Mass Protest in UK Against 'Bombers' Blair and Bush

[Bereta_Eder]

LONDON (Reuters) - Waving anti-war banners and chanting slogans against "Bomber Bush and Bomber Blair," tens of thousands of Britons flocked to a vast peace rally in London on Saturday to oppose a possible military strike on Iraq.


Reuters Photo





Joint organizers Stop the War Coalition and the Muslim Association of Britain estimated more than 350,000 people took part in the rally at Hyde Park and a preceding march from the River Thames near the British parliament.

Police put numbers lower, at 150,000. But that would still make it probably the biggest peace rally in Britain since a huge anti-nuclear demonstration in 1981 drew a quarter of a million.

Myriad groups and personalities backed the march -- from "rebel" members of the ruling Labour Party and the mayor of London, to trade unions, religious leaders, artists, pop stars, rights activists and Gulf War ( news - web sites) veterans.

"Our message to the U.S. and British governments is that they would be very foolish to defy a coalition of this breadth and diversity. Just sticking a U.N. fig leaf on this does not make it any more humane," Stop the War spokesman Mike Marqusee told Reuters as the march began soon after midday.

"It's the biggest peace protest in Europe for years."

Not surprisingly, protesters directed their wrath at President Bush ( news - web sites) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair ( news - web sites), America's closest ally in the build-up of pressure on Iraq.

Washington and London are trying to get through the U.N. Security Council a tough resolution which would give Iraq one week to accept demands to disarm and 30 days to declare all its weapons of mass destruction programs.

"Bomber Bush, Bomber Blair, we'll resist you everywhere!" chanted students. Effigies parodied the pair as war-mongers. Protesters shouted "shame" as they passed Blair's residence.

"Hopefully our leaders will see the huge feeling against the war," said Anne Gleeson, a school catering assistant marching with her husband and two children. All wore Palestinian scarves.

MUSLIMS JOIN MARCH

The demonstrators were rallying under two main slogans -- "Don't Attack Iraq" and "Freedom for Palestine."

Ismail Adam Patel, head of the Muslim group Friends Of Al'Aqsa, said the two issues were inextricable. "Until we solve the Palestine issue, we are not going to get any peace in the Middle East. Why are we going after Iraq when Israel has far more weapons of mass destruction?" he told Reuters at the march.

Thousands of Muslims, from Britain's 2.5 million-strong Islamic community, joined Saturday's march. Many protesters, from all strata of society, brought children. Some Church of England ministers were also dotted among the demonstrators.

Polls show most of Britain's 60 million people oppose their nation joining a purely U.S.-led attempt to topple President Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites). But the picture changes if the United Nations ( news - web sites) approves such action, with about two-thirds then in favor.

Most of Blair's critics dislike Saddam as much as the prime minister does, but they say a war on Iraq would be an unjustified aggression that would destabilize the Middle East, cement U.S. hegemony and snub international public opinion.

Opponents also say Washington and London are behaving hypocritically given their previous support of Iraq under Saddam in the years before the 1991 Gulf War, and are refusing to admit their real economic motives for wanting to control Iraqi oil.

"Clearly it's about oil and U.S. dominance," film-director Ken Loach said on the march.

"If we go to war with Iraq, it represents the beginning of the era of American imperialism, which is not what my founding fathers' vision was for the United States of America," former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter told Reuters at the rally.

The event was London's second mass protest in a week after a pro-fox hunting march drew an astonishing 400,000 last weekend. Both marches passed off peacefully, with just two arrests for public disorder on Saturday.

[Bereta_Eder]

oh.

[Provost Harrison]

No surprise, Blair is being incredibly undemocratic in his moves towards war. He is not readily supported in his own party (which is historically left wing, and many of the old guard still remain) and a large majority of the population do not support the war...

[Boris Godunov]

Bush has blundered here in getting support for unilateral action from Congress, so it will take a U.N. mandate for war. That mandate seems unlikely, given the overt skepticism of France, Russia and China, who have security council veto power.

Georgie-poo, the domestic issues are gonna come a-callin', and when they do, you're gonna be in biiiiiiiiig trouble...

