Rowdy schoolkid anti-war protesters: classic or dud?

A sun-drenched Parliament Square was the scene of violent clashes between schoolchildren and police this afternoon as the anti-war movement responded to the US-led coalition's first strikes against Iraq.

Office workers, tourists and drunks were left stranded as hundreds of truanting teenagers brought surrounding streets to a standstill with a wave of inspired sit-down protests. However, what started out peacefully soon led to angry confrontations when police tried to move the protestors, forcing them and confused bystanders into the middle of the square.

At least five teenagers were arrested and two injured as police moved in. One protestor told me that he had seen police "prodding" protestors "with their truncheons".

Another claimed that he had been verbally abused by one officer.

"He called me a little shit," said 16 year old Darren Spanner from Ealing. "Wait till I tell my parents."

The protestors, mainly grammar school pupils, remained defiant in the face of the overwhelming police presence.

"Fuck 'em," one told me. "They're just pigs, innit?"

Like many "not good enough to go to Iraq or Washington" correspondents trapped in the middle of Parliament Square, I was left wrestling with illicit thoughts brought on by the abundance of 16 year old nymphets that littered the scene.

"This place is just crawling with jailbait," John Piennar said to me. "Sod this journalism shit, I'm going to become a teacher."

Brian Beaver
Associated Press
Central London

Best moment from watching the little protest outside my window was when this dude in a brown suit came out of the federal building and started flicking off the high school kids and all the people honking as he walked down the street. Boy was he angry. Second best moment was the high school kids adapting "Who Let the Dogs Out" to a chant which went something like...

"Who is the real terrorist? BUSH... BUSH BUSH... BUSHBUSH"

WAR SUX!

"Not every demonstrator opposed the military action. While many students at Brown University in Providence, R.I., held signs denouncing war, Alec O'Neill stood at the edge of the crowd, wearing a handmade T-shirt that read, 'I am threatened by Iraq.' On the back were the words 'Regime change now.'

"We are taking on a real and present threat," said O'Neill, 21, of Red Hook, N.Y.

yeah, the bucolic Hudson Valley is a MAJOR Scud target, bro. I think Saddam's got the Xtramart or the Holy Cow Ice Cream stand on the "priority targets" list.

The immensely smug, false certainty of the protestors - Saddam Hussain's very own "useful fools" - knows no bounds it seems. Why do they consistantly insist that the majority of the British people are against the war when they flat out are not? And their unshakeable belief that they hold the moral high ground is also utterly misplaced.

The protestors today - toffs, skivers, middle-class students and coffee shop pseudo-intellectuals - seem to think they are of a mind with those around the world protesting (including the anti-Semites in Paris and the pro-Stalin mob in Moscow), but the only thing they all share is their faith in the nu-religion of rabid, all-consuming and un-wavering anti-Bush/Americanism. This protest is based on personalities. If it wasn't Bush'n'Blair leading the campaign, if it was by whoever they do respect - I dunno, the ghost of Bill fucking Hicks or Noam Chumpsky or Howard Marks or someone - then I have no doubt that it would be half the size. It's a middle-class, hipster lifestyle pose more than anything of substance.
Orwell was right, it is only the working class that are consistant in their opposition to fascism.

Why do you insist that they are not when they flat out are?

you got yr bombing of bagdad david, it's all turning out exactly the way you wanted, why are you still so aggressively anxious abt the opinions of ppl who disagree with you? if we're losing the argument so massively, why d'you care?

It is always the 'thems' that have 'useful fools' 'Our' U.F's are called loyal, realistic, or some such euphemism. It's crap. Hopefully one good thing about the fact that it's started is that now all the mindless banal propoganda and name-calling and stereotyping and sandpit insults and World Wrestling Federation bullshit ON BOTH SIDES will be reduced to the load of pathetic hot air it all is.

Ummm, if you are Catholic, you go to hell period. Hard cack.

But then I got the day off work yesterday cos all the students decided to close us down for the day.

You poor kid.