Taking up cudgels for peace
BMJ 2003; 326 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.326.7382.184 (Published 25 January 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;326:184All rapid responses
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TIME TO GET OUT OF OUR ARMCHAIRS, USE OUR INFLUENCE AND STICK OUR
HEADS ABOVE THE PARAPET.
I am just an ordinary member of the public, who happens to be a GP,
though I have not worked for three and a half years, having spent this
time with my small children.
I wonder whether other ordinary people like me are being made to feel
increasingly uncomfortable about the threat of war in Iraq. Are others
being troubled by a niggling urge, increasingly hard to ignore, to get out
of their armchairs, stick their heads above the parapet and make an
almighty fuss about this madness?
I like to think that I keep myself reasonably well informed, and up
until now have salved my conscience by belonging to Medact (an
organisation for Health Professionals which campaigns against war, poverty
and third world debt), Amnesty International and Greenpeace. I was an
armchair member of CND as a student.
My conscience, however, has been prickling in an irritating manner
recently, and left me feeling that I have to do something more.
The government seem hell bent on waging this war, despite all of the
obvious reasons not to. Visit the Medact website at www.medact.org, to
read Dr. June Crown’s Hiroshima Day letter to Tony Blair last year. Dr
Crown is the chair of Medact, and her letter eloquently summarises the
dangers of going to war.
It seems inconceivable to me that thinking people can condone a war,
which will kill large numbers of innocent Iraqi’s and condemn many more to
a life of abject misery. The likelihood is that such a war would also
further destabilise the situation in the Middle East, and make us in the
West even more vulnerable to a terrorist backlash.
Do other ordinary people regularly shout at the television? I do,
when I hear George W Bush and his henchmen talking about weapons of mass
destruction, and how they must be rooted out from the so-called “axis of
evil” no matter what the consequences. Isn’t the USA the only country ever
to have used a nuclear bomb? Did they not sell chemical, and other,
weapons to Saddam Hussein in the eighties to help him to wage his war
against Iran, in the full knowledge that he was also using them against
his own people.
My poor old conscience takes a further battering when it is made
aware of people who have had the courage to raise their heads above the
parapet. For example, Brian Haw, father of five from the West Country, who
has kept a continuous vigil in Parliament Square since June 2001, in
protest against the West’s treatment of the third world, and latterly war
in Iraq. Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize winner of the “God of Small
Things”. Her collection of essays “The Algebra of Infinite Justice”, about
social injustices and the bomb, in India, is alarming, and very well
written. Michael Moore, the American film director of “Roger and Me” and
“Bowling for Columbine”. His book, “Stupid White Men” is erudite at
challenging the actions and hypocrisies of the Western World, but if you
really want to flagellate your conscience, go and see him live!
The long and the short of this, I suppose, is that, if some people
can speak out against this, so can anybody else. As doctors, we have
influence in society whether we like it or not, and we are privileged to
live in a country where we have freedom of speech. This madness shows no
sign of abating, and time may be running out. I don’t usually preach the
gospel of doom, but I am worried that Armageddon may not be far away.
So, if your conscience is troubling you, don’t ignore it, do
something, however small. Lots of small actions add up to something
bigger. It is too easy to be deterred by the thought of being too busy to
do anything meaningful. Every tiny protest means something.
· Write to your MP, visit www.faxyourmp.com
· Join Medact.
· Talk to your friends and family.
· Join the “Stop the War Coalition” Tel 020 7053 2155/6.
· Come to the national demonstration on Feb 15th, assemble 12pm at
Embankment.
If you have the energy to do even more do it! Lets make a noise that
the government cannot ignore, lets get under their skin, peacefully of
course. After all this affects all of us. We may be reaching a watershed;
we may not have another chance.
If the starving millions don’t move you, or not even your next-door
neighbour, do it for yourself, your children their children and so on and
so on.
Please.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
I apologise - I have confused two email addresses.
swkelly@doh.health.nsw.gov.au is correct.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
I regard peace as a very effective alternative strategy to the status
quo.
Dr Kelly does not need to look so far from home. What we spend in the
UK on our machines of war is stolen from the children of the world dying
of malnutrition and polluted water.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
In response to the above letter I feel that primarily, an
appropriate strategy indealing with a ruthless dictator should not be
confused and misrepresented as a war on terrorism.
The horrific acts of September the Eleventh and the subsequent terror
attack on Bali were not the acts of a nation state and as far as I am
aware there is no evidence to substantially link them to Iraqs
dictatorship.
