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The issue that I have campaigned most on during my time in politics has been Iraq, from opposing the original Gulf War in 1991, and the resumption of bombings after which I played a leading role in the Coalition Against Sanctions and War on Iraq (CASWI, which originally had a Greater Manchester prefix which we dropped when we held a conference in Liverpool, which was unnecessary anyway since no similar coalition existed in the UK) and of course the opposition to the war on Iraq in 2003 and subsequent occupation. I have always opposed the Baathist dictatorship led by Saddam Hussein, and I ensured that CASWI opposed that dictatorship as well as sanctions and war, putting forward the idea that ordinary people should rise up and overthrow the dictatorship but were prevented from doing so by the day-to-day struggle for survival as a result of the West's sanctions. I emphasised the need for democracy in Iraq throughout the 2003 war and occupation which continues today, exposing the West's hypocrisy, on leaflets and my page for democracy in Iraq, which now includes an analysis of the situation in Lebanon.
Bush is now threatening, or at least refusing to rule out, a war on Iran, but the US ruling class has overextended itself in Iraq and it wouldn't be feasible for their army to attack another country. Besides, they have demonised Muslims enough already, and an attack on Iran wouldn't make that much difference in terms of their control of the world's oil resources (which was, after all, their main motivation in invading Iraq).
All socialists should support the unity in Lebanon, between ordinary people of different races and religions (including Islam) in mass demonstrations against the Syrian occupation and for democracy throughout the country and particularly in its capital Beirut. For many years, Beirut was the worst place to live in the world due to the huge ethnic tensions exacerbated by tit-for-tat bombings by the Israeli regime and suicide bombings by Muslims (much like in Palestine today, but with the added ingredient of other races and religions some of which spawned groups which also carried out terrorist actions, such as the Christian Druze militia in particular). The forms of democracy advocated by some (if not all) of the leaders of protests against the Syrian occupation are flawed, being biased in favour of the Christian minority (as Seamus Milne pointed out in the Guardian) but that does not mean that most of the masses who are participating in the protests support those demands. Bush claims to support the struggle against the occupation, but it is against the interests of the multinationals whose interests he and the US Republican Party represent, because a successful struggle in Lebanon could easily spread to Iraq. In my opinion, his speech in opposition to Syria's occupation (which was so obviously hypocritical bearing in mind his country's continued occupation of Iraq) was calculated to help the occupation continue since Bush is such a hate figure throughout the world and particularly in the Middle East. It enabled the Islamic fundamentalist organisation Hizbullah to mobilise around half a million people in Beirut in support of Syria, and the regime reinstated the government that it had dissolved after a mass illegal demonstration in that city ten days before. Unfortunately, the situation in Lebanon has been deteriorating since the pro-Syria demo, with a series of bombings; hopefully the country will not descend back into civil war...
I have started seriously taking up the issue of Palestine recently, campaigning for a boycott of Israeli goods outside Marks & Spencer in Manchester.
Bush did not really beat Kerry in the US Presidential election as I reveal in my page on US electoral fraud. The fraud was particularly important because Kerry pledged to tax the rich and close all tax loopholes, which (in my opinion) indicated that Kerry is a revolutionary socialist in disguise!
I have made some comments about the recent revolution in Kyrgyzstan, as well as comments about the use of violence generally, on my home page.
