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| | Weblog special: anti-war protests |
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February 18: Millions of demonstrators marched last weekend against war in Iraq, including perhaps a million in London, in the biggest demonstration the city has seen. Here are the best reads from around the web.
Stop the War Coalition
Weblog special: Iraq
Weblog special: the war debate
Special report: the anti-war movement
Special report: Iraq
| | | Voice of the people ...
Today's Jakarta Post welcomes the worldwide marches, especially those in countries whose leaders support the US. It sees grave consequences for Muslim nations in the event of a US-led war in Iraq: 'Those who think differently, particularly government leaders who still think they can ignore the message from the people of the world, need their heads examined.'
Jakarta Post (Indonesia)
Readers' experiences - Margo Kingston, Sydney Morning Herald
Demonstrations expose governments - Gulf News
| ... or minority rule?
Not so, says John O'Sullivan in Canada's right-wing National Post. He atttacks the reasons why popular protests should be heeded - dismissing protesters in passing as 'activists, demonstrators and street thugs' - and concludes that the driving force behind the rallies is a 'nostalgic clinging to international anarchy'.
National Post (Canada)
View from the Athenaeum - William Rees-Mogg, Times
Patchy case for peace - Gerard Henderson, Sydney Morning Herald
| Let Iraq choose its future
One of the main arguments against war, says Israel's Jerusalem Post, is that it as things stand it could destabilise efforts to bring democracy to Iraq. Citing Kenan Makiya's article in the Observer (link below), it warns that US intervention will turn sour if it rules Iraq for a 'transition period' that lasts too long.
Jerusalem Post
16.02.2003, Kanan Makiya: Our hopes betrayed
| | | The rallying call
As long as there is a chance of averting war, says Nation magazine in the US, then the anti-war movement must try to raise the chances of peace. But it sees the role of the anti-war campaign as far wider: 'to envision and promote a peaceful, non-imperial future, in which the United States cooperates with other states in constructing robust international institutions capable of resisting aggression, averting global environmental catastrophe and protecting the rights of all.'
Nation
Direct action against war - SchNews
Million expected in London? - This is Local London
| Nothing has been like this
It won't just be the regular protesters who will be going on this Saturday's anti-war march, says Mark Steel in the Independent. He recalls the highs and lows of a lifetime of direct action - from chasing Eton schoolboys, to a march that barely made into double figures - and concludes that, when politicians have already lost the argument, then demonstration works. 'Best of all, 60 schoolboys are going from an anti-war group formed at Eton college. From out of the same gates through which we poured 20 years ago will come a batch of public schoolboys, this time not to run from a demonstration, but to join one.'
Independent
Rallying to the cry of 'no war' - Times
| Marching in New York
Demonstrators may not march in Manhattan, a US court has ruled, saying that a large, moving rally of 100,000 people represents 'security risks'. But that won't stop Brian Dominick of Z Magazine, who has left a message with New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to let him know he will be marching anyway. He says the decision not to grant a permit changes 'a legally sanctioned expression of dissent' into 'a truly massive act of civil disobedience'.
Z magazine
Court bans march from Manhattan - New York Times
Letters - New York Times
| Problems for US left
But is all well with the US left? Michael Kazin, arguing in Newsday, says the problem is that American progressives are not as inclusive as the patriotic right. 'A left that scorns the very notion of patriotism is wasting a splendid opportunity to pose a serious alternative to the arrogant, blundering policies of the current administration,' he says. 'The most effective way to love our country is to fight like hell to change it.'
Newsday
On a protest in Washington - Red Pepper
| | | A bunch of Castro groupies?
As if to support Kazin's point, John Perazzo of US magazine Front Page argues that anti-war protesters are anti-American. It is, he says, 'a movement dominated by the self-same Communists that once marched in support of Stalin, Mao, the Vietcong, the Sandinista Marxists, and the Communist guerrillas in El Salvador; the same America-loathing radicals who, because they passionately deem America the root of all evil in the world, now support Kim and Castro.' Hm.
Front Page magazine (US)
| 'Don't touch Saddam'
Writing in the National Review, Amir Taheri argues that anti-war protests around the world are used as propaganda by Saddam Hussein - and even goes so far as to suggest they have 'taken the side of the tyrant'.
National Review (US)
| The Australian right
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Miranda Devine condemns the debate in Australia as 'anti-American bilge'. She puts the inevitable question: 'And who is willing to wait until Saddam Hussein or his terrorist friends use one of the handy little weapons Iraq has been concocting? Do we leave it to our children to deal with vials of anthrax or portable nuclear devices and cross our fingers for leaders of the future to be as morally sure and fearless as George Bush and John Howard?'
Sydney Morning Herald
| | | On bombs
'Bombs go off and so does milk,/ And both events make you grumpy,/But given the choice between the two,/I'd rather have milk that's lumpy.' So writes Helen Smith, in one of 100 poems against the war.
Review - New York Times
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