other debris from some of the demonstrators."

A total of 3,500 police officers lined the London march routes, and there were 10 arrests during the day.

Route of the London march
Further demonstrations were held in cities across the UK and at US military bases in Gloucestershire and Yorkshire, with other complaints about police tactics.

The day was also marked by prayers for peace in churches and cathedrals around the country.
Thousands also marched from Fairford Town in Gloucestershire to the local RAF base, where US B-52 bombers are based.

The bombers are believed to have played a key role in Friday night's strikes on Iraq.

About 1,000 police lined the route and watched as protesters laid wreaths "for the death of democracy".
Three coach-loads of protesters from London were stopped and searched by police.

Gloucestershire Police said items - the nature of which they did not divulge - were found which led them to believe that some of the protesters on-board planned to cause a disturbance.

I didn't vote for George Bush and I feel Britain is carrying out George Bush's policies
Barry O'Donovan, anti-war protester

BBC News Online talks to protesters in central London They were escorted back to London by police, with some of those on-board displaying signs protesting at the police's action under the Criminal Justice Act.
A spokesman for CND condemned the move, telling BBC News Online: "The day went peacefully. Everyone wanted to go out and protest against the illegal and immoral war.
"Then this happens to people. It is unheard of for 20 years."

At the US surveillance centre in Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, police said they arrested about a dozen demonstrators after confrontations with officers on duty.

The "Foil the Base" protest attracted about 1,000 people - hundreds arrived clad in tin foil or waving foil banners, which organisers hoped would disrupt communications by blocking satellite signals.
The majority of the arrests followed angry confrontations between anti-war protesters and dozens of police in fields leading to the wire perimeter fences of the highly sensitive North Yorkshire base.

In pictures: Anti-war protests

Click for full story In the prime minister's constituency in north-east England, about 100 protesters gathered outside Trimdon Labour Club in Sedgefield, Durham, to watch a caricature of Tony Blair jump through a hoop on the orders of a cartoon George W Bush.

In Scotland, several thousand people took to the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh to voice their opposition to war, with smaller protests in Aberdeen, Inverness and Dundee, where demonstrators targeted the Scottish Labour Party conference.

Many of those in Glasgow complained they had been penned in by police in the city centre. Strathclyde Police said the demonstrators had been trying to stage a protest on the M8 motorway - and had been stopped from doing so for their own safety.

In Bristol, a sit-down protest closed a road as 2,500 people gathered at a rally. Police made four arrests.
About 1,500 anti-war protesters marched in Manchester.

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13
Anti-war marchers hold London rally
The Daily Telegraph
23.03.03
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F03%2F23%2Fnprot23.xml

Hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters converged on central London yesterday to march against the war in Iraq.

The number was considerably lower than the estimated one million who took part in the rally on February 15. The organisers, the Stop the War Coalition, said the turnout was low because it had only four days to prepare.
Andrew Burgin, a spokesperson for the group, said: "There are at least 400,000 people here. That is a significant achievement considering how little time we had - for February 15's march we had three months to organise it. There are also significant demonstrations taking place in cities across Britain."

Rallies were held in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff and a demonstration took place at RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, from which US forces are launching B-52 bomber raids.

The march in London took the same route as last month, starting at two points, the Embankment or Malet Street, and converging on Piccadilly before ending at a rally at Hyde Park.

Counter-protests took place along the route. Outside Downing Street, two people held a banner with the entwined Union Jack and Stars and Stripes. Dr Louise Baron, 57, of Bath said that she made the banner as a symbol to represent millions of Britons who were in favour of the war.

"My husband and I have come here today to speak for all those who want the US and UK governments to rid the world of Saddam Hussein," she said.

Barzan Khan, a Kurdish refugee, held a placard saying "Rid the world of Saddam". He said: "This demonstration to stop the war is a travesty. The troops are already there so kill him and get out."

Police said they had made no arrests and the march had been good natured. Judging by the time it took the procession to pass along the Embankment the police estimate of 100,000 people was almost certainly too low. Outside Downing Street many slowed to chant and gesticulate towards No 10.

Statues of Britain's military heroes in front of the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall were targeted. Field Marshall Montgomery's image was plastered with CND stickers, and Lord Alanbrooke's was given a sign reading, "War is terror".

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14
Churchill great granddaughter joins march
The Daily Telegraph
22.03.03
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F03%2F22%2Fnprot222.xml

The 14-year-old great-granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill had a CND "ban the bomb" symbol on her cheek as she joined hundreds of other children on an anti-war protest.

Jessica Churchill-McLeod, 14, was at the forefront of a march by 600 young protesters opposed to the military action against Iraq.

"I am proud, so proud of what my great-grandfather achieved, and I don't think I am betraying his memory by protesting against the war," she said.

Miss Churchill-McLeod, a pupil at St Dunstan's School in Glastonbury, Somerset, and the daughter of Arabella Churchill, Sir Winston's granddaughter, was among students who marched in the town's High Street on Thursday.

