You didn't march in my name

You didn't march in my name on Saturday. Not in Dublin, where I was born. Not in London, where I live

You didn't march in my name on Saturday. Not in Dublin, where I was born. Not in London, where I live. Not in Belfast, which I know well.

You didn't march in my name because you ignored the desperate plight of millions of people desperate for liberation, because the main cause you served was that of the Butcher of Baghdad, because you gave comfort to dictators everywhere and because if your wishes are granted there will be proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

You didn't march in my name, because - wanting to feel good - you allowed yourselves to be the pawns of Marxists, Trotskyites, Islamofascists and cranks whose only common bond is a visceral hatred of the greatest democracy in the world.

The case for invading Iraq has been badly made, but that does not excuse your failure to apply intellectual scrutiny to the platitudes you regurgitated: "Bush is a moronic warmonger", "It's all about oil", "Who armed him anyway?", "The Iraqis don't want war", "Let the Iraqi people get rid of him", "War will drive young Muslims to terrorism", "Why Iraq? Why not North Korea?", "Justice for Palestine first", and, of course, "Babies will die".

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You don't have a monopoly on compassion. Those of us who believe that Bush and Blair and Bertie are right don't like seeing babies dying either. We just happen to believe that many more of them will die if the West does nothing. Many will die because of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; many others because Saddam will stay free to starve and gas them.

Last month, Dr Barham Salih, Prime Minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, flew to Rome to address the Socialist International - the driving force of the Stop the War Coalition that organised your marches. He spoke with justifiable pride of what had been achieved in the territories liberated in 1991 from Saddam Hussein's tyranny: rebuilding of the villages destroyed in Saddam's genocidal purges, prioritising of education and health and - to the fury of militant fundamentalists - a free press and respect for women and minorities.

Iraqi Kurdistan survives only because British and US planes enforce the no-fly zones. "I stand before you," said Dr Salih, "as a messenger for the oppressed peoples of Iraq "

Every social democrat, said Dr Salih, should want the overthrow of this racist and murderous regime. Yet Iraqi democrats were being told by many Europeans "that Iraqis should not ask for outside help to be liberated from tyranny; that the war is for oil; that war is always wrong; that the so-called Arab and Muslim "street" will rise up as one against those who liberate Iraq".

"I know," said Dr Salih, "that many of those who believe such things mean wellI admire the passion of those who organise and demonstrate for their beliefs - it is a right that we have made great sacrifices for. Sadly, persistence alone cannot rid us of the dictatorship in Baghdad." Only international help and a foreign force could put an end to Saddam's continuing brutal ethnic cleansing and his attempt to starve Iraqi Kurdistan. If oil was a cause of this liberation, said Dr Salih, it would be "a good irony".

The streets of Baghdad would be filled with jubilant Iraqis once Saddam was overthrown, he told his audience. "Let us remember the joy of liberation in Rome in June 1944, the scenes of cheering crowds in Kosovo in June 1999, the Afghans who danced in the streets in November 2001. Liberation did not create paradise in any of these places, but it created hope and opportunity."

Of course the Socialist International completely ignored Dr Salih, and went on planning its demos in alliance inter alia with reactionary Muslims and - in Ireland - with apologists for the IRA.

Did you wonder on Saturday evening about the people who spoke on your behalf? Was that fashionable old socialist Michael D. Higgins really speaking for you - a man who goes to a police state where all the citizens live in terror and comes back to tell us solemnly that they've told him they don't want war?

In Belfast, it was Yesterday's Trot Eamonn McCann in the spotlight. And in London, the featured dinosaurs included Tony Benn, who had interviewed Saddam without asking one difficult question, and the playwright Harold Pinter, who was cheered when he described the American administration as "a bunch of criminal lunatics, with Tony Blair as a hired Christian thug".

Bush may mangle his words but he is a decent man and no fool who since 9/11 has shown exemplary restraint. And Tony Blair, whom I've often mocked and reviled for his domestic performance, has shown courage and vision in coming to terms with a terrifying new world order we ignore at our peril. His Conservative predecessors were too frightened to intervene to stop Muslims being massacred in Bosnia; Blair led Europe in saving innumerable lives in Kosovo.

It was because of UN weakness and public "Stop the War" agitation that the Gulf war ended prematurely, that only a small part of Iraq was liberated, and that Saddam has defied the UN for 12 years. If you care about his tortured people, please don't rush to his defence again.

Not in my name anyway.