even as we meet negotiations are taking place in New York to try and organise a United Nations' resolution which will give the green light for an intervention in Iraq. if they get the resolution they will do it supposedly in a multilateral way. if they don't get the resolution they will do it in a unilateral way
so the United Nations today is not representative the security council is not representative of the world in which we live. it is something which grew out of the 2nd world war. if they took a vote in the general assembly the vote would be 80% against them and they know it
and you know we are not alone in Britain, we're not alone as we saw on the last demonstration [in London] in large parts of Europe. it's not just the demonstrators, it's large sections of the state apparatuses in Europe who are opposed to this war
in Italy we've had the largest demonstration against the war, much larger than ours we are happy to say 1.2 million people demonstrated in Italy against the war. so it's a very big movement and that's why constantly one of the aims of the Blair government is propaganda: propaganda against us, propaganda in favour of the war. that's what the dossier which they presented represented. crude war propaganda won't stop the flow of recruits into small terrorist organisations, some of them religious terrorist organisations...
...is not by dropping bombs is not by invading countries is not by destroying cities but beginning to tackle the political problems which cause this to happen. if you're a citizen of any country you just see the double standards at work. Sharon has nuclear weapons but he's part of the War Against Terror. that's fine. Saddam might get nuclear weapons in 3 or 4 years time but he has to be bombed now because we believe in pre-emptive action
we don't just believe in pre-emptive action against Iraq. the new Bush doctrine says that we will take pre-emptive action against any state which we feel is going to challenge our hegemony and overtake us. this is a declaration of war on the rest of the world: don't you dare do anything because we will use our military power to crush you. that's what they're saying openly
wherever i travel - and i travel all over the world - when people find out i am from Britain they say could you just explain to us Tony Blair? they just want an explanation saying why is he so constantly ensconced in the posterior of the American president?
so the United Nations today is not representative the security council is not representative of the world in which we live. it is something which grew out of the 2nd world war. if they took a vote in the general assembly the vote would be 80% against them and they know it
and you know we are not alone in Britain, we're not alone as we saw on the last demonstration [in London] in large parts of Europe. it's not just the demonstrators, it's large sections of the state apparatuses in Europe who are opposed to this war
in Italy we've had the largest demonstration against the war, much larger than ours we are happy to say 1.2 million people demonstrated in Italy against the war. so it's a very big movement and that's why constantly one of the aims of the Blair government is propaganda: propaganda against us, propaganda in favour of the war. that's what the dossier which they presented represented. crude war propaganda won't stop the flow of recruits into small terrorist organisations, some of them religious terrorist organisations...
...is not by dropping bombs is not by invading countries is not by destroying cities but beginning to tackle the political problems which cause this to happen. if you're a citizen of any country you just see the double standards at work. Sharon has nuclear weapons but he's part of the War Against Terror. that's fine. Saddam might get nuclear weapons in 3 or 4 years time but he has to be bombed now because we believe in pre-emptive action
we don't just believe in pre-emptive action against Iraq. the new Bush doctrine says that we will take pre-emptive action against any state which we feel is going to challenge our hegemony and overtake us. this is a declaration of war on the rest of the world: don't you dare do anything because we will use our military power to crush you. that's what they're saying openly
wherever i travel - and i travel all over the world - when people find out i am from Britain they say could you just explain to us Tony Blair? they just want an explanation saying why is he so constantly ensconced in the posterior of the American president?
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da Peace Not War, dove si può ascoltare
extracts from a speech given by Tariq Ali on 16th Oct 2002
remixed by ADF Education
(previously unreleased)
© 2002 Tariq Ali / Asian Dub Foundation