A New Normality?

March saw the five year anniversary of the coalition invasion of Iraq and in October this year it will be seven years on from the invasion of Afghanistan. British and American troops are still entrenched in a campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan and fighting Insurgents in Iraq, where the debate is on whether Iraq is slipping into a civil war, fuelled by funding from Syria and Iran. Is the new world order, that America’s President Bush and the UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced to the world, here to stay? Or is there an end in sight?

As the news from Afghanistan and Iraq have arguably become more a flow of statistics, with most citizens having become accustomed to the weekly statistics, is this the new normality? With the economic boom years which began in the 90s seemingly coming to an end and governments struggling to balance the military budgets [with some estimates bringing the US cost alone to $3 Trillion], Are we beginning to accept that war in Iraq and Afghanistan (or in fact, elsewhere) is a fact of life? What happened to the new millennium optimism for peace and prosperity?

On 6th May 2008, Brian Haw was arrested again after the latest police action to enforce the Serious Organized Crime and Police act on his Parliament Square protest camp. Has even Brian Haw’s protest become part of the furniture? Do we see an Anti-War protestor? A maverick? A crusaider? Or as some would suggest, has the public come to see him as an eccentric, possibly with mental health issues and merely a pawn of a few wealthy individuals who calm their conscience by funding a righteous and well publicized cause? Has the public forgotten about him altogether? How many members of the public remember his name or how long he has been camped out in Parliament Square? [he established himself in Parliament Square on 2nd June 2001, on a platform against war and foreign policy including the sanctions on Iraq, before the 2001 attack on the world trade centre, before the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq].

After the anti-war demos of the pre-Afghan and pre-Iraqi invasions, is there still an anti-war movement in the UK vocal and energised enough to keep us all talking the talk and walking the walk? Has war become a fact of life? Is this the new normality?