Messy Business

It goes on to detail how up to 250 people mainly women and children, at a family wedding were killed in Uruzgan province, north of Khandahar following a raid by a US B52 bomber.

Maybe those who write in support of this war like Richard Newman-Thompson and Hilton Dawson can dismiss this as a "messy business" and with twisted logic justify these atrocities by claiming they are bringing peace and democracy.

One of those caught in the US attack, villager Abdul Saboor, told how "there are no Taliban or al-Queda here.

These people were all civillians".

Even after the Taliban have been removed from power, the alleged terrorist camps closed down and UK ground troops are left red faced when they find no enemy to fight the US and UK governments still find it appropriate to target already devastated villages with B52 bombers.

I presume that those who protest against such death and destruction, like myself on May Day, will find ourselves labelled as "unelected, unaceptable" and worse, "fascists" and "blackshirts" by Dawson and his New Labour cronies.

Presumably we join a long line of fascists involved in protest and the struggle for human rights.

Fascists like the Suffragettes, fascists like those struggling for rights for blacks in the USA in the 60s, fascists like striking miners (remember "the enemy within" Dawson?), fascists like sacked printworkers, fascists like the anti poll tax protestors, fascists like Women Against Pit Closures, fascists like the sacked dockers from Liverpool.

It is very convenient to stick labels on those who disagree with you in an attempt to discredit your opponents, but I hope Dawson's remarks come back to haunt him like the memories of the slaughtered innocents in Afghanistan.

NB Lancaster