Have the protestors done anything wrong?
Post categories: The Phone-in
| 07:39 UK time, Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Protestors have greeted soldiers on a homecoming parade in Luton with placards accusing them of being "war criminals", "baby killers" and "butchers of Basra".
But have they done anything wrong? Are such protests the price that we pay for free speech?
That's the Breakfast phone-in with Shelagh Fogarty from 9, but you can get involved here on the blog too.
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The anti war protestors should be protesting at the politicians who sent our forces into controversial or illegal campaigns in the first place. However it's not that simple because both New Labour and the Tory opposition backed the deployments.
Such protests merely represent political apathy similar to that of throwing a custard pie at Mandelson (providing that wasn't stage managed of course)!
When details of this event in Luton was first reported yesterday your 5 Live reporter emphasised that the actual anti war protest was relatively subdued. The actual arrests occurred among supporters of the rally who attacked the protestors. This has hardly been emphasised in subsequent news reports and has certainly been obscured by your coverage this morning!
How the public value our forces and what they do depends on how they value this country, its political institutions, and foreign policy etc. The UK hasn't been attacked by the enemy our forces are deployed against in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The public here are just passive onlookers who get their information from a relatively supportive media particularly papers like the Sun and the Express. If the UK had been attacked and people killed or injured here
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(Cont) (posted in error) people may look at the issues more objectively.
Unlike the 1st or 2nd WW where such events were naturally accepted, why is it particularly necessary today to have these organised homecoming parades rather than leaving whatever support the public want to offer to their own ways and means? It was particularly inflammatory and divisive to have it in a town like Luton where there is a strong ethnic and opinionated divide.
All of this is playing politics by using the morale of our forces as political ammunition to divert away from the failure of the campaigns!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I don't think this is a free speech issue but a public order issue. It is probably the case that these agitators were nothing to do with Luton and had just turned up to make trouble. We do not have to put up with anything any minority wants to do just so that they can have the luxury of expressing themselves in any offensive way. Free speech should be respectful to be taken seriously. There are grown-up ways in this country to make your opinions public without being offensive. They obviously did not express the wishes of the local people and should probably been removed when they started to upset everybody.
I'm going to the parade in Watford today. We are a happy muliti-cultural town which really works. We don't care what people look like, where they come from or what they wear as long as they don't break the law and don't upset anybody. I hope that if these people turn up today the police take them away immediately because they will not be expressing the wishes of the local townspeople.
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This protest should have been handled the way the one in Belfast was last year. The people are free to protest, but not at the side of the parade. A moronic decision.
These people do not protest MP's or the government because it would not get the reaction they have.
Well done the Anglians, welcome home
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There are only two things to say here:
1) There are a lot of Muslims living in the UK, where they enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of association. If a woman wanted to protest against wearing the veil or not being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia she would, in contrast, find it very hard to do so with impunity in a Muslim society. This is perhaps why so many people want to live in Britain?!
2) As for "baby killers" etc, the media has consistently failed to make the obvious but for some uncomfortable point that most of the people who have met a violent death in Iraq these past five years were Muslims - killed by Muslims.
But of course, as Northern Ireland shows, you can never keep everyone happy all of the time..... Not even in Luton.
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Tory defence shadow Patrick Mercer used the word ironic during his repost to these protestors on R5 this morning.
Ironic indeed.
His party opposed laws to make it illegal to foster incitement or hatred. And when Gordon Brown announced plans to stage troop passing out parades, the Tories described them as a gimmick.
Furthermore I see self styled guardian of free speech and Tory renegade David Davies and his side kick from Liberty Shami Chakrabarti are conspicuous by their absence during this debate, changed their minds have they !!!!
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I'm ashamed to be British; these young men and women should have been welcomed back to their country having done their duty, and risked their lives performing duties that they were asked to do by our democratically elected government.
This protest should have been stopped as soon as it started when it became obvious that the posters and insults were clearly illegal. For the police to then arrest those people who took exception to these appalling people is an insult to all fair minded people.
If this had been a march by a minority group, and a protest of this nature had been made by any person or persons from the mainstream of our British society then it would have been vilified by our institutions and stopped by our very politically correct police.