[monkspider]

God bless these noble Britons making a stand against despotic and unholy American unilateralism.

[Sava]

I thought Blair was a righty?

The situation is bullsh!t... hopefully those imperialistic tards won't get their way and there will be a diplomatic solution to this mess.

[Provost Harrison]

Blair is effectively a righty, but Labour is historically 'leftie'...the Labour Party Conference is going on, and as the trade unions have a considerable amount of sway in the Labour Party (although diminished in recent years), Blair is receiving a bit of a grilling over the war and financing of construction of facilities. It's bizarre because Labour is overall pretty right-winged nowadays yet has a lot of 'lefties' and a lot of people still seem to have illusions in the party as the party of the working class. That notion is long since dead, and it was misguided then...

[Sava]

Sounds like the American Republican party. They claim to be for the working people, yet are blatantly pro-corporate in their actions.

[Felch]

Since when did the Republicans claim to be for working people Sava?

Sometimes it's hard to take you seriously.

[Arrian]

Well, to be fair, all politicians claim to be for the "working people." They claim to be for everyone, as a matter of fact.

I'm not surprised by the demonstration. There isn't much support for an attack on Iraq in Britain. There is a fair amount of opposition here too, though it's more passive. The case for war is particularly weak in the light of the negotiations now taking place between the UN and Iraq regarding the return of weapons inspectors.

-Arrian

[Ned]

Why don't I find it unsurprising that the left is highly supportive of an insane, anti-semitic, genocidal, invading dictator whose only redeeming virtue is that he wants to kill Americans and Jews.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ned
Why don't I find it unsurprising that the left is highly supportive of an insane, anti-semitic, genocidal, invading dictator whose only redeeming virtue is that he wants to kill Americans and Jews.

You can do better than such inane trolls.

Not supporting an unprovoked, unilateral war against Hussein by the U.S. and U.K. isn't the same as supporting Hussein or his homicidal actions.

But why don't I find is surprising someone on the right would use such a silly argument?

[Inverse Icarus]

w00p w00p. you're seeing how little democracy is actually left in the world.

[DinoDoc]

League of Nations Redux.

[SlowwHand]

Yep. The demonstrations against policy is excellent.
It shows that the policies being protested are working.
That a free world exists, and encourages difference of opinion.
You'd never see a protest against policy happening in Iraq, for instance.


WTG, paiktis.

[Ned]

BG, You are ignoring the lessons of history. Saddam is no different than Hitler. The time to stop him is before he becomes powerful.

Unprovoked? The man is guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Why isn't the left demanding his surrender? It certainly is of Sharon who hasn't even been accused on 1/100th of what Saddam has been accused of.

The left is coddling Saddam because he is anti-American and anti-Israel. So is the left.

[GePap]

Come on Ned! you can do better than that rather weak argument!

How is Saddam like Hitler? He is a dictator? well, there's lots of those, and being a dictator doesn't make you like Hitler. The Hitler annalogy is horribly overused and has become rhetorically worthless.

Yes, Saddam is a butcher, but sadly, that not an issue of international relations. The US castigate vietnam for invading Cambodia back in 1979, even though it was the Vietnamese who finally overthrew a regime that murdered about 1/5 of the people of its own country, including almost the entire middle class. The fact is that the US lets countless masscres around the world go on without a peep. You can't justify a war aginst Iraq in terms of Human rigths wthout then having to explain why all the other countless represions of Human rights aren't worth an invasion.

The left is coddling Saddam because he is anti-American and anti-Israel. So is the left.

Please..... The original Zionists were socialists, the pledge of alliegence was written by a socialist, so forht and so on. The 'left' doesn't want the war (different from coddling, however you dsignate that) because the more idealistic part of it is pacifist.
If I were to say that the right supports the war because it is racist and religiously intoleran, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, that statement would be as valid as the one quoted. So Ned, are you a racist and religiously intolerant?

[Ned]

Gepap, I only wish we had the power to fix everything wrong about the world. We don't have that power.

Welcome to the right: We are strongly pro-democracy and strongly pro-human rights.

