15Nov06 - London - StopTheWar Islamophobia Convention

[Keith Mothersson]

Have you seen this draft declaration? Which announcement and declaration follows, followed by my suggestion for a leaflet an ammendment attempt. (Actually I will be in Edinburgh for a Scottish 911 truth network gathering.)

STOP THE WAR COALITION
15 November 2006

TO ALL STOP THE WAR GROUPS AND
AFFILIATED ORGANISATIONS

PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY:
ISLAMOPHOBIA AND THE WAR ON TERROR
SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2006
CAMDEN CENTRE, BIDBOROUGH STREET
LONDON WC1H
(Full Details: http://tinyurl.com/ydydf5)

AGENDA

10AM - 12 NOON: THE WAR ON TERROR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
SPEAKERS:
Tony Benn, Paul Mackney (joint Gen Sec UCU), Anas Altikriti (former
President MAB), Jean Lambert (Green Party MEP), Lindsey German (Convenor,
Stop the War Coalition), Kate Hudson (Chair CND), Moazzam Begg (Guantanamo
detainee), Mark Steel, Guests: Mohammed Abdul Khar and Abdul Koyair,(The
Forest Gate Brothers).

12 Noon - 1.00pm lunch

1.0PM - 3.0PM RESISTING WAR AND ISLAMOPHOBIA
SPEAKERS:
Cllr Salma Yaqoob (Birmingham), John McDonnell MP, Sami Ramadami
(political refugee from Saddam Hussein's Iraq and academic), David Edgar
(playwright), Walter Wolfgang (Labour Party NEC), Abdul Rehman-Malik
(contributing editor, Q News), Andrew Burgin (Stop the War Coalition),
Yvonne Ridley (Islam Channel), Professor Steven Rose

3.00PM - 5.30PM ORGANISING TO STOP THE BACKLASH
SPEAKERS:
Adam Price MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Cllr Oliur Rahman (Tower Hamlets), Rose
Gentle (Military Families Against the War), Chris Nineham (Stop the War
Coalition), Ismael Patel (Friends of al-Aqsa), Craig Murray
----------------------------------------

PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY: DRAFT DECLARATION

This People’s Assembly declares it solidarity with all the Muslim peoples in Britain facing a hurricane of official and unofficial legal, political and physical attacks in a climate of Islamophobic hysteria.

The Assembly recognises these attacks as essentially racist and anti-democratic. They are driven by the same political agenda as has inspired the criminal and disastrous “war on terror” which has laid waste Iraq and Afghanistan and presently threatens Iran and elsewhere.

In particular we condemn the statements made by government ministers designed to isolate, demonise and even criminalise Islamic religious practices, choice of dress and cultural expression. We affirm that such diversity in fact makes an important contribution to the overall development of our society.

We condemn terrorist atrocities such as the London bombings last year, which are in all circumstances indefensible. However, the Assembly believes, in common with the majority of the British people, that the key to tackling the threat of such atrocities is a change in the foreign policy of the government. It has subordinated this country to the aggressive foreign policy of the Bush government, in its invasion of Iraq, its threats to Iran and its support for Israel’s aggression against Lebanon. {this is the para I want to substitute with paras 4 to 11 below}


We call on the people of Britain to:

* Oppose all racist violence and rhetoric directed against Muslims.
* Reject legislation directed against free cultural and religious expression and any legislation seeking to abridge the civil liberties of all citizens.
* Support the right of Muslims, like any other people, to dress, follow their culture and worship as they please, within the limits of the present law.
* Demand that the government break completely with the foreign policy of the US administration and withdraw its occupying troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
* Support the open letter against Islamophobia and in defence of the Muslim community, published recently in the Guardian.
*Adopt this statement and win support for it in your appropriate organisation.

Comment by Keith:

We [911 truth movement and/or J7 truth campaign] ought by now to have a coherent pamphlet to sell setting out what we agree on and what we disagree on with the Blowback left/peace movement. (I started to draft an attempt at one, but it got sidetracked after 10 pages or so, but will get back to it. Also working on a critique of the 'left-neocon' Euston manifesto type line which defines itself against 'Islamofascism' .)

Maybe an useful intervention could be a leaflet with an ammendment - counter-text and rationale/references such as www.nineeleven.co.uk , www.julyseventh.co.uk , Nato's Secret Armies book by Daniele Ganser, Webster Tarpley's book on Synthetic Terorrism - Made in the USA (?), URL for Nafeez'es terrific 'Subverting "terrorism"' article - www.gnn.tv/B12624 ; and press for the False-Flag Terrorism position to at least be recognised within the 'broad coalition'.

If we position the Iraq WMD frame-up as an example of the FFT we are talking about, and warn against future terrorism from whatever source, I think we can make progress to letting our message becoming mainstream (because useful) in peace movement/left etc , without getting into denouncing the Blowback left in such a way that they denounce us back as a diversionary cult.