We are dividing our society at a frightening pace and i fear for the future of our way of life if we allow this kind of thing to continue.
I am a magistrate and see the imbalance in our society getting seriously worse by the day.
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I suggest all the protesters are identified then taken to camps and put into uniform.
So they can fight for their 'brothers'
ALL benefits stopped. If they feel that strongly let them do it back in the country/ies they feel allied to.
Surely they should all be charged with racial
abuse or is it only Anglo Saxon males who can be charged under the law.!
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talk about double standards or what it seems free speech only exist for the majority not the minorityof muslim folk who live and work in this country pay there taxes and part of the fabric of this great country sadly the biased media pick and choose what suits there agenda on the one hand they want to defend the rights of the dutch guy wilders comeing here and what carol thatcher said and claim it political corectness but when the muslim folk who use there free speech and hold a few placards up they are treated with a diffrent set of rules its no wonder muslims feel alienated by the biased media in this country are we not invadeing the countries of iraq and afghanistan which we went in on based on lies and spin has prisoner abuse not taken place in places like abu gharaib and women and kids not been killed in those countries is that not the reality of life and what the protestors were saying and holding placards up isnt that one of the many reasons we have been given by our media and goverment that where in those countries to take out dictators and put democracy in but when it happens in our country there seems a diffrent set of rules depending on what suits us where is the level playing field
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Protesting against the military is really important. They use a huge amount of taxpayers money and are so secretive. If you don't agree with what they are doing, how else can you tell them?
Military action is clearly a sign of political and human faliure and sould not be celebrated. Campaining and protesting have brought about many more positive changes in this country than any military action ever has. I hope Margaret Moran withdraws her kneejerk response
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Protesting against the military is really important. They use a huge amount of taxpayers money and are so secretive. If you don't agree with what they are doing, how else can you tell them?
Military action is clearly a sign of political and human faliure and sould not be celebrated. Campaining and protesting have brought about many more positive changes in this country than any military action ever has. I hope Margaret Moran withdraws her kneejerk response
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Maybe the small amount of posts on this blog are indicative of the fact that Brits are now just rolling their eyes in disbelief at the way social behaviour is going, or maybe it's because this very topical and hugely inflammatory subject is buried on a 5 Live Breakfast website, rather than the mainstream BBC News, where, in my opinion, it rightly belongs.
I heard of this on the radio news in the car last night, and was disgusted that it could be allowed to happen.
Our servicemen and servicewomen working at home and abroad, do so at the behest of their superiors, and they do it with the utmost professionalism and pride against all odds. This is NOT WW2, this is not even the Falklands War / Conflict that I was involved in myself, this is a different kind of conflict. The enemy do not wear uniforms, they do not carry ID, they do not look like soldiers, but our guys do on all three counts, and they do it with pride and conviction, and that is what is being celebrated, whatever your opinion on the why and how and when and what.
Any demonstration should have been carried out in London - on Whitehall, outside Parliament, Admiralty Arch or the MoD Main Building, not in front of our fantastic men and women of the British Army, Navy and Royal Air Force who are doing a fantastic job all round.
Welcome home guys.
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If FelthamTim had been around in the Thirties, perhaps he could have averted WW2 by campaigning in front of the Reichstag. Or maybe put up posters in Kabul asking the Taliban government to stop supporting Al Queda and to ban their training camps. Did he write to Saddam Hussein complaining about his treatment of the Kurds?
The UK military is under the control of a democratically elected government and only spends what the appropriate minister determines. If you don't agree with what the military are doing you change the government (by democratic means) not by insulting those men and women who risk their lives carrying out the wishes of a democratically elected parliament. Those extremists who demonstrated against the Anglian Regiment's march in Luton should try demonstrating in a like manner against an organ of the state in many of those Islamic countries that they appear to espouse.
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13. At 10:45pm on 11 Mar 2009, FelthamTim wrote:
Protesting against the military is really important. They use a huge amount of taxpayers money and are so secretive. If you don't agree with what they are doing, how else can you tell them?
Tim - where did you come up with that little gem - the military are our defensive and protective forces. If you protest (in the academic sense) about our military, then you protest against our freedoms because without the protection of our national defenses, we would not be as free as we are.
