STOP THE WAR STATEMENT: UN DECLARATION OF WAR ON LIBYA

STOP THE WAR COALITION
Newsletter No. 1193
19 March 2011
Email office@stopwar.org.uk
Tel: 020 7801 2768
Web: http://stopwar.org.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/STWuk
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IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
1) STOP THE WAR STATEMENT: UN DECLARATION OF WAR ON LIBYA
2) VIDEOS: JEREMY CORBYN MP, LINDSEY GERMAN, JOHN REES
3) PETITIONS AND LEAFLETS

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1) STOP THE WAR STATEMENT: UN DECLARATION OF WAR ON LIBYA

A new war has been declared in the Middle East. With the bloody and failing
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan still in place, the USA, Britain and France
are now committed to an escalating armed intervention in Libya.

The decision to attack Libya and impose regime change – for that is what the
UN resolution means – may have been authorised by the Security Council. But
it was instigated by the despots of the Arab League, desperate to secure deeper
western involvement in the region to save them from their own peoples. And it
will be implemented by the same powers which have wreaked such mayhem
throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds over the last ten years and longer.

The imposition of a “no-fly zone”, air attacks on Libyan defences and
Gaddaffi’s troops, and naval bombardments will not bring peace to Libya nor a
resolution to the conflict there.

They will, however, cost more civilian lives and they will set Britain and the
world on an escalator of military intervention which risks ending up with an
occupation of at least part of Libya.

While few people are admirers of the Gaadaffi regime, the experience of Iraq
underlines the dangerous futility of trying to impose “regime change” from
without. It also reminds us that genuine democracy and freedom cannot grow from
aerial bombardment and foreign occupation.

Attacking Libya and sponsoring the Gulf oligarchies’ invasion of Bahrain to
prop up the threatened monarchy there – under the noses of the US fifth fleet
- are of a piece. They represent a concerted effort by the western powers to
first control and then bring to a halt the Arab revolutions, leaving the
essentials of imperial power in the Middle East in place.

David Cameron’s decision to place Britain in the vanguard of efforts to
topple the Gaddafi regime is dictated by the same considerations which led Tony
Blair and Gordon Brown to embrace that same regime – a desire to maintain
BP’s profitable access to Libyan oil.

Stop the War believes that there should be no external military intervention in
Libya. In supporting the Arab revolutions, we believe that these will be
strangled, not supported, by western military action.

We call on the British government to keep its hands off the Middle East and
demand that it refrain from all involvement in military action in Libya or
elsewhere in the region. We urge the anti-war movement to campaign throughout
the country to arrest and reverse this slide to war and British participation
in it.

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2) VIDEOS: JEREMY CORBYN MP, LINDSEY GERMAN, JOHN REES

Stop the War's opposition to military intervention in Libya has been
represented widely in Parliament and the broadcast media, for example:

* Jeremy Corbyn MP: Speech in House of Commons debate on Libya, 17 March:
VIDEO: http://bit.ly/ik7wJo

* Lindsey German: Interviewed on the BBC's Jeremy Vine Show, 18 March:
VIDEO: http://bit.ly/eKrolD

* John Rees: Interviewed on Russia Today TV News, 18 March:
VIDEO: http://bit.ly/hhRWxh

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3) PETITIONS AND LEAFLETS

DOWNLOAD STOP THE WAR STATEMENT
* The Stop the War statement above can be downloaded as a leaflet for printing
here: http://tinyurl.com/6henp2l

DOWNLOAD PETITION
* A hardcopy petition opposing intervention is available here:
http://tinyurl.com/6z9lk2x

ADD YOUR NAME TO ONLINE PETITION
* You can add your name to the online petition, initiated by Tony Benn,John
Pilger, Kate Hudson (CND) and others here: http://bit.ly/e8QWXT