News reports treat the war like a video game. But anti-war protesters are organising and refuse to be silent
BUSH AND Blair have signalled the start of mass murder in Iraq. They are prepared to turn Iraq into a wasteland of blasted bodies, shattered minds, mangled corpses and weeping children. This war has always been wrong. It remains so now. It does not become better or "moral" or worthy of anyone's support because the missiles are launched and British soldiers are sent into battle.
BUSH AND Blair threatened war on Iraq within days as Socialist Worker went to press. Tony Blair cannot miss the scale of opposition to war. He saw two million march in London, he watched 122 Labour MPs rebel, he knows that this is the greatest crisis inside the Labour Party for over 70 years. Any lingering belief that he still had the majority with him must have been dispelled on Monday night.
INTENSIFIED BOMBING. B-52 bombers moved to Gloucestershire ready to rain death on Iraq. George Bush and Tony Blair are in the final stages of unleashing war. It must now be plain to everyone that United Nations resolutions and arms inspections are, for Bush and Blair, just camouflage. They are hellbent on war whether or not they can bully and bribe other states to back it.
BUSH AND Blair are desperately seeking new ways to justify their slaughter in Iraq. They have now resorted to claiming they want to bomb Iraq into freedom and democracy.
THE DEMONSTRATIONS last Saturday have plunged Tony Blair into the biggest political crisis of his life. Every commentator knows it. Blair knows it. For days the media has been filled with attempts to understand the demonstrations, and speculation about whether Blair can ride out the storm. Now we have to cause such turmoil that Blair is forced from office. If we don't shift Blair, we allow him to ignore democracy.
AT LEAST one person from each of 1.25 million households in Britain marched last Saturday, according to a survey in the Guardian. They showed on the streets the anti-war feeling of the clear majority of the population.
NEVER IN recent times has the gulf between a government and the people been so wide. Tony Blair marches to war while the vast majority resolutely oppose him. Saturday's demonstration shows that huge numbers of people are prepared to actively oppose the government's war plans.
THE BIGGEST demonstration in British history is set to take place next Saturday. The anti-war march is already expected to be so big that it has to have two assembly points. It is no wonder the government is panicking. Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, tried to ban the march from its usual rallying point in Hyde Park.
What happens in Britain in the next few weeks will shape history. Everyone in the anti-war movement can be part of making that history. The clock is ticking relentlessly towards war. On Monday chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix reported that his team had found no evidence of any Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction". We cannot trust the UN to block the war.
THE BIGGEST day of anti-war protests the world has ever seen took place last Saturday. But instead of listening to the majority around the world who oppose war on Iraq, Tony Blair sent a quarter of the British army to the Gulf. Support for the war in Britain has fallen to a new low and outright opposition has risen to new heights, according to a poll in the Guardian that has tracked opinion since August.
LAST WEEK'S Socialist Worker outlined the "troubles ahead for New Labour" this year. That issue had not even hit the streets when Tony Blair issued his grim new year message. He spoke of a year of war, recession and insecurity-a far cry from New Labour's 1997 election theme song, "Things Can Only Get Better". The message was devoid of any sense of personal responsibility for what he called the "difficult and dangerous" problems the rest of us face.
