[A-List] "Bring the British troops home "

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> It is certainly not in Britain's interests to see the people of Iraq
> colonised and killed in their thousands. Nor is it right to sacrifice
> young British lives at the altar of US imperial designs. Only by bringing
> the troops home and putting pressure on the US to carry out an orderly
> withdrawal from Iraq - with a limited role for the UN, to supervise free
> and fair elections - can Britain return to the international fold of
> civilised conduct.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,985216,00.html

Well-timed appeal and headline, by an Iraqi political exile and senior
lecturer in sociology.

If momentum gathers the effect is probably to accelerate pressure within
the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties for British withdrawal and
accelerating the replacement with troops of up to 20 other countries, under
UN auspices. If Britain starts saying to the US it wants out quickly, then
Bush is left whether to hang on as daily deadly attacks in the Sunni areas
send the body bags home, and his bargaining position deteriorates.

Britain is now the weak link in the "coalition of the willing".

Even if a campaign to bring US troops home would not be so immediately
successful it would reverberate back on this side of the Atlantic.

Chris Burford
London