Labor MP opposes war on Iraq

BY KERRYN WILLIAMS

CANBERRA — Harry Quick, an anti-war federal ALP MP from Tasmania,
told a Socialist Alliance forum here on October 23 that he and several
other federal ALP MPs are prepared to vote against Australian involvement
in a war on Iraq, even if that meant defying the party's leadership.

Quick visited the Kuwait-Iraq border and witnessed the devastation in
the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War.

The meeting, attended by 30 people, also heard from former Israeli Avigail
Abarbanel and Ben Halliday from the Socialist Alliance. Abarbanel argued
that an attack on Iraq will not produce peace and security, but “more suffering,
more trauma, more anger at the US and more terrorism”.

She called for war on Iraq to be opposed regardless of the position
taken by the United Nations Security Council. “Giving a seal of approval
to a wrong action does not make it a right action”, she said.

Halliday reaffirmed the Socialist Alliance's commitment to build a broad,
mass anti-war movement, pointing to the 45,000-strong mobilisation against
the war in Melbourne on October 14. The Greens' victory in the October
19 Cunningham by-election was also an illustration of the growing anti-war
feeling in Australia.

From Green Left Weekly, October 30, 2002.

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From GLW issue 514