Afghanistan – Bring the Troops Home: A large march on Saturday 24 October 2009 from Hyde Park to a rally in Trafalgar Square demanded that British troops be brought home from Afghanistan now.
British forces have a long record of failures in Afghanistan, beginning with the disastrous British retreat from Kabul at the end of the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1842. The Helmand Campaign in 2006–2014, the most active part of British intervention following 9/11, was also something of a disaster. Between the 1001 invasion and the final withdrawal of British troops in 2021, 457 killed and over 600 seriously injured. Our military intervention there cost around £40 billion and Afghanistan after we left was in a worse state than when it started.
The march, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, the British Muslim Initiative (BMI) and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) was of course entirely peaceful, with much noisy chanting and live music from The King Blues.
Among those at the front of the march was serving soldier Lance Corporal Joe Glenton with his wife Clare, already facing court-martial for refusing to return to fight in Afghanistan and defying an order not to take part in the protest.
There were other anti-war military family members marching including those whose sons had been killed in Afghanistan, as well as veteran peace campaigners including Pat Arrowsmith and Hetty Bower, then 104.
Speakers at the rally in Trafalgar Square included Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Omar Deghayes, Tariq Ali, George Galloway MP, Lance Cpl Joe Glenton and others.
Glenton had deserted in 2007 after being told he would be sent back to Afghanistan after only a brief break following his first tour of duty. He had eventually returned to the UK in 2009 to campaign against the war and hand himself in. In March 2010 he was sentenced to 10 months in a military prison, but was released after serving four months.
Many more pictures on My London Diary at Afghanistan – Bring the Troops Home.
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