'Stop The War' is now simply a reactionary disgrace

October 7, 2011 at 9:01 pm (Afghanistan, apologists and collaborators, celebrity, Champagne Charlie, Chomsky, Galloway, Guardian, Human rights, Libya, Lindsey German)

It amazing to see that some serious and respect-worthy people are still willing to associate themselves with the Stop The War Coalition and its despicable “peace” rally tomorrow. But for every half-way decent socialist and internationalist foolish enough to attend, there’s a dozen charlatans, isloationists and apologists for tyranny,  of the Galloway-Pilger-Chomsky variety. I see that the Taliban’s nark Assange is also billed as a star attendee.

You would have thought that this organisation’s objectively pro-Gaddafi scabbing on the Libyan rebels would be enough to put any half-way decent internationalist off attending.

One of the less objectionable and more serious ‘celebrities’ billed as supporting the rally is Peter Tatchell. Given what he has written over at the Graun‘s ‘Comment Is Free’ I suspect the organizers of tomorrow’s event may be regretting having publicised his “support”:

“As a leftwinger and internationalist, I can’t accept the simplistic calls for immediate troop withdrawal. Don’t get me wrong. I never supported the war strategy in Afghanistan. The Nato-led occupation is wrong. Democracy and human rights cannot be imposed by western diktat. The troops should come home – but not with no regard for the consequences.

“A hasty Nato withdrawal will not bring peace. Afghan security forces lack the training, equipment and numbers to stave off the fundamentalist threat. A premature exit could result in a Taliban victory – and a bloodbath. Is this what anti-war activists want? I’m sure they don’t. So why do many of my colleagues make a demand that risks such a grisly outcome?

“Campaigners against the war are rightly critical of Nato’s ham-fisted intervention, human rights abuses and reckless attacks that kill civilians. But why aren’t they equally critical of the Taliban? Taliban fighters deliberately target civilians. They kill many more ordinary Afghans than the Nato forces, and they’d kill even more civilians if there was a rushed pull-out of western troops. A one-sided focus on Nato’s wrongs, to the neglect of a far more brutal set of killers, is a tad hypocritical.”

Read the rest here.

“Afghan war protest in London ignores Taliban threat” – Peter Tatchell Foundation statement.