There have been more protests...

There have been more protests against the war in Manchester today. But each time they take place, the numbers that attend dwindle and dwindle. This could have been foreseen. As soon as action starts, people always get behind it. It is a shame, because it is so predictable, and it makes a farce of the anti-war movement. In the end the voices of opposition will die out completely and the US and UK will never be brought to task about the way they have gone about this war. The UN has been left discredited and paralysed by the US and UK disrespect for the aims of international diplomacy. Diplomacy is in place to avert war. To legally prevent nations who wish to declare war from doing so until there has been international legal permission given. That permission did not materialise, because the countries who have authority in the international community did not see the reasons for immediate war.

If the US and UK can get away with this mistreatment of international law, what does that say about an international organisation existing at all? If, as a body, the UN has less power than one of its members then it has no meaning or authority except that which the US chooses to assign to it, as suits itself.

The US demand for Al-Jazeera television to tone down the broadcasting of its graphic images is symptomatic of the misunderstanding and lack of appreciation for cultural difference which is at the heart of this conflict. The Middle East is home to utterly and fundamentally different cultures, which, from our own cultural landlock in the West, we cannot hope to grasp. To say that the images being broadcast are unacceptable is to put into our terms and our standards what is outside of our world.