Milan Rai
As we mark the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, there is a general understanding, perhaps even a global consensus, that lies were told to justify the war. The most important of these lies, however, is rarely discussed, or even noticed.
On 25 February, former British prime minister Tony Blair made a last throw at justifying the war: ‘If we hadn’t removed Saddam from power just think, for example, what would be happening if these Arab revolutions were continuing now and Saddam…
Susan Spencer, Patrick Bonner, Milan Rai, Emily Johns & Lois Mastrangelo (l-r) demonstrate for peace on Kadju Bridge, Isfahan, Iran, on 17 February. Photo: JNV
The latest round of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear crisis ended with modest progress, and a firm warning from the United States that: ‘the window for a diplomatic solution simply cannot by definition remain open indefinitely’ (secretary of state John Kerry, 4 March).
At the talks in…
The crowd reportedly threw bottles of water and stones at the soldiers, who responded with live fire. According to Reuters, some shooting occurred after protestors set a military vehicle on fire, but it is not clear whether this happened after protestors had already been killed.
The killing (by US soldiers) of 15 unarmed demonstrators in Fallujah in April 2003 is believed by many commentators to have been the spark that started the armed Sunni insurgency against the US occupation…
In mid-January, Daniel Hunter and Erika Thorne of the US ‘direct education’ group Training for Change led a powerful 10-day ‘training for trainers’ in Margate for 16 social action trainers and facilitators, including PN staff.
The event was organised by Quaker group Turning the Tide.
We’ll be publishing more about this workshop in a future issue.
Shredded Truth: CIA Documents — After the Iranian revolution, Iranian students seized the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Although US intelligence officials had shredded confidential documents as the building was being occupied, many of these memos
After a long phoney war, it seems likely that in the next 12 months there will be a serious confrontation between the US,…
They will be meeting officials, civil society groups and ordinary folk in different parts of the country. On their return they will be publishing a pamphlet about Iran, incorporating Emily’s art work from this trip and from her 2007 delegation to Iran.
The trip will cost over £2,000 each – donations to help cover the costs of travel and accommodation are very welcome.
This is a Justice Not Vengeance delegation.
TALKS
To contact Emily and Mil to book a talk in your…
Zombie roads hungry for public money gather outside the office of Hastings MP Amber Rudd, 30 October. Photo: Milan Rai
On 30 October, campaigners against the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) staged a battle between ‘road busters’ and ‘zombie roads’ outside the office of Hastings MP Amber Rudd.
Combe Haven Defenders wanted to highlight her role – and that of the chancellor, George Osborne, to whom she is parliamentary private…
In the last issue of PN, a Jewish reader wrote that she was ‘often very surprised and saddened at the extent of the anti-Jewish feeling and writing in the political Left, and in Peace News particularly’. We promised to reply this issue.
Jen asked whether there was ‘a visible and vocal place for Jews (or Arabs and Gentiles) in the peace movements in general, and in Peace News in particular, who believe in a Jewish…
The Conservative-led government is committing billions to military spending while forcing through massive cuts in jobs and services, and reducing support for badly-needed green technologies.
The government has already spent £2bn on developing and deploying pilotless drone aircraft over the past five years, using some of them to kill an unknown number of Afghan civilians…
It is not enough for the anti-cuts movement to be a defensive, responsive movement. It is not enough to point out the flaws in the arguments for austerity (as the False Economy website does so brilliantly).
If we are going to have a world worth living in, we are going to have to merge together the agendas of the anti-cuts movement, the green movement, the labour movement and the peace movement.
We are already arguing for…
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…
As US-led economic sanctions tighten around its economy, the Iranian government is once again indicating its willingness to negotiate a compromise over its nuclear programme.
On 12 October, foreign ministry spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast said: 'Iran is ready to show flexibility to remove concerns within a legal framework' - he added: 'but such measures should be reciprocal'.
…
In recent years, English-language histories of anarchism have been paying more attention to anarchist thinkers and activists outside the West. These two books are part of that trend.
I don't really think many PN readers are going to fork out for Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940; it's a very expensive academic hardback, but it is a valuable contribution.
The authors document influential anarchist movements in Argentina…
Back in June, a former US presidential advisor and Harvard University professor, Graham Allison, described the current confrontation with Iran as 'a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion': 'Events are moving, seemingly inexorably, toward a showdown in which the US president will be forced to choose between ordering a military attack and acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran'.
(In fact…
On 27 October 1962, a Russian naval officer named Vasili Arkhipov saved the world.
Twelve US navy ships (part of the US blockade of Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis) were dropping practice depth charges on B-59, a submerged Soviet submarine, trying to signal that the sub should surface. The captain of B-59, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, panicked, believing that the Third World War had started. He gave orders to fire a nuclear torpedo, saying, according to one account: 'We're…
