The anonymous videomeister is kidding that the Auckland demo was a "great day".

Four years after the invasion of Iraq any real anger has gone out of the 'movement'.

In March 2003 there were thousands on the official GPJA march that protested the invasion, and several hundred mainly young people who sat down on Queen St and then spontaneously marched on the US Consulate and the Australian Consulate. This march was was followed by a daily picket outside the US Consulate organised by the Anti-Imperialist Coalition which lasted for some weeks.

In 2005 protestors occupied the ANZ which was profiting from the war in Iraq for half and hour speaking to the workers and appealing to them to demand that their bosses stop making profits from Iraqi blood, before facing a police riot and several arrests.

Last year, one protestor lowered the US flag at the consulate before being grabbed by cops. The surge of support that prevented the cops from arresting anyone on the spot was at least evidence of solidarity and mutual defence that we need to build in the movement.

Four years later in 2007, with 100,000s more dead and even more troops in Iraq, the mood of last Saturday's march was more sombre than anything. Most speeches called for peace and troops out, but said nothing about how to achieve this other than demanding that Governments step in or the invaders get out.

There were a few speeches that raised important issues. The speaker from radical youth made the good point that this war is a capitalist war but without saying how to build an anti-capitalist movement to stop the causes of war.

The speaker from Socialist Workers spoke of US soldiers resistance to the war, another good point, but did not say anything about how to build such a movement in the NZ military occupying Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomons.

The speaker from the Workers Party spoke of the courageous struggle of the Iraqi labour movement and called for NZ workers to support it and build against the war in the NZ labour movement. But no mention of the Iraqi resistance and the massive fight it is putting up against over 300,000 occupying troops.

Unlike earlier marches where the presence of Iraqis, Muslims and others from the MIddle East in large numbers and where rousing demands for victory to Iraq and defeat US/UK imperialism were heard, on Saturday, the only sign of any support for the Iraqi resistance among rank and file workers in NZ came from members and supporters of the Communist Workers Group.

If you want to read what the CWG wrote some weeks ago about the collapse of the anti-war movement go here redrave.blogspot.com/2007/02/general-strike-to-smash-bushblairhoward.html

Dave Brown