Thursday, October 05, 2006
Day three continued
So, first an apology that emailing to the blog led to apostrophes being replaced by odd little squares. Maybe it's the etheric gremlins' comment on finicky punctuation.
Much more importantly, Toby was giving evidence yesterday about how he reached the decision to try to disable bombers at Fairford. As all the other petitions, demonstrations and protests were going on, (which T and P participated in) and in spite of these various manifestations of the huge popular opposition to it, war seemed increasingly likely. Over a period of months the possibility of taking some form of non-violen direct action led to research into how the US and Britain have waged wars in the past, and would be likely to again. The likely use of cluster bombs and Depleted Uranium weapons led to thinking about how to prevent them being used, and thus to B52 bombers. Fairford airbase, which was essentially at the disposal of the US , is a very convenient place from which to fly missions to drop bombs, and it was very likely that B52s would go from there to bomb Iraq. From there T and P began to plan how they might be able to stop them.
The very important points about all of this are that T and P didn't jump in at the deep end. They tried everything else they could to prevent the commission of war crimes, including communicating with politicians, using the "normal channels open to people in a democracy" despite Mr. Houlder's assertions that Toby and Phil had no respect for the democratic process. Only when nothing else had had the desired effect did they attempt to damage aircraft and prevent their missions.
Time for court. More later.
Much more importantly, Toby was giving evidence yesterday about how he reached the decision to try to disable bombers at Fairford. As all the other petitions, demonstrations and protests were going on, (which T and P participated in) and in spite of these various manifestations of the huge popular opposition to it, war seemed increasingly likely. Over a period of months the possibility of taking some form of non-violen direct action led to research into how the US and Britain have waged wars in the past, and would be likely to again. The likely use of cluster bombs and Depleted Uranium weapons led to thinking about how to prevent them being used, and thus to B52 bombers. Fairford airbase, which was essentially at the disposal of the US , is a very convenient place from which to fly missions to drop bombs, and it was very likely that B52s would go from there to bomb Iraq. From there T and P began to plan how they might be able to stop them.
The very important points about all of this are that T and P didn't jump in at the deep end. They tried everything else they could to prevent the commission of war crimes, including communicating with politicians, using the "normal channels open to people in a democracy" despite Mr. Houlder's assertions that Toby and Phil had no respect for the democratic process. Only when nothing else had had the desired effect did they attempt to damage aircraft and prevent their missions.
Time for court. More later.
# posted by B52Two Support Group @ 10:13 