She said of the action against Iraq: "I don't agree with it - and I don't agree with the way that our elected leaders are not listening to what Britain's youth think. When I heard about the attack I felt sick."
Her mother, a charity worker, said her daughter's protest had been "a little disrespectful".
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15
Fewer British protest for peace
The Times
22.03.03
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly0,,1-1-620239,00.html

The tide of public protest against the war in Iraq appeared to have turned today as demonstrators estimated by police at fewer than 100,000 took to the streets of central London, considerably lower than the estimated one million who staged a similar protest last month.

The march through the capital, culminating in a rally in Hyde Park, was among a series of protests around Britain and across the world.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which organised the London protest, estimated the banner-waving crowds at 150,000 but police said they believed the number was below 100,000 and said an official figure would be released tonight.

But they praised the behaviour of the demonstrators as “good-natured and peaceful” and said there had been no arrests.

On February 15, crowds estimated at between 750,000 and two million people took part in a march and rally.
Some protesters blamed today’s low turn-out on apathy among the public since the war on Iraq began this week.
Reflecting on today’s low turnout compared with last month, a CND spokesman said: “It was almost inevitable that it would not be as big as that because that was one of the biggest marches in the history of this country. This protest was organised with only four days’ notice.

“I believe that people are frustrated that they demonstrated the last time and the Government did not change their mind.”

Rallies were also held at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, Tony Blair’s constituency of Sedgefield, Manchester, Bristol and in five Scottish cities.

There were also demonstrations around the world and some turned violent. In the Yemen, three people were shot dead and dozens injured as police clashed with demonstrators attempting to storm the US embassy.
Police also clashed with protesters in Greece as more than 150,000 people in Athens and tens of thousands around the country held a four-hour nationwide strike.

At RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, where US B-52 bombers are based, around 5,000 protesters were watched by around 1,000 police officers drafted in from 18 forces.

Members of the crowd laid flowers at the main gate for “the death of democracy” and shouted insults at staff inside the compound, as a black Hawk military helicopter hovered nearby.

Addressing the crowd, journalist and author Will Self, branded Mr Blair a misguided idealist”.
Outside Trimdon Labour Club, in Sedgefield, Durham, around 100 protesters watched a cartoon Tony Blair jump through a hoop under the orders of a caricature of American President George Bush.

In Bristol, a sit-down protest closed a road in the city as 2,500 people gathered at a rally. Police said that they made four arrests and that demonstrators later moved to College Green, in front of the City Council offices, allowing the route to re-open.

Around 1,500 anti-war protesters gathered in Manchester before marching along Oxford Road towards the Castlefield area of the city, but police confirmed no arrests had been made. Last week, 20 people were arrested for public order offences during similar protests on Thursday and Friday.

A rally at the US military base at Menwith Hill, in North Yorkshire, was delayed as a crowd of around 1,000 people gathered at the site, the largest electronic monitoring station in the world.

Thousands more people are thought to have attended anti-war rallies in Ireland, held at Waterford, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Sligo, with around 5,000 joining a march through Dublin.

In Germany, 80 activists blockaded the US military’s European Command during an hour-long protest in Stuttgart.

Five thousand people took to the streets of Melbourne to denounce the use of Australian special forces in Iraq.
A rally was also held in the financial district of San Francisco, in the United States, as protesters descended on the city’s streets.

British and US flags, together with effigies of George Bush and Tony Blair were set alight by a crowd of 7,000 Muslims in Kota Bahru, in eastern Malaysia, and in Buddhist Thailand, dozens of activists converged on the American embassy.

Riot police used rubber bullets to quell crowds in Bahrain, while water cannons and teargas were used during rallies in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.

In Brazil, people threw chocolate eclairs - known as chocolate bombs in Portuguese - at the US consulate in Sao Paulo and in Indonesia eggs and vegetables were thrown at a British embassy.

Around 11,000 people also took to the streets of the Japanese capital Tokyo and in Pakistan, the nation’s religious right called for peaceful protests against the war but have withdrawn demands for a national strike.

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16
It's the return of the peers show
The Times
24.03.03
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly0,,1-7-621322,00.html

WHEN he was made redundant in 1999, Gerard Collier was forced to go looking for a new career. A former van driver, lathe operator and engineer, he eventually landed a job as a customer adviser in the Stockport branch of B&Q, where he works part time.

“I heard that they were looking for more mature employees. I do a fair amount of DIY myself so I was well suited,” he says. “I work in the hardware department giving a whole range of advice — which nuts and bolts to use for which job. That sort of thing.”

Happy though he is in his work, over the past few weeks he has been writing letters, making phone calls and holding meetings with former colleagues in an attempt to get his old job back. And this morning he will be in London to conduct urgent last-minute lobbying before a decision is taken this week.

