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Mark Parkinson wrote: Hi Jason I am not on any committee and have no connection with Iraq. I have been deeply concerned about the genocide in Iraq since the start. I am also concerned about 'Imperialist' issues but I now never use the term. > At the last National Co-ordination Meeting of anti-sanctions groups That's the key for me - it does not say 'and anti-war'. More pragmatically, the more people and organisations that are involved and the narrower the focus (criminal, humanitarian, genocide, sanctions) the better chance we have of making progress against sanctions (and such progress would help undermine the imperialists). In terms of civilian casualties sanctions far outweigh the illegal bombings. I would dearly love to get HRW and Amnesty actively fighting these sanctions. Any sniff of anti-war or anti-imperialism and they would disapppear. It is quite possible to get middle of the road, establishment and even right wingers to fight against sanctions. They need to be told about the effects of sanctions and have the US/UK arguments answered which is easy without having to resort to theories about the underlying causes (eg imperialism). Only very recently I came across a die-hard Republican-supporting American (not a friend of mine!). He is anti-SH and believes in direct military intervention, assassination, bombing etc and thought that sanctions were a good thing. On being exposed to the facts about sanctions he fairly soon came round to the view that non- military sanctions should be lifted urgently. Even the control of oil sales income he then disagreed with when we pointed out that this produced a command economy - a communist model with no room for capitalism! >The only question is do these meetings need to run > in parallel to the current National Co-rdination Meetings (NCM) In parallel - reports from anti-war meetings can be shared with NCM members. > In essence, we cannot frame any events or discuss anything whilst > maintaining a blanket ban on political discussion within the movement. I can understand your frustration but I would support keeping the ban. I wouldn't even allow time-limited sessions for political discussion. The danger is that some people would become alienated. Time would be wasted on 'framing' the events. You gave two views of 1284. There are others possible. Only recently I had the whole scenario explained to me just in the context of Israel. I suppose a possible compromise would be to have one small session which split into two separate groups - those wanting the political discussion and those not. A paraphrased casual discussion with a former UK air force officer: me: these bombings are useless. They cost money and achieve nothing. Even worse, SH can trigger them when he wants. him: we're not seen to initiate them and they serve to keep the media and the public's eyes off the ball (the genocidal sanctions) Mark Parkinson Cornwall -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full archive and list instructions are available from the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi I'm glad someone on this list wants to discuss these issues! More pragmatically, the more people and organisations that are involved and the narrower the focus (criminal, humanitarian, genocide, sanctions) the better chance we have of making progress against sanctions (and such progress would help undermine the imperialists). I can understand what you mean but I'm not sure that this point is made in the right way. Surely, the broader the issue the more chance there is of onvolving more groups and individuals. At the moment, many groups are not attending because they see a focus on sanctions that ignores bombing as unprincipled and illogical. In terms of civilian casualties sanctions far outweigh the illegal bombings. This seems to be the argument of a small Cambridge group around Colin Rowat but it seems hard to sustain. Operation Desert storm destroyed manufacturing industries, water sanitation, oil production, electricity facilities, hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, fertiliser plants etc. poisoning the environment with uranium dust for untold generations. It in this context of near apocalyptic destruction and subsequent leverage over Iraq that sanctions have their deadly effect. However, you may say that bombing's in the past. Yet even now without constant military monitoring, naval and air blockade the sanctions against Iraq would be far more permeable. Look at Cuba- it has been im[poversihed but thousands aren't dying- because constant air missions and bombing doesn't take place because Cuba can defend its air space: currently, Iraq cannot. I would dearly love to get HRW and Amnesty actively fighting these sanctions. Any sniff of anti-war or anti-imperialism and they would disapppear. If we could get them involved in that would be good. If the only method of involvement was to have an exclusively humanitarian panel then so be it (I suspect you may be right with these groups- though even Amnesty doesn't fear condemning acts of war particulary when they happen in other countries, though they've also condemned asylum and detention here, surely a 'political' matter). However, our proposal is to have a split agenda- if they or we needed to withdraw then fine. Human Relief Foundation (HRF), a charity of high prestige and publicity among Britain's 1.5 million Muslim population, cannot take on political positions but have already informed me that they would have no problem whatsoever with participating in a session as I have outlined- withdrawing form the more political discussions- and participating actively in other sessions. They are a key organisation who regularly take aid into Iraq, have a very high public profile in certain areas, and have no problem with these proposals. It is quite possible to get middle of the road, establishment and even right wingers to fight against sanctions. They need to be told about the effects of sanctions and have the US/UK arguments answered which is easy without having to resort to theories about the underlying causes (eg imperialism). Only very recently I came across a die-hard Republican-supporting American (not a friend of mine!). He is anti-SH and believes in direct military intervention, assassination, bombing etc and thought that sanctions were a good thing. On being exposed to the facts about sanctions he fairly soon came round to the view that non- military sanctions should be lifted urgently I think we should actively encourage all sorts of people to get involved- peace groups, Islamic groups, church groups, political groups, antiracists etc. We should use the simple arguments about the thousands dying, the millions suffering etc. yes. I don't understand your objection to the term Imperialist though- it's a bit like saying we can support the Indian protest movements around Gandhi etc but we mustn't use the term Empire or Imperialist. However, if you wish to avoid the term, fine. The point is that at the moment we risk certain groups feeling excluded from participating fully in NCMs if they have a certain analysis: most Iraqis in this country, also mainly anti-SH though for far more credible reasons than the person you refer to, often use Imperialism as a term (and living reality)- they should not be excluded. As for the extremely rare person who supports bombing but not sanctions I have no fear of alienating them; we don't need them- in fact, we should not make common cause with them otherwise we could end up appearing to support war against Iraq and, for that matter, alienate far more people. A paraphrased casual discussion with a former UK air force officer: me: these bombings are useless. They cost money and achieve nothing. Even worse, SH can trigger them when he wants. him: we're not seen to initiate them and they serve to keep the media and the public's eyes off the ball (the genocidal sanctions) A paraphrased casual discussion with a former UK air force officer: me: these bombings are useless. They cost money and achieve nothing. Even worse, SH can trigger them when he wants. him: we're not seen to initiate them and they serve to keep the media and the public's eyes off the ball (the genocidal sanctions) Interesting but implausible surely? The anti-sanctions movement is small compared to nearly a million people in anti-Desert Storm demo in 1990/91. Why? Well, there may be other reasons but the lack of media attention now must count for a lot. Actually, in my expereince it's easier to get people mobilised and active about bombing than sanctions- apart from they cannot be seperated. If the officer is right why don't we see constant TV coverage of the bombing and how Iraq's bringing it on itself etc. Because they do not want people to know about the bombing- many people don't as long as we campaign against sanctions only we continue to mislead as people will think the bombing is over (otherwise that lot would be shouting about that, too!) Anyway, apart from the right-wing Republican, have you or anyone ever met a member of the public who opposes sanctions whilst supporting bombing- we never have (yet) though occassionally the other way round, people who oppose bombing but think sanctions should stay in place because of Saddam, or they're put in by the UN or whatever. I suppose a possible compromise would be to have one small session which split into two separate groups - those wanting the political discussion and those not. This could well be a possible compromise and various groups would support this- though actually the main session could be in common and then a sub-group (the majority we predict but time will see) could issue a joint statement and call an action on an anti-war basis. Cheers Jason, Manchester. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full archive and list instructions are available from the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi