Stop the War in London today

Several things come to mind from today, the mood was more tense, more noisy, certainly more whistles. Many more young people seemed to be out on the protest, the student walkouts from earlier in the week seeming to have had an effect. In fact, several speakers noted the re-politicalization of the youth as one of the side-effects of this war. Students out on protest not motivated by the possible financial benefit to themselves is a good thing.
The broad church that these protests attract mean that many differing viewpoints are represented together, one of the main themes of today was a rejection of Blair, the Stop the War coalition had a "Blair out" banner as one of their offerings. I have some misgivings about rejecting Blair, there doesn't seem to be a ready leader in waiting for the Labour party, right now, so I feel that this dilutes the actual intent of the stop the war protest. I can see that he has let people down over this issue, certainly several friends will re-consider voting Labour at the next election, maybe transferring the the LibDems.
The scale of the bombing in recent days is shocking, it is impossible that people will not have died, the reporting focuses on civilian, especially children, casualities, though the death of an Iraqi conscript is just as much a concern. All death is sad and it seems that there will be many before this war ends, even Blair and Bush are admitting that the war will not be quick.
The recent developments in Turkey, with the rumoured Turkish army troop movements in north Iraq is concerning, the Kurds seem an unloved population, both the Turks and the Iraqis show them little care. Ben Hammersley has a short history of the Kurds. A Kurdish free state is a possible, but probably unlikely outcome of this war.
On Radio 4 today an American spokesperson, whose name I missed spoke of the feeling in the US that they can essentially ignore the UN, as they are an organisation that failed to back the war. He said that the US should lead the rebuilding of Iraq and that the UN had forfeited the right to do this. Unilateralism at its strongist, for me, this is really concerning. This spokesperson, who I think was on the right of the Republican party was essentially saying that American political will and military strength give it the right to do what ever it wanted to do in the world, the UN and other international bodies could agree if they wanted. I don't think that the person was a key figure, but they were still worth interviewing by the Today programme. Sadly they are not in the archive, but it was a deeply hawkish viewpoint.
I feel that international support was important in this war, Bush and Blair do not have it and have gone ahead anyway. Once the bombing is finished then Iraq must be rebuilt, it seems that only American firms will get to bid on the major contracts, subcontracting out as they see fit. That 400 billion dollars is going to make a big difference to the US economy, it is a pity that it wasn't spent reducing world debt or environmental concerns instead, as it would make an enormous impact. One thing that saddens me is the thought that in the first nights attack on Baghdad the US and UK spent as much on cruise missiles alone as was raised on Red Nose Day.