The left in England, once upon a time, were the leading advocates of war against Hitler because he was a madman dictator who threaten to destroy democracy in Europe. They hated the Conservative's appeasement policy. In the United States, Roosevelt, hero of the left, aggressively supported England and opposed Germany and Japan well before Pearl Harbor. Our effort in WWII was truly an effort to protect democracy.

It is interesting that the right is today is where the left was once. In contrast, the left today is anti-war, a position once held by the conservatives in England and Republicans in the United States.

I think it high time for the left to junk its anti-war attitude and support the effort to rid the world of police-state dictators. Iraq is not Vietnam. Iraq is not about America trying to crush communisim. It is about liberation of an oppressed people and ridding the world of a madman with WoMD.

[Sandman]

I hope that either Blair will come to his senses or be removed from office. I certainly do not want a bloody colonial-style campaign against innocent Iraqis. If it goes ahead, this war will be the first big genocide of this century.

[Lemmy]

It is about liberation of an oppressed people and ridding the world of a madman with WoMD.

replace "Human rights" with "WoMD"

You can't justify a war aginst Iraq in terms of Human rigths wthout then having to explain why all the other countless represions of Human rights aren't worth an invasion.

replace "Human rights" with "an oppressed people"

You can't justify a war aginst Iraq in terms of Human rigths wthout then having to explain why all the other countless represions of Human rights aren't worth an invasion.

well, it almost fits...

[St Leo]

BG, You are ignoring the lessons of history. Saddam is no different than Hitler. The time to stop him is before he becomes powerful.

Ned, you are ignoring the lessons of history. Bush is no different than Hitler. The time to stop him is before he becomes too powerful.

You disagree? Then why is Bush trying to vest in himself absolute authority and establish a gestapo?

Edit: Saddam is a mere Mussolini. There has been rhetoric among the Republicrats for the revocation of basic civil rights for the individuals of Arab descent or Muslim creed.

[Asher]

OH MY GOD

!!!

PEOPE ARE PROTESTING!

!!!

Bush better rethink his policies now!



Drama queens are so passe, paiktis

[SlowwHand]

Is it something in the water that makes Greeks wacky from time-to-time?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Sandman
I hope that either Blair will come to his senses or be removed from office.

Go Tories!

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by St Leo
Saddam is a mere Mussolini.

It was Mussolini that destroyed the credibility of the League of Nations.

[Ned]

Originally posted by St Leo
BG, You are ignoring the lessons of history. Saddam is no different than Hitler. The time to stop him is before he becomes powerful.

Ned, you are ignoring the lessons of history. Bush is no different than Hitler. The time to stop him is before he becomes too powerful.

You disagree? Then why is Bush trying to vest in himself absolute authority and establish a gestapo?

Edit: Saddam is a mere Mussolini. There has been rhetoric among the Republicrats for the revocation of basic civil rights for the individuals of Arab descent or Muslim creed.

St. Leo, I think the right has the moral high ground in this debate.

[Giancarlo]

You people are sick in the head. It is comments like these that are just plain stupid:

Sounds like the American Republican party. They claim to be for the working people, yet are blatantly pro-corporate in their actions.

OH REALLY? THE GOP IS THE ONLY ONE THAT GIVES A **** ABOUT THE FUTURE.

I am sick and tired of the damn bias on this forum. They claim to the tolerant ones but once somebody else tries to voice their opinion they are thrown out in the garbage with comments like these:

Not supporting an unprovoked, unilateral war against Hussein by the U.S. and U.K. isn't the same as supporting Hussein or his homicidal actions.

But why don't I find is surprising someone on the right would use such a silly argument?

GIVE ME A DAMN BREAK! BORIS GET A FREAKING CLUE. THE LEFT ARE THE ONES WHO TRUELY ARE BRAINLESS.

I am really pissed off in seeing these biased threads posted with some highly misleading garbage.

[Provost Harrison]

Giancarlo, that kind of tone is not going to win you any respect. To me you just look like any other raving right winger spouting rhetoric.

[Giancarlo]

PH, To me you just look like any other raving left winger spouting rhetoric.

[Provost Harrison]

*sigh*

Well I suppose imitation is the most sincere form of flattery...