count. One looks at the American penal system, which allows prisoners to rot in jail under their "three strikes and you're out" system, which uses barbaric electronic devices and brute violence to control and intimidate prisoners, and executes the innocent and the guilty.
Teaching Latin American military dictatorships how to torture prisoners was the speciality of the US Army's School of the Americas.
Depriving detainees of all legal rights in Afghanistan and Iraq or handing people to Palen their or soldiers to enable
them to kill. They have their ethos of racism towards the peoples whose countries they are occupying, which encourages troops to see civilians and
rebels alike as sub-human
This is backed up by the knowledge that you have to be really unlucky to get caught and punished for torturing prisoners. Bush and Blair are directly responsible for the torture because they are directly responsible for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They have both conspired to set up and defend the he has unleashed on humanity in the name of the fraudulent 'war on terror'.
Even before the latest gruesome revela tions it was clear that the Euro Elections on June 10 offered a vital chance to make New Labour pay for dragging the country into a war in the teeth of massive popular opposi tion - and for justifying that war on the basis of a flimsy tissue of lies.
But as Rumsfeld struggles to hold on to his job, and Bush tries to keep his re-election hopes alive, this new situation means British voters can also help to ensure they are utter. ly isolated and discredited
Vote no to the torture chiefs, vote no to the war and the occupation they defend VOTE RESPECT ON JUNE I0!
IRA FIRE
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4 socla str Can you name any members of the Greater London Assembly? Most Londoners would be hard pushed to name even one. It's no accident: Blair made sure the GLA has very little power. GLA members have been happy to pocket their allowances and melt into the background. Even the most radical Green GLA members have failed to make any real impact. So why get excited about the GLA elections on June /0? GREG TUCKER (above) explains what's new this time around. RESPECT is standing a slate of candidates for the GLA, not because we believe the GLA can solve Londoners' problems, but to show that London can be a better place to live, that there is a better way to organise society.
Proportional representation means that we have a real chance of getting candidates elected. Lindsey German, leading the RESPECT list, has made it clear, her role once elected will be to act as a tribune for the people of London-giving a lead and a voice to our campaigns for fundamental change. nce May 2004
Www.nationalrall.co. IT'S TIME TO The National Rail network
Of course our starting point has to be Blair's war drive. Why are we wasting our resources sending people half way round the world to murder and torture? These elections are a chance to give Blair a bloody nose. But our campaign is more than a one-off anti-war protest.
London is one of the wealthiest cities in the world - but whilst a few in the City make millions from war and privatisation, most Londoners work for a pittance, live in poor housing and face deteriorating schools, hospitals and other local services. London can be different. For a start, think what could have been done with the £6 billion wasted on war.
Let's start by sorting out London's transFast and frequent services are back across the rail network. port. As predicted, the part-privatisation of the tube has made super profits for the privateers while safety and services have deteriorated.
Main line railways continue to be a disaster. Buses services may have increased but remain too expensive. The congestion charge has effectively cut traffic - but hits hardest at those who can least afford it.
All transport should be publicly owned and administered - run for need not profit. Tube, rail and buses should be renationalised immediately.
Fares should be pegged at levels people can afford - with free travel for pensioners, disabled people, students and young people, and the unemployed valid 24 hours a day.
We need conductors back on the buses, and guards back on the trains and tube, for Call 08457 48 49 50 rents and mortgages whilst key jobs cannot be filled, affecting the provision of essential services. To add insult to injury "official figures" show nearly 100 thousand homes in London are being left empty.
Instead of selling off council housing, local authorities and the GLA should be allowed to raise capital for an emergency building programme.
Instead of forcing public housing rents up to "market" levels, private rents should be pegged at fair levels.
Empty properties should be taken into public ownership and given to those in need To pay for this programme, there should be a tax on speculative office and luxury housing developments. Transport and housing top the concerns of Londoners. But the main parties will the fear of crime. One that rejects p tive measures in favour of pre-empt and inclusion.
Pre-emption, like better lighting on streets and estates, more caretakers, p keepers and transport staff so that pu places feel less isolated. Investment in h ing security so that people feel safer at ho Inclusion, with more youth facilities and p ects that give people a stake in their com nity.
Treatment centres for those who n them to break drug habits, rather than ons to contain them. Decent jobs and h ing will do more to cut crime than any n ber of police
The council tax is an unfair, and gro burden. To pay for our programme wer a progressive local income tax alongsi higher level of tax on London's big busir es- they have been given a free ride for long with many having been allowed to a paying any tax whatsoever Above all the RESPECT GLA camp is about taking up the demands of w ing people.
It is about campaigning to provide a c care service available 24 hours a day to r the needs of working women, fightin protect post offices from closure, or s gling to defend local services from the th of cutbacks and privatisation. It is about paigning for a minimum wage, a sh working week and a serious London we ing.
It is about demanding that pensioner retire with dignity, with a decent basic pension. It is about fighting for the rights oppressed groups and opposing the sc goating of immigrants and asylum seeke