For Collier, 56, is the fifth Baron Monkswell, and it is under this name that he appears on the ballot paper in one of the most bizarre elections British democracy has witnessed. It is certainly the most extraordinary election in the history of the hereditary peerage, but then, by their very nature, hereditary peers are not accustomed to elections.
Tomorrow and Wednesday, members of the House of Lords will file into committee room five of the upper house to cast their ballots in an unprecedented by-election occasioned by the death in January of the Viscount of Oxfuird.

This is the election that was never supposed to happen. When more than 600 hereditary peers were expelled from the Lords, 92, elected by their colleagues, were allowed to stay while further reforms were worked out. A provision was made for by-elections to be held should one of the rump die, and should new reform legislation still not have been introduced a year after the general election. This was deemed unlikely.

But with reform of the Lords very much on new Labour’s backburner, an election is now needed, and to say that the Lords are a-leaping at the chance of rejoining their noble friends would be an understatement.

It was anticipated that perhaps as many as a dozen of those who had been put out to pasture would stand in the election. When nominations closed two weeks ago, 81 had thrown their hats into the ring. One duke, 19 earls, 14 viscounts and 47 barons.

David Beamish, the Clerk of the Journals, who is organising the election, says that a code of conduct has been issued that stipulates that a candidate “may not offer hospitality, entertainment or financial inducements to electors intended to influence their votes or likely to have that effect”. Neither must they “engage in any activity intended or likely to discredit other candidates”. Finally, they must not “solicit votes near the room where they are taking place”.

No manifestos are being published, no hustings are being held, and the party machines are — officially at least — staying well out of it. There are 213 Tory, 188 Labour, 178 crossbench and 65 Liberal Democrat members among the nearly 700 members of the Lords. One senior Tory points out that an attempt by the party leadership to cajole their lordships into backing one particular candidate would “be at best unwise”.

This is an election contested by men — and they are all men — whose forebears have for centuries been born into power and assumed it effortlessly. It just wouldn’t be the done thing to be seen to try too hard, now, would it?
Some of those taking part don’t even want to talk about it. “I’m not sure that I would,” says Viscount Ullswater, a former Conservative minister and Princess Margaret’s private secretary, when I call to ask if he would care to outline why he is standing. “I’m not sure that I want to conduct my campaign through the newspapers.”
Others are happier to talk. Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, son of the great field marshall and vanquisher of Rommel, returns a call from France where he is on holiday. He was planning to return to London only last night, and while he is one of the favourites from the crossbenches, especially among those who want to see a popular old-timer back in the House, he is taking a relaxed approach to campaigning. “I don’t think campaigning is quite the style of the House of Lords,” he says. “Quite a lot of people know me — a lot of people suggested I stand.”
He is relying on friendly forces in the field to plot victory while he remains in the background. “Elections are funny old things,” he says in the manner of one describing a rather baffling old aunt. “I’m leaving it to the people who encouraged me to stand. Hopefully, they will be saying ‘this chap is not too bad’. It’s better to let other people do things. I’m not very good at going round blowing my own trumpet.”

Is this the naivety of an aristocrat who is only vaguely aware of what an election, in particular something so oxymoronic as an aristocratic election, actually is? Or is it the masterful approach of a man with the blood of a strategic genius coursing through his veins?

It becomes clear that not everyone is so convinced that minimal campaigning will pay off. Some peers have been firing off letters detailing their experience, past good works and qualifications, urging others to vote for them. While fighting shy of the kind of shameless self-promotion members of the Commons have to indulge in every four or five years, they have been padding round the Lords, discreetly pressing the flesh.

Lord De Ramsey, a former chairman of the Environment Agency and another front-runner, is scornful of such efforts. “They may be successful but I don’t think you can buy votes for a gin and tonic,” he says. He admits, however, that it is “quite understandable that people are campaigning. It’s a wonderful opportunity. I understand that some people are putting a lot of effort in. That’s not the way I want to play it. I might see one or two people but most people have made up their minds. I’m prepared to take my chances.”

He is another Conservative and points out that in the original election he only just missed out, but is quick to add: “Not that I’m complacent in any way, because there are some jolly good candidates. It’s got to be one of the weirdest elections to happen in any democracy as far as I can see.”

When De Ramsey failed to make the cut last time, “of course, I was disappointed”. He immersed himself in reorganising the management system on his estate in Cambridgeshire and in charity work in Africa. But there was something missing.

In 1999 there was much speculation about what the peers who lost out would do with themselves. The size of the ballot paper in this election illustrates how, for many, the real world has failed to fill the gap in their lives where Britain’s most exclusive club had been.

The Duke of Somerset did not stand in the original election because he thought he would be too busy on his estate in Devon. “I’ve changed my mind now. I missed it more than I thought,” he says. He is the only duke, but insists that his technical superiority in the aristocratic table of precedence will have little bearing on the campaign. “I was interested to see that I’m the only duke. I wondered if there might have been one or two more. I doubt that will come into it.”