What you are saying is that you believe in your right to demonstrate against something you don't agree with, and if that is the case, you take that protest to lobby your MP or raise a rally against the government. You don't stand on a street corner and wave a placard at the soldiers who are doing your bidding in the world. You have that right here, this is the UK. Those that exercised that right are lucky that they can do so here, because if they did that in the country that they're so fond of calling their 'real' home, they would likely be arrested, beaten and imprisoned for speaking what is on their mind.
As for 'they are so secretive', well 'DER'. Yes my friend, the military are secretive. Have a look back through history and find me a national defensive force that are open and transparent. Did the Greeks knock on the doors of Troy and tell King Priam and Hector that they've brought them a lovely wooden horse for the city square? Imagine if they had gone on to say that they shouldn't think about opening it up because it's full of Greek soldiers waiting to rape and pillage the city. That particular war lasted 10 years, and Tim, please do not insult any ex-servicemen who might be reading this by talking about the cost in 'tax-payers' terms. The cost of any war is measured in a different kind of loss my friend.
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"If a woman wanted to protest against wearing the veil or not being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia she would, in contrast, find it very hard to do so with impunity in a Muslim society"
do we set our standards with a view to how others set theirs or do we choose to live by standards that we deem to be to our benefit and those that we live with?
that is how we choose our morality and ethics should not be on the basis that another country is lower so that we being a bit better is all we need to achieve . we should be wanting to seek the highest level regardless.
"that most of the people who have met a violent death in Iraq these past five years were Muslims - killed by Muslims. "
actually the john hopkins research which has subsequently been shown through other surveys to be an accurate assessment of the war in iraq, indicates that it has been our war machine that has done most of the killing. as many as 30% of ddeaths are directly attributable to the usa forces, a further 40 to 50 % indirectly attributable to our forces.
the uk commander in basra stated that 90% of attacks in basra were directed at british forces prior to the retreat to basra airport.
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"I'm ashamed to be British; these young men and women should have been welcomed back to their country having done their duty, and risked their lives performing duties that they were asked to do by our democratically elected government."
their duty? to fight a deceitful war and to kill innocent people and those who would defend their country from a foreign invasion?
in international law, it is their duty to not to fight in wars that are not just or ones that have been designed through deceit. our war is a war of choice.
patriotism sometimes means having to stand up to the democratically elected government.
"I am a magistrate and see the imbalance in our society getting seriously worse by the day. "
i find your perception an imbalance with regard to the whole picture .
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"ALL benefits stopped."
why do make this claim?
"If they feel that strongly let them do it back in the country/ies they feel allied to."
so you would deny the right to protest in this democracy?
do you think it is possible to be patriotic whilst objecting to war and what our forces are doing abroad ? of course one can be patriotic if one understands that our forces are fighting a war that was based not one truths but 'sexed' up speculation.
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"The enemy do not wear uniforms, they do not carry ID, they do not look like soldiers,"
who defined your enemy, and for what reason?
did you find wmds then? what is the evidence against bin laden that you have that the british and american governments couldnt provide to the fbi nor to the leaders of the taliban?
the taliban , who are 95+% afghans not some foreign insurgent group (in iraq the people in the resistance were iraqis and accounted for 97% - usa figures) have a right to defend their country just as we would.
"Any demonstration should have been carried out in London - on Whitehall, outside Parliament, Admiralty Arch or the MoD Main Building, not in front of our fantastic men and women of the British Army, Navy and Royal Air Force who are doing a fantastic job all round."
why should those who are doing the killing on behalf of the government remain blameless? so they have a morality, a conscience , can they not determine right from wrong?
do you think it is a 'just' war?
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it has been a cleverly constructed campaign by politicians and their media affiliates to turn the wars from issues of deceits, lies and legality into one where we are encouraged to cheer our troops right or wrong.
from prince harry to ross kemp. from MoD supported 'documentaries' that dont question but talk about our 'brave heroes'.
in this atmosphere any atrocity cannot be condemned, any wrongdoing cannot be questioned . any protests are unpatriotic.
the decision for this act of war has deliberately been moved away from the politicans to one about the bravery of the war machine.
i have a question for those who claim the forces are only following orders, will you also be supporting the troops if one day a government chose to create martial law and rule through the army?
when the guns are pointed at you will you cheer too and say they are only doing their duty?
