Today, Ele and I went to London to take part in an emergency protest outside Parliament. Click here for the pics. The protest was to demand the removal of British troops from Iraq and also to support relatives of British troops who were trying to present a wreath to Tony Blair.

Have you heard Blair lately, waffling on about the Black Watch and their brave sacrifice? This is how much he really cares about those soldiers:

Downing Street was plunged into a row with Scotland Yard today after soldiers’ relatives were banned from laying a wreath outside No10.

Families of those killed and serving in Iraq reacted with fury when police told them they could not make the gesture or hold a minute’s silence on the steps of the Prime Minister’s residence.

A No 10 spokeswoman blamed police for the ban, but was forced to backtrack once Scotland Yard pointed out that its officers were following orders.
(Source: This Is London)

Notice how the scum even tried to pin the blame onto the hapless police? How cowardly and mendacious can the Blair regime get?

The relatives have now formed Military Families Against The War. At the rally in Parliament Square, I was privileged to hear some of them speak. Their anger and sadness was horribly moving. Some of the relatives, like Rose Gentle, have already lost children in Blair’s war. Others, like James Buchanan, want their children out of the cauldron of Iraq before they also lay down their lives for Bush’s oil and Blair’s ‘special relationship.’ Here’s a taste of the fury of the speakers:

James Buchanan’s youngest son Craig, 24, is at Camp Dogwood in the so-called triangle of death, while Gary, 27, has just returned from Iraq.

He said: “Our lads’ job is fighting but not for the Americans and not for the lies they were told.”

And in a withering attack on the Defence Secretary [Geoff Hoon] he added: “If I saw him in the street I will kill him. I will slit that man’s throat.

“He will not apologise to the people of Scotland. It’s a disgrace.”
(Source: The Scotsman)

Compared to the last national demo or even some of the smaller events, today’s protest was tiny. But I’m so glad we went. I got to hear, first-hand, what relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq think. Not via a website or a paper or the increasingly pro-Bush/Blair TV news but from their own mouths.

And it made me ashamed.

Ashamed that this country can send off troops, some of them no more than kids, to die in a foreign country that has never attacked Britain and posed no military threat to it whatsoever. Blair can keep trying to retroactively paint the invasion as being about ousting Hussein but, as usual, he’s lying. He sold it to the British people as about WMDs, about Britain being “45 mintues from attack.”

Blair lied and now British troops are dying. Add them to the pile of 100,000 Iraqi bodies.

I heard the voices of the relatives of British military today. They’re calling for you to support the troops. How?

By helping their campaign to bring them home. Alive.