Some have more overtly political ambitions. The Earl of Stockton, grandson of Harold Macmillan, is a Conservative member of the European Parliament, which is full of the Continent’s aristocracy. “I find it quite entertaining to think that the European Parliament has become the last refuge of the ancien regime.”
He recalls the story of Otto von Habsburg, a former Euro MP, who when told that there was an Austria-Hungary football match on one evening asked: “Who are we playing?” But while Stockton’s grandfather was a Conservative Prime Minister who tried to take Britain into Europe, he suspects that he is now too pro-European for many in his party and fears that in 2004 “we’ll have to do very well indeed for me to be re-elected”.
Hence his hopes of re-entering the Lords where — and here is his pitch — “I could communicate what is going on in Europe”.

Furthermore, “if I don’t get it this time I will have put down a marker for a future election. It’s a funny thing about the hereditary peers. They live on and re-emerge in other places.”

Others reveal just how apolitical the hereditary peers can be. The Earl of Iveagh, a 33-year-old scion of the Guinness dynasty, is a former member of CND who sat as a crossbencher and worked for the white-suited crusader Martin Bell in the last election. He thinks that politics is “ghastly. It’s a nasty business isn’t it?” Sitting in the sunshine in the South Kensington garden of the large house where many members of the Guinness family have offices, he sports a sleeveless, flak jacket-style coat, dusty glasses and a cheerful, earnest demeanour. Country Life, which is running a “Peer Idol” feature to coincide with the election, has named him as one of the favourites. (Iveagh, anxious, rings later to declare an interest: his brother-in-law works for the magazine. But he insists that no called him about the story before it went in.)

A born and bred Irishman, whose father had not even sat in the House, Iveagh decided to take up his right to sit in his early twenties, after his father died. “I, like a lot of the country, believed it was a fuddy-duddy place which was a great old club. But it turned out to be the biggest privilege of my life to be a hereditary.”

With a two-month-old baby, a farm to run and a fledgling microbrewery business, he has a full life but would “rejig” it if he once more had the chance to work on his beloved environment and sustainability issues.
In the end, though, “life goes on without the Lords. We are all getting on with our lives out of the Lords.” he says.
Not all are so fortunate. Which brings us back to those candidates who see the election as a means of escaping a life spent dealing with nuts. Monkswell, who sat on the Labour benches and is the leading candidate of the DIY fringe, is writing to former colleagues to point out that “I have a wide range of experience”.
He does not suffer from a lack of name recognition: “I’m reasonably well known to people from all sides of the House.”

This is due less to the fact that the first Baron Monkswell was Attorney-General under Gladstone, than that the current holder of the title attracted headlines in 1994 when he was jailed for 14 weeks for attacking a then girlfriend’s psychotherapist with an adjustable spanner. It was he, too, who had to apologise to the House for inadvertently admitting four lesbians who abseiled into the chamber.

He seems like a long shot, but then with such a huge open field, who knows who will be dusting down their ermine after the result is announced on Wednesday. As Monkswell himself so wisely says: “This is the first time this has happened. Nobody knows what the outcome might be.”

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17
War paves way for a new political landscape
The Scotsman
24.03.03
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=353302003&rware=PVXAIQELTFNV&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=7

CAN the Stop the War Coalition (STWC) turn itself into a permanent influence on British politics? There are signs it is going to try. Far from disappearing with the onset of hostilities, leading STWC figures are calling for a campaign to deselect sitting Labour MPs who voted for war.

Yet the central problem for sustaining any single-issue protest movement is the fact that its attractive power and unity stem only from people being against something. It is easy to be against a war. The difficulty arises in getting folk to agree on some positive political agenda. That is not meant to be a cynical criticism, just a statement of plain fact. Kerevan’s Rule #1 of protest politics: the bigger the protest movement the more likely it is to fragment.

Thus, the widespread opposition to the poll tax, including the violent demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 31 March, 1990, petered out the instant the tax was scrapped. Indeed, the electorate then happily traipsed back into the polling booths for the Tories in 1993. Again, the curious swelling of Pujadist anger at rising petrol prices in the autumn of 2000 quickly melted into thin air when Gordon Brown did away with his automatic tax escalator on petrol.

However, there is an exception which proves the rule. In the two examples I have cited, the government of the day was able to close down quickly the political irritant that was provoking the mass dissent. So, Rule #2: if a government can’t eliminate the cause of protests it gives the protesters time to form roots. The inability of the US Democrats to end the Vietnam war (which they desperately wanted to) led to that party being seized by the radicals in the shape of Jimmy Carter. However, note that Carter was so ineffectual - being a born protester himself - that, apart from his sorry four years, the Democrats were effectively put out of office for a generation by the Vietnam debacle.

Hence Kerevan’s Rule #3: turning protest into an alternative government is almost impossible. More likely you just debilitate the Left for decades. Thus, even when peace eventually comes, Mr Blair will not be forgiven and the deselection battles leading up to the 2004 Westminster election could be bloody and diverting - even if no-one important challenges him directly for the leadership. We could see the anti-war movement and the anti-New Labour unions such as the FBU unite in a bitter guerrilla war to replace New Labour with Real Labour. What the voters do is another matter.

