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Dance on Thatcher’s grave, but remember there has been a coup in Britain By John Pilger
25 April 2013 — John Pilger
In the wake of Thatcher’s departure, I remember her victims. Patrick Warby’s daughter, Marie, was one of them. Marie, aged five, suffered from a bowel deformity and needed a special diet. Without it, the pain was excruciating. Her father was a Durham miner and had used all his savings. It was winter 1985, the Great Strike was almost a year old and the family was destitute. Although her eligibility was not disputed, Marie was denied help by the Department of Social Security. Later, I obtained records of the case that showed Marie had been turned down because her father was “affected by a Trade dispute”.
What a disingenuous piece! I read:
“As everyone knows the anti-war movement didn’t stop the war but it arguably had some important impacts during the invasion and occupation. For example Milan Rai maintains that the increased public scrutiny provided by the UK and global anti-war movements reduced the destruction caused by US and UK forces. He points to the fact that the US-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War targeted and destroyed Iraq’s life-maintaining infrastructure – its electricity system, the water supply, sewage systems etc. However, in 2003 this didn’t happen. In addition, the relatively early withdrawal of UK forces from southern Iraq in April 2009 was arguably a response to the anti-war mood at home. “Their continued presence in Iraq was politically toxic” in the UK, Greg Muttitt, author of Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Iraq, explained in a public lecture at the London School of Economics last year. “Gordon Brown was keen to get rid of them and say ‘that was a Blair problem.’””
The UK’ pulls out’, “relatively early”? SIX years later! This is a response?
Then on Iraq’s infrastructure:
Iraq’s infrastructure had ALREADY been destroyed in 90-91 and ten years of murderous sanctions made sure it never got rebuilt!
Oh how these so-called lefties blow their own trumpets when they don’t even know the tune, let alone know how to play it!
The biggest demo the UK had ever had was the beginning and the end of the ‘anti-war’ movement, ‘led’ disgracefully by the so-called Stop the War Coalition (read the SWP). Another shameful episode in the history of the UK’s imperialist ‘left’.