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CounterPunch
February
14, 2003
No Mandate for War
Tony Blair Versus
the British People
By ANDREW MURRAY
One man against the British people. In Britain,
at least, this is Tony Blair's war now, and his alone. The people
whose views he was elected to represent want none of it. The
streets of London will tomorrow bear witness to that truth.
It seems certain that the rally against
the impending attack on Iraq will be the largest political demonstration
in British history. Perhaps it is less a demonstration, more
an assembly of a people, rejecting senseless war. It will certainly
be a rebuke to those who argue that no one cares any longer about
politics. Against a background of the worst crisis in international
relations for a generation, and a week in which the government
did nothing to stem a mounting atmosphere of public tension,
the demonstration also represents a refusal to be rendered powerless.
Blair's fabled propaganda machine has
laboured might and main for more than a year to convince the
British public that being hooked to the back end of Bush's wagon
train, as it moves to war, is the place to be. As his spin efforts
descend to the level of the comic--filching students' theses
and passing them off as the work of "British intelligence"--it
is abundantly clear that he has failed. This has turned the issue
of war into an issue of democracy as well. If, after a year of
persuasion, the government has failed to convince the country
that war is necessary, it simply has no right to proceed.
The "collateral damage" of
Bush's war drive is mounting daily--the cohesion of Nato, the
chimera of a common EU foreign policy (and Blair's fantasy of
being at the heart of Europe) and the post-1945 structure of
international law included. All of this seems merely to be whipping
the US political class into a still greater frenzy of bellicosity.
How long before France is officially designated a "rogue
state" and Gerhard Schroder becomes a card-carrying member
of the "axis of evil"?
It now must be clear to everyone that
the US is hell-bent on war at any price, scattering to the winds
any and every sensible proposal for a peaceful resolution to
the crisis in its rush to get the shooting started. A fatal game
of catch-22 is being played with the Saddam regime, in which
every discovery of an unauthorised weapon is hailed not as evidence
that UN inspections are working but as proof of Iraqi duplicity,
while every failure to find such weapons is evidence that they
are being concealed. But who can still believe that this has
anything to do with weapons of mass destruction, any more than
it has to do with terrorism? It has become an exercise in US
military-political machismo.
This week's historic worsening of relations
between the major powers is a warning that one nation's determination
to enforce its global hegemony is bound to lead to endless and
escalating conflicts. Bush and Blair are now playing Osama bin
Laden's game. He, more than anyone, seems to be looking forward
to the war as a chance to replenish his ranks. He knows that
every shot of Iraqi children being pulled lifeless from the rubble
will send hundreds of recruits flocking to al-Qaida's banner.
The prime minister's last hope--not of
preventing military conflict, which he shows no signs of any
longer seeking to do, but of pacifying at least a section of
his critics--lies in a second UN resolution. Yet he has devalued
the UN, both in this crisis and for the future, by his declarations
that he will only go the UN route if the UN acquiesces in advance
to the Blair-Bush position.
Jack Straw is fond of waving aloft his
well-thumbed copy of the UN charter. Perhaps he could identify
which clause codifies the "unreasonable veto", a concept
introduced into international law by the prime minister last
week. In fact, if a proposal is vetoed by the UN, it does not
go ahead. Yet the prime minister, echoing the US president, arrogates
to himself the right to declare such a procedure "unreasonable".
With such an attitude, which would make a nonsense of any rule-based
or legal system, the British government is treating UN procedures
with contempt.
A second resolution driven through the
security council against this background of intimidation loses
any moral authority. It cannot now make a wrong war right. Tomorrow
the world will say no to war in rallies across the globe. But
London will be the most important--because ours is the war leader
who can be broken. And if he remains deaf to a nation's plea
for peace, he will be.
Andrew Murray
is chair of the Stop the War Coalition, which is organising tomorrow's
demonstration in London with CND and the Muslim Association of
Britain. He can be reached at: apdmurray@hotmail.com
Yesterday's
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and the Signs from Above
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Neve Gordon
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A
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Linda Heard
Oh What a Web They Weave!
Will Hans Get Blixed?
Jeremy Brecher
Alternative
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Democratic Protest Can Avert Calamity
Senator Robert Byrd
Bush Administration is Reckless
Ray McGovern
CIA Man on the Agency's Days of Shame
Kurt Nimmo
The Propaganda of Anxiety
Website of the Day
Rock
Out Against War
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February 8
/ 9, 2003
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