I do not think we have come fully to terms with the tensions in the Labour Party unleashed by Iraq. This is not like Vietnam, the last era of mass anti-war demonstrations. One of the political peculiarities of the Vietnam war was that the then Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, resolutely kept British troops out of the conflict despite endless pleas from President Lyndon Johnston for even a token UK presence. Wilson saw keeping the Labour Party together as a priority (though he got scant thanks from the ever-myopic Labour Left). And Wilson knew sending the Black Watch into the jungles of Vietnam was the best way of ripping the party to shreds.

Iraq is a domestic British problem in the way Vietnam was not. Even if Blair is proved correct in his stance - as I think he will be - that does not imply a return to business as usual inside Labour. The fault-lines are now too deep. British politics are in for another bout of realignment, though it will play out over a decade and more.

Yet I remain unconvinced that the STWC can insert itself into this process in any positive fashion. The middle-class demonstrators of the big march on 15 February have melted away with the onset of the war. Now we are seeing protest tactics switch to civil disobedience and thousands of young school pupils are flooding into the movement.

Few realise that the apparatus of the STWC is run by my old friends, the revolutionary Left. Or that its official aim goes far beyond the Iraq war. This is: "to stop the war currently declared by the United States and its allies against ‘terrorism’". Of the 37 members of the STWC steering committee listed on the organisation’s website, I note seven separate Marxist grouplets are formally represented, plus their numerous front bodies. I also see three of my old comrades from the International Marxist Group and two senior leaders of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

Indeed, the main front person for STWC turns out to be Lindsay Germain. She is the editor of the SWP’s theoretical magazine and an SWP full-time cadre. Her views on the uses of STWC make interesting reading. At the SWP national conference in London last October, she made a major speech about how the revolutionaries would infiltrate and use the STWC as an exercise in party building.

Her talk was entitled "Our tasks in the Stop the War Coalition". She noted the SWP had played a central role in setting up the STWC as a front organisation, though this was originally opposed by the Greens and CND. She referred to the anti-poll tax movement, in which the SWP played a prominent role, as a model of how to build a successful united front. However, she cautioned SWP members there was a need to be wary of the STWC being pulled in "a rightward direction".

The SWP is Britain’s largest revolutionary Marxist party. Here in Scotland, it is hiding inside Tommy Sheridan’s Scottish Socialist Party. But the SWP nationally is tiring of our Tommy. It increasingly sees the SSP as a sectarian force that does not wish to work with the anti-Blair, anti-war forces emerging inside New Labour. Rather than create an English equivalent of Sheridan’s party, the SWP sees more fertile ground in building and leading united front bodies like the STWC, as transmission belts for recruitment.

I don’t mention all this for the purposes of red-baiting. The SWP is as entitled to its point of view as the rest of us. But its old-fashioned desire to "colonise" protest movements such as the STWC will have the predictable effect of side-tracking them into the SWP’s narrower agenda.

Thus, it was Ms Germain, speaking for the STWC on BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme yesterday, who called for the deselection of Labour MPs who had voted for intervention in Iraq. Not only is that a bit cheeky coming from someone in a different political party, it is abusing her role inside the STWC. It also confirms her Leninist antipathy to democracy: parliament voted by 412 to 149 for war, including the majority of Scots Labour MPs.

PS: I marched against the Vietnam war. As a result of such protests, America withdrew from playing a stabilising force in world politics, while a decaying Soviet Empire invaded and destabilised Afghan-istan (with the support of Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro) and armed Saddam Hussein. Meantime, those nice Stalinists in Vietnam have created a basket-case country with a GDP per head of only $2,100 compared to Malaysia’s $9,000 and Thailand’s $6,600. Kerevan’s Rule #4: be careful what you march against, because other people suffer the consequences.
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18
West must align with Enlightenment
The Scotsman
22.03.03
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=345362003

NEXT weekend, in the little theatre at Bowhill near Selkirk, the Rowan Tree Theatre Company will launch a new small-scale stage version of James Hogg’s great 19th century novel, The Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

It’s a daunting piece to adapt for performance, not least because of the lurid curse contained in the story itself against anyone who tries to "alter or amend" the tale. But it’s also a book well worth celebrating; not only because of its international status as one of the key European novels of its age, but because the great cultural struggle it records, between the values of the Enlightenment and the deep undercurrents of religious fundamentalism, also give it a powerful relevance to the times through which we are living now.

