‘A fascinating book – a moving and nostalgic piece of oral history. It is an honest, warts and all, account of that historic February 2003 demonstration against Tony Blair’s oncoming war, of the run up to the march and of the differing views about what it achieved.’ Bruce Kent, Vice President CND ‘A powerful and important memoir of an unforgettable moment in our country’s history. ’ Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion
Pre-order a copy by for £10 post-free – it will be delivered in…
21 October, Najaf: I had mixed emotions as I set out on this six-week trip. Excitement at the thought of seeing old friends; I have not been back to Iraq since late 2003. But also some apprehension as to what I will find after such a long time.
I am hopeful that I can meet with Iraqis whom I know from Syria but who have had to flee back to Iraq.
The twisted mass of electrical wires in the neighbourhood where I am staying evokes memories from post-invasion days in Baghdad, when…
Omission is a key part of the propaganda model proposed by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in their classic text on the subject and it can also be used to ascertain bias within the media. Whilst recent media attention has rightly been focusing on military actions in the Middle East in relation to both Syria and to Israel there has been a virtual blackout on reporting when it comes to this month’s military incursions by Turkey into the predominately Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.
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Wobbly Tuesday is one of the great secrets of the Iraq war, kept secret not by state censorship and repression, but by media and academic self-censorship.
Nearly 10 years on, it is time for the British anti-war movement to finally shake off the lie that the astonishing anti-war mobilisation of early 2003 had no effect whatsoever on the British government.
It is time for the peace movement to celebrate how close it came to detaching Britain from the US-led invasion of Iraq in…
On 28 August, Dr Shakir Hamoodi, 59, an Iraq-born US citizen, began a three-year sentence for sending money between 1991 and 2003 to his relatives in Iraq, and the families of friends living in Iraq, to help relieve suffering caused by the UN sanctions.
A five-year FBI investigation found the father of five had not sent any money to the Iraqi government.
In April 2003 Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British peace activist and photojournalist, was shot in the forehead by an Israeli sniper. Wearing bright orange jacket and trousers to identify him as a peace volunteer, and clearly unarmed, he was trying to rescue a Palestinian child pinned down by gunfire in the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. He died after nine months in a coma.
The Israeli marksman responsible, Taysir Hayb, convicted of manslaughter, obstruction of justice, incitement to…
19 March 2013 will mark the tenth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Although 15 December 2011 marked the end of the formal war, violence persists. Dr Nadje Al-Ali of the University of London’s School of Oriental and Asian Studies, an advocate of women’s rights and other issues in Iraq, said of the invasion: ‘It mobilised people who weren’t necessarily political before to come out onto the street. It also led to the demise of the peace movement because it contributed to people’s sense…
At 4.45pm on 21 June, No Borders and refugee solidarity activists blockaded the access road to the Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres near Heathrow airport, to stop a mass deportation flight to Baghdad.
About 70 Iraqi refugees, mostly Kurds, were due to be flown out on a specially-chartered flight at 11pm. They had been assembled at the centres from other detention centres around the country, including 20 from Campsfield who were on hunger strike against deportation.
…Recently, Turkey witnessed an unusually spirited long weekend. There was action almost everywhere in the country starting on Friday 24 January.
In expectation of the UN Weapons Inspectors' reports, people from different political backgrounds and worldviews stood united against the war plans on Iraq. With significant international participation in some of the events during this “peace weekend”, anti-war messages were conveyed in the streets, congress halls, theatres, music clubs and…
Greg Muttitt’s presentation about the politics of Iraqi oil at the Peace Festival produced both righteous anger and inspiration.
The Iraqi people are embroiled in an intense struggle against the privatisation of oil reserves and production. The fight put up by trade unionists and the Iraqi people to maintain ownership of their oil has so far been a surprising success and a cause for hope.
A law banning trade unions, which dates back to the days of Saddam Hussein, has never…
May saw a devastating surge in US air strikes on Iraq, often in densely populated areas. In the two months from late March, the military fired more than 200 Hellfire missiles on Baghdad alone, while only six such missiles were fired in the previous three months. The US army is keeping six Apache helicopters in the air above Baghdad, around the clock.
Residents of Sadr City have described recent air attacks on the Shia ghetto as indiscriminate. One such attack damaged a hospital and…
The Three Trillion Dollar War is exhaustive analysis of the true cost of the war in Iraq. The headline figure – $3 trillion – is an unthinkable amount of money. Half of it, for example, would cover the cost of the United Nation’s eight Millennium Development Goals – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education by 2015.
But, Stiglitz and Bilmes point out, $3 trillion is a conservative estimate of the cost of the…
The 15 February 2003 demonstrations, showed, as The New York Times observed, that “there may still be two super- powers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.”
On the other hand, the grassroots mobilisation failed to prevent the invasion of Iraq. Media support? The heavy reporting of the British demonstration on 15 February seems to disprove the idea that the mainstream media opposes, under-reports or belittles grassroots movements. A Daily Telegraph columnist was…
PN: Denis, in your 1998 resignation speech at Harvard you made some very unequivocal statements about the impact of sanctions on children in Iraq. Do you feel that these widely reported statements, with their emphasis on children, have constructed the agenda for anti-sanctions campaigners and activists worldwide?
Denis: I think my resignation and departure—endorsed 18 months later by Hans von Sponeck—has certainly opened up the dialogue, and has made it easier for other…
PN: In February 2000, after more than 30 years of working for the UN you resigned to protest the sanctions on Iraq. Why?
H: If we reported on the humanitarian situation it was ignored. If we tried to suggest measures that would improve the flow of humanitarian supplies either it wasn't acted upon or only with much delay.
When we reported on the conditions in Iraq, the US State Department and the British Foreign Office would give a totally different interpretation even though…