(e.g. In Dundee, where there is an experimental Special Branch unit which very visibly monitors Muslims, there have been calls for Muslim non-cooperation with that unit, which have been painted as Muslim and radical refusal to co-operate in the fight against terrorism; So I think there is mileage in us saying:
'yes by all means we will co-operate with the authorities and others to stop terrorism=attacking people who aren't attacking anyone. We need no lectures on this, that is why we are in the peace movement - but if the MET won't arrest Blair and co-conspirators for the Iraq WMD frame-up as per Downing St memo, then it undercuts police/public unity to reaffirm this fundamental human norm.' - with photo-ops of Muslims/non-Muslims shoulder to shoulder queuing up outside police stations to hand in evidence of WMD frame-up (and other examples of FFT maybe?).

Anyway, what do people think of this Redraft??:

"Delete Para 4 (see below: it which says that British foreign policy is main cause of terrorism) and replace with:

4. We oppose all one-sided definitions of 'terrorism' framed in such a way as to pre-suppose any special connection with radical Islam and/or those of whatever religion or background resisting armed oppression (from whatever quarter).

5. We rally instead around resolute opposition to all terrorism, defined by us as the deliberate killing, harming or threatening of people who aren't killing, harming or threatening anyone. We call for this consistent and principled definition to be applied whether this terrorism is practiced by states (e.g. burning of Reichstag, Hiroshima, Fallujah, indiscriminate Israeli assaults on Gaza, Lebanon) or by non-state actors (e.g. suicide murders of innocent people on buses in Israel/Palestine), or by rogue networks operating within and across state and private agencies.

6. Recalling the true history of Operation Gladio in Western Europe from 1945-1990 and the standard use of false flag incidents to instigate, provoke or legitimise war or domestic repression, we consider there is an urgent need for powerful independent inquiries into terrorist atrocities such as 9/11, 7/7, Bali, Madrid, Hariri assassination (and for dessemination of the results of such investigations as have already taken place).

7. As an expression of our determination to honour the dead with the truth, we call on the Metropolitan police and other relevant authorities with a genuine commitment to dampening down Islamophobia to build public confidence by releasing all the CCTV and other evidence concerning the July 7th bombings, and other real or purported terrorist incidents (including De Menezes assassination, Forest Gate and the 'terror planes' scare).

8. From an identical anti-terrorist concern, and recalling the Downing Street memo which minuted the head of MI6 reporting that in the US 'the intelligence was being fixed around the policy [of massive military attack]' ,we call on the Metropolitan Police to arrest the Prime Minister and his co-conspirators for the Anglo-American frame-up of Iraq which has led to the deaths of around 650,000 people (most of whom civilians), and to reopen their inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly.

9. We consider that nothing good can come from an unsustainable, imperialistic and terroristic foreign policy whose key modus operandi includes the manufacture of false-flag pretexts for war, sanctions and so-called 'humanitarian' intervention. Not only does this sow confusion in the West and multiplies the number of people who might be inclined to fight back (including a small subset who might be inclined to take indiscriminate 're'-venge, either on their own initiative or egged on and assisted by military intelligence agencies for their own geo-political or domestic ends), but such a foreign policy itself constitutes directly the very phenomenon of 'terrorism' which it pretends to guard against ('War OF Terror').

10. So far as concerns terrorist incidents which may happen in the future we call on the British public and journalists to avoid Islamophobic and racist preconceptions but to keep an open mind case by case and to rely on evidence and reason (not unsubstantiated innuendo, rumour and hearsay from the 'media-intelligence complex') when attempting to form a view concerning the true authorship of such incidents.

11. In particular we call on the British government, armed services and intelligence services to break with, oppose and work against the aggressive foreign policy of the Bush government, in its invasion of Iraq, its support for Israel’s aggression against Palestine and Lebanon, and its serious lies, threats and massive deployments against Iran.

Best wishes,
Keith Mothersson

PS I could help with the cost of duplicating/printing if anyone wants to run with something broadly along these lines. 07815 653389

[Belinda]

Thanks Keith, as a few already know I'm doing the leaflet, shall be working on that today/printing out tomorrow. However my email is down at the moment so won't be able to send it round for checking. But will of course consult various including your goodself by phone, agree leaflet should include needed amendments to the P-A constitution.

NB because I have no email can anyone who wants to help draft this leaflet phone me 020 8245 3805 (Cognoscence) and leave your number if I'm out so i can call you back

We'll have 4 reps at this event, plus hopefully a stall. Snowy I assume you'll be coming on your own?? (again if you emailed me I didn't get that...)

Belinda

(PS if anyone's been trying to email me in the last few days and i haven't answered that's the reason, please PHONE ME instead. Hope to get this glitch sorted by early next week...).

[xmasdale]

Stop the War have sent us this. Please don't send me e-mails informing my ignorant self that signing their petition won't make a blind bit of difference. You have more productive campaigning to do? Please get on and do it.

Noel

WHY STOP THE WAR DEFENDS THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY
The timing of the publication in today's Guardian (14 November) of Stop the War's open letter opposing attacks on the Muslim community could not have been more appropriate. Just as timely is our People's Assembly in London this Saturday 18 November to discuss "Islamophobia And The War On Terror", for which bookings are pouring in from across the country (see below).