"Fundamentalism", of course, is one of those pejorative words that we tend to apply to others rather than ourselves. But Scotland is one nation which, if it is honest about its own history, can hardly deny a close acquaintance with both sides of the argument between liberal enlightenment and fundamentalist faith. As the American historian Arthur Herman pointed out in his recent brilliant best-seller about the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment on the making of the modern world, this is a nation that developed in less than 50 years, around 1700, from a rigid Calvinist theocracy in which a young student could be tried and hung for a jocular insult to the scriptures, to the home of some of the most advanced liberal thought the world has ever seen. The tension between these two aspects of Scotland’s history - the open, enquiring, industrious and generous, versus the closed, self-righteous, narrow and intolerant - still plays itself out in our culture today; and in that, we are not alone, but simply offer a particularly clear and well-chronicled example of the struggle every society undergoes as it moves from tradition into modernity, and then on into the stresses of the post-modern world.

And as the tide of open warfare begins to roll across Iraq, it seems to me that our understanding of that struggle within our own societies matters more and more; if only because any positive outcome to the present conflict - for the people of Iraq or anyone else - will depend absolutely on the capacity of the powerful Western nations to align themselves fully with those Enlightenment values, and not to be seduced by any of the new forms of fundamentalism currently sweeping the planet. Fundamentalist belief structures essentially have three characteristics, none of them compatible with the creation of truly open societies.

In the first place, they take a series of myths or stories designed to help human beings contemplate their place in the universe and the mystery of their existence, and mistakenly categorise them as literal truths, setting up violent intellectual and emotional tensions among those who strive to believe.

Secondly, they encourage believers to imagine that they are in sole possession of the truth, and that those who do not share their belief are in some way inferior, lost or damned. And thirdly, they permit believers to think of themselves as, in Calvinist terms, "justified by faith"; they are the chosen whose faith will save them, even if their actions on Earth grossly violate every common idea of decency and morality.

And you don’t have to be the theological equivalent of a rocket-scientist to recognise that no faith has a monopoly of these attitudes, and no major faith is free of them. The Christian tradition obviously embraces everything from the vague CND pacifism of the old British left to the bug-eyed millenarianism of US white survivalists and race warriors; and in the same way, the Islamic tradition includes both urbane liberal intellectuals like Edward Said, and those ranting apologists for race-hate, murder and the mutilation of women recently evicted from the Finsbury Park mosque. It’s certainly true that in the modern era, the broadly Christian West was the region most closely associated with modernity and economic development, and with the individual freedoms made possible by those changes. But there have been times in history when the West languished, and the Islamic world was a powerhouse of discovery and progress; and it seems that we have all, without exception, been most successful when we have been able to wear our faiths relatively lightly, to remain open to intellectual and cultural challenge, and to work and trade closely with those from other backgrounds.

So what can we learn from all this, those of us who care for the idea of a global open society founded on freedom and justice? First, we have to be clear that what we are watching is not a "clash of civilisations", or a war between Christianity and Islam. It is, among other things, a war which will help determine the values on which future global politics will be founded; but that war will be fought out internally among the Western powers and within the Islamic world, as well as externally in the battle to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Secondly, in that struggle for the future, we must be wary of all forms of religious fundamentalism, including the militant Christian fundamentalism that now lies frighteningly close to the US administration; simply because they are not compatible with the basic belief in the equal value of human beings on which free and democratic societies are founded, and which forms the cornerstone of the US Constitution itself.

And then finally, we should resist the temptation to reject the idea of faith because of the way in which some people tend to abuse it.

Some believe, of course, that religious belief is the "cause" of the madness and brutality shown by some religious believers, and argue that rational humanity should simply discard it. But so long as human beings are born with minds capable of imagining, dreaming and yearning for so much more than they are ever likely to experience in a single lifetime, I think that need for a sense of a bigger pattern, a larger meaning, will persist, although perhaps in less militant and literal-minded forms. Yesterday, the leaders of the three big faiths in Britain - the anti-war Archbishop of Canterbury, the pro-war Chief Rabbi, and the Chairman of Council of Mosques, along with Cardinal Murphy O’Connor and other religious leaders, stood on the steps of Lambeth Palace reading a joint declaration of concern for those who will suffer in the current war, and of hope for a peaceful and democratic reconstruction after it. It was a bland statement, unimpressive in content.

But the fact that it was made, in a spirit of mutual solidarity, speaks volumes for how far we have come towards genuine mutual recognition and respect between what were once warring and competing faiths; and how far we are beginning to recognise that at the core of every great faith there lie some common themes that echo and re-echo through history, beyond all our divisions: a sense of the equal value before God of every human soul, and of a universe shaped by some mystery of creative energy and love which lies beyond our understanding, and at which we can finally only marvel.

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19
Our children are also the victims of Iraq conflict
The Scotsman
23.03.03
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=348592003

IN THE last couple of weeks my son’s morning routine has changed dramatically. Instead of attempting to wrest the remote control from my grip in order to change from BBC 1 to the cartoons, he has asked me the same question: "Has the war started yet?" before settling down to watch the latest footage: tanks massed on the Iraqi border, soldiers playing football in the desert sands or B-52 bombers lined up at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.

Now that it has, and the news bulletins contain graphic images of suffering and destruction, I will be forced to wrest the remote control from him in an effort to find more palatable viewing.