A pre-emptive attack on Iraq either under a UN mandate or unsupported
action by the US and the UK cannot be justified. There are no clear
military objectives or aims to an attack. Even less any possible
prediction of the regional and global effect of any war in the region.
Sadam Hussain has effectively been contained by the sanctions and no
fly zones since 1991. There has been no change that the public has been
made aware of to suggest that this cannot continue.
It is clearly a matter of considerable debate as to weather the
present sanctions program (which has not led to regime change but have led
either directly or indirectly to the death of many tens of thousands of
innocent iraqi civilians) is a morally acceptable position. However it is
clearly the case the a war on iraq will led to the death of many
thousands of combatants and civilians during the period of military action
and probably a many fold increase in this figure in the aftermath.
It is not an act of appeasment to express abhorance against a war
will not reduce the terroist threat under which we live but will result in
the loss of many lives amongst our troops and iraqi civilians alike.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
When will those who agitate for so-called peace put forth an
alternative agenda to the status quo? What is their plan for Saddam's
aggression to his own, and his threats to his neighbours? Surely what he
spends on his machines of war is stolen from the children dying for lack
of food and medicine. His UN-illegal oil exports are not buying what his
people need. Where were the appeasers a few years after Chamberlain's
'peace in our time'?
Whilst I share their mis-givings about any form of active war, they do not
seem to hold any concerns for the alternative - the outcome of letting
renegade dictators roam free with the making of horrendous weapons. The
Inspectors are commonly reported to have found no 'weapons of mass
destruction', but nor have they traced the known, large quantities of
substrates.
Tolkien was wise when his character Faramir said (in the book not the
movie): "War must be, while we defend ourselves against a destroyer who
would devour all ... I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness ...
I love only that which they defend ..."
They do not seem to agitate for peace, but for mere delay. "Do no harm"
somehow clashes with the risks of doing nothing. Having troops on hand for
what may soon be asked of them is a better policy than starting a buildup
too late and being unprepared (this policy led to heroic failure and loss
at Dunkirk).
We Doctors should stand with our politicians making hard choices, and with
our countrymen who are indeed at risk for our sakes.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Double and triple standards
Dear Sirs,
Many of the basic arguments put forward by Jocalyn Clark and others,
within the medical profession and outside, are clear, relevant, thought-
provoking and weighty. It is not difficult to argue that there will be
massive suffering on the Iraqi side and that this suffering will be
principally be borne by innocent civilians. It is both easy and true to
remind us that the hitherto existing medical infrastructure will implode
under the added stress of mass casualties of war. It is also correct that
going to war is all too easy and that ending a war is one of the most
difficult of political acts.
But, leaving aside the small fact that whereas thousands, if not
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi babies are dying of malnutrition (caused by
UN sanctions?), Saddam Hussein appears to be every bit as rotund as he was
ten years ago, is there not a whiff of double, nay triple standards, in
place here?
For the second time within a decade, and with unrivalled brutality, a
small, but ignored war is taking place on the outskirts of Europe. This
second war has been going on for over three years now and has been, and is
still characterized by arbitrary detention, routine beating and torture of
detainees, group rapes of both men and women, "disappearances", extortion,
disappearances and widespread extra-judicial executions. All this takes
place in an atmosphere of almost total impunity and while the
international community studiously averts its gaze and pretends not to
notice. I am talking about Chechnya.
Numerous NGOs have done their best to bring this issue to the front,
but despite their best efforts the silence surrounding this genocidal war
is deafening. Where are the thousands of demonstrators around the world
clamouring for peace in Chechnya? Where are the clarion calls for boycotts
of Russia? Where are the dozens and dozens of professional organizations
joining hands to condemn the violence and acting to stop it? How many so-
called intellectuals, from right or left, have not condemned Mr Bush as a
war criminal for just talking about war whereas Mr Putin is received
around the world as a true statesman and his crimes are ignored?
I may be naive, but I would like to see the same moral standards
applied to all countries and leaders. Awaiting such an utopian development
I am tempted to suggest that the present state of double/triple standards
perhaps owes not a little something to plain, knee-jerk anti-americanism
and has very little, if any basis in an evidence based analysis.
Sincerely
Johan Lagerfelt
Competing interests:
Founder and Chairman of the Swedish Committee for Chechnya (www.tjetjenien.org)
Competing interests: No competing interests