DERRY: A former US Marine said yesterday that any military intervention against Iraq would be both immoral and unjustified.
Speaking at the start of the Walk Against The War, which set off from Derry to Belfast yesterday morning, Mr Bill Love, who now lives in Carndonagh, Co. Donegal, accused President Bush of using the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York as an excuse to launch a military campaign against the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein.
Mr Love, who was in the Marines during the Vietnam conflict between 1964 and 1968, said as a result of his military service he became a pacifist. "I am opposed to all wars. I am a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of War Resisters International and I have taken a pledge against war and for active resistance to war," he said.
"This war in particular seems to be even more immoral than the Vietnam War, which in its own way was also about the oil reserves of the South China Sea.
"All wars are about the economic, political and military strategic interests of whatever countries are involved, but this one seems to be particularly cynical.
"The attacks on the Twin Towers are being used as a justification for an attack on and invasion of Iraq when in fact al-Qaeda was a Saudi Arabian-based organisation. George Bush is now trying to make links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. He is saying Iraq has contravened United Nations resolutions, well, so too has Israel. He is saying Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, well, so too has Israel, Pakistan, India, China and not least of all the US and UK, both of which are the major arms dealers in this world, both of which trained and equipped Saddam Hussein.
"It seems to me that those factors alone mean there is far less moral justification if you accept the argument for a just war, which I do not.
"I know that if I lived in Iraq, I would be opposed to Saddam because he is a military dictator. However, I would also be opposed to war because I would be deadly afraid of myself and my family and my relatives and friends and my fellow Iraqis becoming so-called collateral damage in an attempt to either kill or depose Saddam," he said.
About 50 members of the Walk Against The War campaign left Derry yesterday morning on a four-day, 75-mile walk to Belfast. They are due to arrive there on Saturday morning for the planned International Day of Action rally.