It would be a lie to say my son is unduly concerned by events unfolding in the Middle East. There has been no noticeable change in his behaviour, and when he has nightmares, they are more likely to be about the latest episode of Scooby Doo than the nightly bombing raids on Baghdad.

The campaign is happening so far away, it holds no more reality for him than Power Rangers. In any case, he’s a boy, and, though I am ashamed to admit it, I suspect he gets a visceral thrill from the ostentatious display of US and British military might.

Form time to time, however, concerns do surface: How long will it last? Are we in danger? Will bombs fall on Scotland? For slightly older children, those of a more sensitive nature, or those with relatives serving in the Gulf, these fears are more than a fleeting preoccupation: they touch the very fabric of their lives. Already, teachers have told of pupils deeply affected by the nightly news and by a rising sense of panic.

All of this poses dilemmas that are not covered in the standard parental handbooks. How do you strike a balance between emphasising that this is a real war, with real consequences (as opposed to the stuff of comics) without scaring the living daylights out of them?

Since 9/11 websites have sprung up to deal with precisely this issue. "Give children honest answers and information," says one helpfully. "Use words and concepts children can grasp." But how do you reduce the rights and wrongs of a situation that would tax the brains of Hobbes and JS Mill to language a five-year-old can deal with?

The problem with very young children is that their understanding is so skewed by their fragmentary knowledge of world affairs, it is impossible to second guess their fears. Primary school pupils interviewed on one programme said they were scared Iraqi soldiers would land on British shores because they believed we were engaged in a land war rather than an invasion.

One of the few concerns my son has voiced is that his father (also a journalist) will have to go off to fight. After reassuring him that his greying, couch potato of a dad would make a less effective soldier than the lion from the Wizard of Oz, I racked my brains to think how he knew about the concept of conscription. And then it dawned on me. His only previous encounter with a war that was not inter-galactic was in the film Return to Neverland, which opens with the heroine’s father setting off for the front in the Second World War. All his preconceptions about the conflict in Iraq flow from this one compelling image.

Older children - with their greater understanding - are likely to have more deep-seated concerns because they have a grasp of the possible repercussions. But they are also more able to channel their feelings into acts of rebellion.

The SSP’s Tommy Sheridan deserves to take some flak for exploiting the volatile emotions of 12 and 13-year-olds, but to criticise the children for taking part in anti-war demonstrations is to underestimate their need to vocalise their fears.

As a society, we seem to spend half our time berating young people for their apathy, and the rest berating them for caring too much. It is almost as though we cannot remember what it is like to be young and scared, and to have no control over your own destiny. Which is strange, because not so long ago we were all forced to confront the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Today’s thirtysomethings sat panic-stricken in classrooms across the country as the government’s Protect and Survive leaflet - the most terrifyingly laughable piece of literature ever penned - was read out to them.

I vividly recall the days when we all knew what to do when the four-minute warning sounded. The fact that it involved unscrewing the hinges from your living room doors and then propping the doors up against the walls for protection was not reassuring. In those days reading When the Wind Blows could reduce many of my classmates to tears, and their dreams were stalked by the image of black body bags being thrown out of windows. And how did they respond to their fears? They wore CND badges on their blazer lapels, took to the streets, and, if they were really brave, they stormed the barricades at Faslane.

I think if the children who gathered in Glasgow and Edinburgh on Thursday were mine, I would be proud of their willingness to engage in the debate and their empathy for people whose culture is far removed from their own.

After all, taking part in a civil protest is a much more effective way of testing the limits of democracy than sitting in a classroom reading about the constitution.

I suppose the key to discussing the war with your children is to be aware of exactly how much they are capable of taking in before you start. It is a lesson I have learned the hard way. Last week, when my son’s queries were coming at me with the force of an aerial bombardment, I resolved to answer them as simply and directly as I could.

The conversation went something like this:

Him: Is war bad, mummy?

Me: All wars are bad, but some are necessary.

Him: How can you tell the difference between a good and a bad war?

Me: Well, if you and your brother scrap over a toy, is that a good or a bad fight?

Him: A bad one.

Me: If you hit a big boy because he’s picking on your little brother, is that a good or a bad fight?

Him: A good one.

Me: Yes. Although it’s even better if you can stop him by talking.

Him: So which is this then?

Me: Well, it’s a bit of both. Saddam Hussein has hurt a lot of people, but perhaps we should have done more talking before we attacked.

Him (with look of profound enlightenment): I see.

Fast forward 20 hours to school-coming-out-time.

Him: Guess what? Fergus and I were talking about the war. I told him we were the goodies and Iraq were the baddies. And the goodies always win, don’t they?

Sometimes you just have to tell them they are safe, give them a cuddle, and leave it at that.
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20

JUST BECAUSE IT'S STARTED DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT

The Daily Mirror
24.03.03
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12770627&method=full&siteid=50143

IF IT was too late for protest, no one had told Kimberley Jacobs. The 17-year-old student had travelled from Oxford, daubing her face with red paint on the coach.

