Bristol Peace Vigil: why people take part

On Friday 18th May '12, I spoke on radio about the attack on Bristol Peace Vigil,Good Friday 2011. As ever, I left out much of what I wanted to say, viz. although I spent six months kicking my heels in rehab, my opinions are unaltered. I still believe it's wrong to bomb other countries, destabilise their economies and invade; making our troops risk death in what is essentially US imperial war. Perhaps the continuing attempt to build an empire while running out of credit is America's greatest folly.
It's difficult to decide whether Westminster is guilty of gross cynicism or breathtaking naivety in the manner of its unquestioning support for this war. Perhaps the latter: the idea that, after twelve years of indiscriminate bombing and sanctions which hit the elderly, young and chronically ill, while supplying Saddam with his chemical weaponry, sending in a few soldiers with bags of sweeties to win hearts and minds would work. It didn't, of course, and it was asking too much of British troops to put them into such a farce. That's Iraq, but any representative of the warmongering UK is just as unwelcome in Afghanistan, and there again British troops are paying the price for our government's wild ideas as much as are the country's citizens.