Afghanistan: Swansea rally address

This piece was written as an address to a Swansea 'troops out' rally. We made a banner and did all we could to promote it, but the Swansea Evening Post forgot to publish the piece advertising the event. Only about 100 people turned up, and we felt a bit lost in the crowd... So I didnt say all I'd intended, and I dont know how many people got the drift...

Friends, brothers and sisters – I can call you that because we’re all much like beneath our skins. Whatever the religion, race or language, we all laugh and cry, we all get wet when it rains. We all feel it when our people are attacked or someone dear to us is killed.

The first thing for us here now is to mourn the dead. Not just the 204 British servicemen and women, but all the people killed in Afghanistan. As Harry Patch reminded us, me must remember those on the other side of the line. For every coffin and flag carried off a plane in Wilthshire, there are ten white bundles in Afghanistan, bodies quickly buried in the ground they lived on..

As a child in the second world war, I was with my mother when she got the news of her brother’s death in Belgium. He was blown up by an IED, or boobytrap as they called them. And his widow came to live with us..

Some things ought to change, but don’t. Now again, we get public ceremonial, ritual mourning, then wives and families are left to their tears. Somewhere in Wales or Helmand a woman a woman will wake up at night, and believe for a moment it was all a bad dream, reach out in bed and find the empty space….

Let’s now take two minutes to remember ALL the dead and their families.

Our next task is even more important: to do what anything we can to stop this waste. Sacrifice is to fine a word. If we really respect our soldiers, we should bring them home, alive and in one piece. We’ve sent them on a fool’s errand: you cant impose democracy or free other people’s women by force. This war is unwinnable, it’s unaffordable and it does more to prompt terrorist attacks than stop them.

Our troops are doing the job we pay them to do. Bravely and as best they can. Not long ago, I heard a British para say the same about the Taliban: ‘They’re good,’ he saisd, and Jeremy Paxman blinked., ‘They know what they’re doing and they believe in what they’re fighting for.’ And a lot of the Afghan fighters, like are own, are doing what they do because there weren’t many other jobs around.

More than 40 years ago, as a journalist I helped cover dead-end wars in Algeria and Vietnam. Then too Western governments and generals kept saying ‘We’re winning: just one more push, more troops, a bit more time. Luckily we had a Labour prime minister then who refused to follow the US to Vietnam. Later we watched the route of Russian forces in Afghanistan and only recently, we heard a commander in Basra say that British troops in Iraq were part of the problem not the solution.

If you’re in a hole, stop digging, but our sad clown prime minister drops us deeper in it. There’s talk about talks with the Taliban, and we send more troops. To kill and die in our name as we foot the bill. Every other day, another one or two. And, you wouldn’t know it from the media, but people round the country are coming out to call a halt. When Gordon Brown comes back from his holiday, there will be a packet of 1000 signatures from Swansea waiting for him, demanding withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan.

TROOPS OUT! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!

In two months time, on Saturday October 24th, the Stop the War coalition is planning a national troops out march in London. Maybe we could get some buses organised for that.