War on Want

Tax not cuts

War on Want is working closely with trade unions and the Tax Justice Network to highlight the devastating impact on millions of ordinary people that will result from the government's proposed massive cuts to public services. The government says we need to pay off the enormous debt left from the bank bailout and financial crisis but why should the most vulnerable pay? Instead we are campaigning to ‘Close the Tax Gap’ to pay off the debt and recover the billions in missing tax from the banks and big business.

http://www.waronwant.org/campaigns/tax-not-cuts

Also, check out campaign to exit Afghanistan:
Letter in Guardian today with useful figures and statistics:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/14/cost-of-war-and-walking-away

Victor Gollancz, whose letter opposing the Korean war sparked War on Want into existence, was married to my mother's cousin and I am proud to be a long-term member of the organisation. I support its plea for the withdrawal of British forces from Afghanistan (Letters, 12 February) and a negotiated settlement. But its letter understates the catastrophic cost of the Afghan war. The Afghan people are certainly paying a terrible price, with 7,000 killed since 2006 and countless injured. However, the cost to Britain in human and financial terms must be stressed. There have been 354 military deaths since 2001 and 4,604 combat field hospital admissions since 2003, and the toll is almost daily.

As to the financial cost, Gordon Brown told the Iraq inquiry last March that our participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had cost the UK taxpayer over £18bn and this excludes civil aid. The US Centre for Defence Information has estimated the US cost to the end of 2011 at $1.29trn. By 2008 direct US military operations had cost more than double those of the Korean war and exceeded those of the Vietnam war. When here in Britain we are counting the cost of savage welfare cuts, let us stand not upon the order of our going, but go at once.

Benedict Birnberg