Afghanistan Follow

DELEGATES TO the Labour Party conference on Tuesday gave Tony Blair a standing ovation. He is going to use this as an excuse to wage war on Afghanistan. But Blair only got such support because people believed, wrongly, that he is a restraining influence on George W Bush and the US military.

GEORGE BUSH is making the people of Afghanistan suffer for actions he blames on their government, the Taliban. The Taliban head an awful regime. But they do not have the support of the mass of Afghans, who are already bearing the brunt of the US war threat.

MILLIONS OF people in Afghanistan were suffering from George Bush's war drive at the start of this week, before he had unleashed a single bomb. Threats of a ferocious US-led assault on Afghanistan forced relief agencies to pull out.

The building of a movement against war was given an enormous boost at a marvellous rally in central London last Friday. At just a few days notice over 2,000 packed into Friends Meeting House opposite the capital's Euston station. There hasn't been a meeting like that in London for at least 20 years.

I WORK at a school in north west England. I was very shocked by the deaths at the World Trade Centre and I still feel horrified whenever I see the pictures on the television. But I am also very determined that this horror should not lead to others, such as the further destruction of Afghanistan.

"SINCE I was 12 all I have known is fighting and more fighting. So once again innocent people will be killed and nobody will care about it." Faiz, a 33 year old market trader in Kabul, Afghanistan

AS SOON as news broke last week of the devastation in the United States, Osama Bin Laden was proclaimed the number one suspect. Afghanistan was dubbed a "rogue state" and has been accused of harbouring terrorists.

The trial of 12 Afghans charged in connection with a hijacked plane that flew into Britain last year was due to begin on Thursday. But New Labour should be put in the dock over its treatment of the remaining 88 Afghan passengers who have asked for asylum in Britain.