Now she was waving a huge placard saying End This Massacre in the direction of Downing Street and screaming her lungs out.

She was close to tears as she explained what she was doing on the march that so many said was pointless.

DESPERATE: The historic march last month may have been bigger but the protest in London on Saturday had an air of intensity that was unsurpassed

"Even my dad thinks I'm mad," she said.

"He says we should be supporting the troops now, not doing silly protests, but I just don't get that.

"I can still support the troops and stand up for what I believe in.

"I sat with my family and watched as we - we, you and me - bombed Baghdad, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

"I didn't know what to do. This was the only option.

"The minute people stop protesting about what is happening in our name is the minute we start saying it's OK.

"Well, it's not OK. It's wrong, wrong, wrong.

"And I'm going to keep saying that until it all stops. It's never too late to believe you can make a difference."

Her vehemence won her a round of applause from fellow protesters in London on Saturday afternoon.
They may have been fewer in number than those who attended last month's historic protest along the same route but there was a desperation coming from these chants that far surpassed anything that had gone before.
Organisers say more than 200,000 people attended the march. Police say the figure was nearer 100,000.
But the precise number barely matters.

What soon became clear, as the crowds massed at Embankment in the late morning sun, was that this was to be the biggest protest Britain had ever seen when the country was actually at war.

It was hard to forget what was happening to bring these people on to the streets.
Across the city, little huddles of protesters stood watching the latest developments from the Middle East on the widescreen TVs in electrical store windows.

Radios relayed news which was passed through the ranks bringing boos and hisses.
This was an angry protest. There were arrests later in the day when some protesters tried to stage a sit-down on busy Oxford Street. But even from the start, the mood was darkly passionate.

DARKLY PASSIONATE: A protester dressed as the Grim Reaper
The previous march last month had been characterised by pushchairs and cartoon lunch-boxes - this one was awash with CND badges and fists punching the air.

One banner urged British troops to refuse to fight.
Another asked: What Is A Terrorist? and went on to conclude that Tony Blair fitted all the criteria.
A worrying number of placards made reference to a war against the Muslim world. A banner from the Islamic Human Rights Commission asked what Blair, Bush, Ariel Sharon and Saddam Hussein had in common - and concluded that they were all responsible for killing thousands of innocent Muslims.

Groups of young Arab men climbed on top of the lions in Trafalgar Square and chanted anti-Western slogans.
"This is a war against all Muslims," said a 16-year-old who gave his name only as Yusuf.
"America thinks it can silence us all by bombing.
"Bush is no better than Sharon. The Arab people will unite against him. This is not over. How can we sit back and watch as he kills innocent people? We will not."

Yet the ordinary people still far out-numbered the professional protesters.
One woman carried a placard which said Middle-aged Mothers Against The War (Don't F*** With Us).
A priest unfurled a scarlet banner which acknowledged We Have Blood On Our Hands.
A student donned full combat gear and a gas mask, yet topped the ensemble with a pastel pink T-shirt urging Love, Not War.

Computer programmer Peter Matthews, 45, from London, had debated whether or not to attend this march.
Last time, he had brought the whole family. Today, he carried only a sticker saying I Am Not At War and a placard proclaiming himself Ashamed To Be British.

"I didn't bring the children today because I thought there would be a different mood," he said.
"But I still thought it was important to be here. When my kids ask me what I did in this war, I want to be able to tell them that I tried to stop it. At least I tried."

As the crowds shuffled their way towards Hyde Park for another round of speeches, their shouts, whistles and drum beats echoed through the streets of London.

Around the corner on the Strand, the Armed Services Recruitment Office was firmly shut, but a poster in the window asked, The Army, What's In It For You?

A book on display reminded passers-by of what was happening on this day back in 1918 and 1943.
Every entry offered tales of carnage but also the opportunity to take pride in a great military tradition.
Somehow, it felt woefully out of place.

GREECE
PROTESTERS marched through Athens carrying a stars and stripes daubed in blood. And in separate incidents a US bank and a McDonald's were hit by arson attacks apparently motivated by opposition to the war.

GERMANY
THOUSANDS stood together to spell out the word "peace" in Dusseldorf on Saturday. And yesterday foreign minister Joschka Fischer said: "I won't accept that we are on the verge of a series of disarmament wars.''

N.IRELAND
AN air-raid siren howled out across Belfast on Saturday as 4,000 gathered outside City Hall to protest against the war. A young boy wearing a gas mask climbed the gates and waved a No War For Oil And Profit poster.

PAKISTAN
IN Lahore protesters burnt an effigy of George Bush at a rally organised by the Islamic right. Around 30,000 people, some carrying pictures of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, chanted "kill America".

SPAIN
BARCELONA soccer players donned anti-war T-shirts and held a banner calling for peace minutes before yesterday's match. Many of the near 100,000 spectators packing the Camp Nou stadium stood and applauded.

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