Stop the War Coalition
Web: http://stopwar.org.uk
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Newsletter – 31 March 2017
Catastrophic Coalition Bombings in Mosul
The news this week of reportedly hundreds of civilians dead in Mosul as a result of US led bombing has further dented the claim that Donald Trump’s presidency will mark an era of retreat and isolation from involvement in wars. In fact, according to some estimates, this recent attack may mark the worst civilian casualties from US bombing for over 25 years – since the notorious attack on a shelter in Amiriyah, Baghdad, during the first Gulf War. In recent weeks, Trump has intensified the air strikes in Mosul, a city still home to hundreds of thousands; has sent ground troops into Syria to fight in Raqaa; and has deployed a new missile defence system in South Korea, along with B52 nuclear bombers, in a move strongly opposed by China.
If these threats are escalating – especially with Trump’s promise to ‘turn up the heat on North Korea’ – we can unfortunately expect nothing from our own government but the sort of abject support which the ‘special relationship’ has long signified. Last week, a parliamentary committee admitted that there was little that could be done in constitutional terms to prevent a British prime minister from behaving exactly like Tony Blair and taking us to war. Given Theresa May’s record so far with Trump, and given her and defence secretary Michael Fallon’s support for upping each Nato member country’s share of spending on the military, the threat of war world wide is growing again. As an anti-war movement we are asking our supporters to hold meetings and petition up and down the country to oppose our government and the US in its drive to war.