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To SHLAZLUK:
Actually the 'FelthamTim' who you attack was not being insultive towards our forces.
He, unlike yourself and so many others on here, don't mellow their viewpoint about failed foreign policies for fear of insulting the forces.
You just play into the hands of the politicians and service chiefs because you do!
If you support our troops, protest against the politics of their deployment!
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Let us not forget that the Taliban ruled Afghanistan by conducting and winning a bloody civil war against many of their countrymen. This bunch of extremist maniacs are now attempting to dislodge a democratically elected Afghan government (you may argue about the degree of true democracy, but it is far more democratic than the previous regime) and restore a system of totalitarian government that completely repressed the female population and any dissenting voices. The Taliban are a minority in Afghanistan and they and their supporters from elsewhere fully deserve the treatment meted out by the Afghan Army and their NATO supporters.
Whatever one may think about the motives of the West in invading Iraq, the NATO forces in Afghanistan are fully justified in legal and moral terms in assisting the Afghan government in its struggle against the Taliban.
So yes, our troops in Afghanistan are heroes. Their actions and sacrifice will help to maintain a relatively democratic Afghan government, prevent the Taliban regaining power and the re-establishment of Al Queda training camps in the country.
To come to your point about the US and other Western forces inflicting 30% of Iraqi deaths, with another 40 to 50% being attributable to the Western forces. Forgive my ignorance, but either the Western forces did kill these Iraqis or they didn't, so how are these extra 40 to 50% of deaths "attributable" to Western forces? Given the almost daily slaughter last year of Iraqis by home grown and insurgent terrorists through suicide bombings, I regard these figures with some considerable scepticism. Bear in mind also that many of the Iraqi deaths at the hands of coalition forces were of those intent on terrorist action. At least now in Iraq, the democratic government does not initiate the slaughter of innocents, unlike the regime of Saddam Hussein. I would very much like to see and compare accurate figures for the levels of violent deaths in Iraq, pre and post the downfall of the Baathist regime.
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re 20 from Wendymann
I never said it was a 'just' war. In fact to call it a war is technically incorrect.
If we're talking about Afghanistan, the point was to remove a regime (the Talliban) who promoted or allowed the country to be used as training camps for those who would like to see the downfall of all infidels, globally.
UK forces along with other EU and US forces are in Afghanistan to assist the ANA protect their country from within. The Talliban are the enemy, not the Afghan nation. The Talliban do not wear uniforms, do not carry ID, do not look like soldiers. Those facts make it very difficult for our soldiers to carry out safe policing duties alongside the ANA soldiers. The fact that our servicemen do this, and some fall in the process, is helping the ANA to take over more duties themselves, and eventually Afghanistan, which is a country that deserves so much more than it has been given by the Talliban, might begin to return to some form of normality in 10 to 20 years.
Iraq is a completely different case. We were, I admit, duped into the WMD arguement. That said, the removal of Saddam was inevitible.
Many people called for this. Many people said 'why don't the governments of the world do something about this man?' Governments of the world did, and now the people are turning their backs, saying 'it's not my war, I didn't want it'
As a serviceman / woman in the UK forces, there are things you can do, and things you cannot. You cannot, for instance, stand in front of your boss and say 'no, I'm not going to Iraq'. If you are posted, you are posted, and whatever the personal opinion of those involved, they do it unquestioningly, following orders of those higher up the chain, who you hope, as a soldier, is making the right decision.
We have created the world we live in. We wanted open borders. We wanted free trade. We wanted freedom of movement. Unfortunately, in doing so, we now have to police further from our borders to protect ourselves within, and it's an ongoing battle.
As for Afghanistan, the ANA and Afghan police working with the UK forces consider them allies and friends
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as a british muslim, 1)I think its vital that every british citizen respects our soldiers and what they do. 2)protesting against a war is a completely separate issue and should not involve disrespecting the forces and what they do. The men who appeared in court 2day, calling themselves muslims and refusing to stand before the judge, well as a MUSLIM you are obliged to follow the law of the country in which you reside, including standing before a judge.
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