The last week has shown only too clearly that the attacks on Muslims by Tony Blair and government ministers will be intensified, as those who took us into what The Independent newspaper calls "this futile and wretched war" desperately seek to divert attention from their war crimes by scapegoating a whole community.

Even the head of Britain's secret services, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, weighed in with her claim that there are at present 30 terror plots being planned in Britain by 1,600 potential terrorists (why no arrests?) and her statement that "young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers" (SEE http://tinyurl.com/y9ens5).

No mention here of course of the "young teenagers being groomed" to wage war in Iraq, like Jamie Hancock, the 19 year old British soldier who was killed just too weeks after being sent to Basra to fight what his father calls a "pointless" war.

Manningham-Buller was echoed last Friday (November 3) by Tony Blair, who said, "It's a very long and deep struggle but we have to stand up and be counted for what we believe in and take the fight to those people who want to entice young people into something wicked and violent but utterly futile."

Unsurprisingly, no mention by Blair of the "something wicked and violent but utterly futile" instigated by war criminals like himself and George Bush, which has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and turned Iraq into what writer Robert Fisk calls a "hell-disaster".

Not wanting to be left out of the Muslim baiting, UK foreign secretary Margaret Becket said last week that British Muslims have a "special ability" to "stand up and be counted" against a "cult that sells such a vision to impressionable young men and women and that it encourages a young man to blow himself up on a tube train." (SEE http://tinyurl.com/shdvn)

No mention here of the Bush/Blair "cult" which "sells" a "vision" that has caused unimaginable levels of carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the real root of atrocities like last year's London bombings, as admitted by leaked government documents (SEE http://tinyurl.com/ykpuw4).

In the words of our open letter: "The current attacks on Muslims are rooted in the disastrous 'war on terror', of which this government has been such a prominent supporter. This war has made Britain more vulnerable, not less, to terrorist attack…If the government is concerned about improving the cohesion of our communities, let it first abandon its support for the foreign policy of the US administration, including the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan." (SEE http://tinyurl.com/uvaav)

Dozens of public figures and celebrities have signed the letter (SEE http://tinyurl.com/yaez32), a number of whom will be speaking at Saturday's People's Assembly in London, which will discuss the issues raised by the letter (see below).

We are asking all our supporters to add their name to this letter before we deliver it to Tony Blair at Downing street in the near future.
PLEASE SIGN THE OPEN LETTER "DEFEND THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY" HERE: http://tinyurl.com/y52e73

[insidejob]

I support the move to challenge the attack on Muslims. But I am appalled at one sentence in the Stop the War declaration, which constitutes the movement’s position. This declaration says UK Muslims want to blow us all up but it’s wrong to discriminate against them. In effect, it is an attack on UK Muslims and must be amended.

Muslims should be mobilised to reject this declaration.

The sentence that should be deleted is:

‘However, the Assembly believes, in common with the majority of the British people, that the key to tackling the threat of such atrocities is a change in the foreign policy of the government.’

This states that there are thousands of UK Muslims who could become groomed to become terrorists because they want revenge for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. It accepts the MI5 and Government position that the ‘four bombers’ were ordinary UK Muslims. So, if they became suicide bombers who else could? It means UK Muslims are a 5th Column in the UK. If so, what else are MI5 supposed to do other than target UK Muslims with surveillance and a clampdown on their civil liberties. How else are the public to feel other than believing that multiculturalism is a threat?

The sentence should be replaced with:

‘The Assembly rejects the view that there are thousands of UK Muslims who are or could become terrorists because of a desire for revenge against the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. It believes that the UK public has not had a full explanation of the terrorist attack on 7 July 2005 and there should be a new independent investigation.’

Also,
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are constantly being cited as bases for Al Qaida. I would also add another action:

- call on the UK Government to propose the creation of an international forum that would investigate fundamentalist terrorism in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and how to combat it.

[moeen yaseen]

I agree with the sentiments of Keith and Inside Job. We should attack the notion of Muslim guilt fro 9/11 and 7/7 unless it is is proven. The principle of Innocent until guilty has to be upheld. The BLOWBACK theory has to be rejected as there has been NO BLOWBACK yet and the form of the BLOWBACK when it takes place as I have mentioned maybe of another form. We are not fighting just for justice and truth but the rule of habeus corpus and the Magna Carta - .i.e. the right of Britons to be free and equal in the eyes of the law otherwise the legitimacy of the State has to be questioned. That is how high the stakes are and should be articulated. The dangerous precedents set by BLIAR need to be recognised for what they are the actions of a quasi police State under the sway of the NWO.
We should also push for a National DEMO against ISLAMOPHOBIA specifically and simultaneously target media offices churning out Islamophobic trash.

[blackbear]

The "Stop the War" movement should be referred to as the "Stop the Truth".

David Wilson of this politically controlled charade has just stated.........

"we don't do conspiracy theories ...whether right or wrong...."

I can only presume that many of the controllers/members of this group would not like the racial implications, if the truth of 9/11 became mainstream.

William Rodriguez...........thousands of people who are most loyal to Israel didn't turn up for work.........