The change comes not with the birth of the internet, it comes when the internet is old enough to help us to remember history and not be fooled.


If your MP is not on this list
 http://www.stopwar.org.uk/bulletin.asp?id=030303
give them grief now.



Dear Louise Ellman MP,

Thank you for your letter of 6th March outlining last week's pretext for the invasion of Iraq. The aluminium tubes and the Al-Samoud missiles are yesterday's news since the latest report from the inspectors, although the missile destruction will cease with the inevitability of a war since there would be no point in destroying them.

The aluminium tubes were supposed to be part of Iraq's nuclear capability. Blair's second to last dossier contained the allegation that Uranium has been procured from Africa. Yesterday, the IAEA officials said that the documents, on which this was based, were transparent fabrications: either the British intelligence service was stupid, or they were involved in falsifying the evidence.

About anthrax, I know nothing beyond that it was supplied by the US at a time when, shall we say, they didn't feel that Saddam Hussein was a threat to his neighbours or his own people (at the height of his killing in 1988). No anthrax from Iraq was put into an envelope and posted it to the US congress, a criminal action on US territory that has failed to be investigated.

I can assure you that the official story from the government, eloquently presented, with the Caps-Lock On, in your letter has zero credibility now. After nearly a year of dossiers, speeches in the UN, and so-called evidence, so much of it has been shown to be a tissue of lies, from the mobile biological weapons labs, to the links with Al-Qaeda.

There has not yet been a single apology or explanation for why the false evidence for nuclear capability was present. The allegations have been quietly forgotten in the hope that we will forget them too. There is evidently a breathtaking contempt for accuracy and truth in what the government says, so long as it can be made to stick long enough to sell this war and get it underway.

On the subject of chemical weapons, we know that the government does not care in the slightest who has them. Last Thursday, the Guardian published serious allegations about the chemical weapons plant sold to Iraq from England, cleared in secret by the then Trade and Industry Secretary, Paul Channon, and paid for by the British taxpayer through the Export Credit Guarantee Department.

If the possession of chemical weapons by Iraq is so heinous, then the sale of them to Iraq is equally dreadful (more so because it is in our jurisdiction). Paul Channon should be investigated and prosecuted. The ECGD, a crucial financial tool for enabling of the sale of arms to unstable governments, should be immediately shut down until it is reformed.

These steps would be taken if the government was serious about the problem.

But it isn’t, is it? Some people are above the law. None of the criminals who were ministers and civil servants mentioned in the Scott Report of 1996 have yet been prosecuted or even slightly reprimanded. Today's excuse for not acting on these crimes is that they happened in the past. But all crimes happen in the past. If we want to discourage our leaders from arming foreign dictators today and in the future, we would attempt to punish them.

Today, inspections are the only obstruction of Bush government's naked drive for war. I am reminded of the still unresolved case of the dismissal of Jose Bustani from the OPCW that is brought up as a question in parliament every month since last April. I read in the Washington Post last year of Paul Wolfowitz's similar attempt at obtaining the dismissal of Hans Blix from Unmovic because he was perceived, like Jose Bustani, as being too effective at his job and likely to get in the way of war.

We can see this happening. We are not being fooled by the bullshit.

It would be kind of you to communicate our informed and serious objections to the government for its actions, rather than act as a cipher for their latest excuses of the day, which I assure you will evaporate in a years time as completely as the concern for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

This has nothing to do with a second UN resolution: a push for war.

It’s about the justice necessary to fight a war.

Justice requires honesty and integrity: an a full and public declaration of all the lies the public has been subjected to so far, and a good explanation for them.

Justice requires equality before the law: the prosecution of the people and organizations who knowingly participated in the illegal export of the weapons systems.

Justice requires adherence to the spirit of international law: no indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations, or the use of depleted Uranium munitions whose after-effects remain toxic for eternity.

Times have changed. The internet is not just a tool for mass, unregulated communication, it is now our political memory.

The political ruse of narrowing the context of discourse to this week and next so that today’s fabrications make sense is no longer effective. We now have the technology to remember your votes for and against war, statements for and against justice. We can read them today just as easily as we will be able to read them ten years from now when the context will be different and the underlying facts still the same.

Please don't forget it when you fail to fight for peace at a time when it matters.


Yours Sincerely,