DeJa vu all over again

February 24, 2012 by Leave a comment

Dominic Turner

Image © Arash Razzagh Karimi

You may be forgiven for thinking you’ve seen this all before. Increasingly ‘crippling’ sanctions.  Whispers of ever-growing weapons capabilities. The pounding beats of the same war drum, of distant threats, from a savage alien culture. We were here almost 10 years ago. This week Israeli ‘intelligence’ asserted the claim that Iran may be capable, in some indeterminate time, to strike US cities with missiles. You may remember similar claims in 2002 about the Iraqi regime being capable of striking the West within 45 minutes. Those claims, like the ones of today, formed part of the propaganda package sold to British public as the reason to illegally invade Iraq, a war that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi’s.

If you search through the pages of British and American media outlets you will see the liberal use of the phrase “strategic strikes” on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The same was said before Afghanistan was bombed into the Stone Age, causing the deaths of around 30,000 civilians. The truth is, Iran’s nuclear facilities are scattered around the country, meaning any war or planned attack would inevitably cause immeasurable casualties to a civilian population that is more than twice the size of Afghanistan’s. 

In July of 2007 41% of Americans still believed the bald faced lie that Saddam Hussein was personally involved with the attacks of September the 11th, a central facet in selling the war to the American people, three years after it was proved false. Today, Sky News is sowing the same seeds of destruction, proclaiming that Iran and Al Qaeda are plotting a joint attack in Europe. The fact that Al Qaeda are Sunni whilst the Iranian leadership is Shia nation, and are sworn enemies, is an inconvenient fact that cannot get in the way of the war mongering of the Murdoch owned media. The success of the propaganda mill can be demonstrated by the fact that 71% percent of Americans believe Iran possess a nuclear weapon when even US defence secretary Leon Panetta has admitted that Iran has not yet decided whether to build nuclear weapons. Any strike on Iran would not be an act of self defence but an act of war.

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Afghanistan and the false moralising of liberal intervention

February 3, 2012 by 7 Comments

Oliver Hotham

Image © isafmedia

A problem, at least it seems to me, is that as soon as you get yourself involved in other people’s business you have a responsibility towards them. Once you’ve intervened and influenced things, all of a sudden everything that happens in your responsibility and you have an obligation to see things through to the end, whatever that end might be.

This problem is highlighted by the Taliban’s declaration that they will retake the country when NATO leaves. They’re probably right, unfortunately. Once NATO leaves, the current government (if it can even be called that, it behaves like a nepotistic crime syndicate) will collapse, with most of its members defecting to the Taliban, and the psychopathic, sexually repressed lunatics in charge of the insurgency will roll into Kabul, triumphant in their victory. More than ten years of foreign occupation will have not made one bit of difference to what will ultimately happen in Afghanistan, except perhaps that our governments will be poorer and those in Afghanistan who did not take the side of the occupation will be angrier. Women will undoubtedly suffer at the hands of their rulers, and much of the relative progress that has been made in the country since the invasion will be undone.

We already have a model of how Afghanistan deals with a prolonged military occupation – the invasion in the 1980′s by the Soviet Union. They too were attempting to instil their preferred model of government in the country but could not sustain their military presence faced with a growing Islamist insurgency and impending bankruptcy and economic recession. The Soviet Union left Afghanistan in rubble, with the Taliban strengthened by their apparent victory. Whatever good came of the Soviet presence, secularisation of society, education for women, and an improved infrastructure was vastly outweighed by the damage the occupation inflicted on Afghan society.

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The Object of Torture is Torture:10 years of Guantanamo Bay

January 24, 2012 by Leave a comment

Dominic Turner

Image © U.S. Army

In the South-Eastern periphery of Cuba lies the province of Bahía de Guantánamo. Unlike the rest of the Caribbean island, its vegetation does not grow green and abundant. If only the signs of American imperialism were limited to the Cuban mainland’s only McDonalds and Starbucks. If only the crimes perpetrated in this naval base concerned the validity of the United States’ occupying lease, obtained under the threat of force.

Ten years ago, Guantanamo Bay received its first detainees and began an unending tale of human suffering and degradation for children as young as 13 and men as old as 98. Eye witness accounts detail a nightmarish existence of systematic beatings, torture, and humiliating treatment. But its not just the physical abuse that destroys the victims of Guantanamo. Its in every spiteful action, in every callous deed, the breaking up of families by denying prisoners even the right to exchange letters. By desecrating copies of the Quran and imposing unimaginable periods of solitary confinement.
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Hold Fire on the ‘Scottish Defence Force’

January 23, 2012 by Leave a comment

Jevon Whitby

Image © Andrew Higgins

This week saw Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond announce his ideal plan for a ‘Scottish Defence Force,’ should Scotland vote to become independent. Under the currently very vague plans, Scotland would retain one base of each type for a total strength of 20,000 Scottish troops. In acquiring control of a segment of the UK’s current military, Scotland would have control over its engagement, but would become a NATO ‘ally,’ rather than member.

For the SNP, Westminster control is an issue of pride, but more realistically: employment. The Scottish defence ‘community’ is set to rise by as much as 20,000 over the next eight years as British personnel are brought back from bases in Germany, many to Scottish bases.

Coalition attempts to cut the defence budget by an alleged 74% in Scotland with ‘massive and disproportionate’ effects in July promoted an angry resistance campaign, with Salmond arguing that Scotland’s geographic position and economic problems should give it extra protection when it comes to cutting the defence budget. Read more of this post

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Another Misadventure in Somalia

January 18, 2012 by Leave a comment

Andrew Noakes

Image © United Nations

After a spate of kidnappings carried out by Somali militants on Kenyan soil, Kenya has decided to try and fix the problem of Somalia the only way it knows how – by mounting an invasion. Of course, it is not the first country to attempt such a bold move. Kenya follows in the footsteps of Ethiopia, whose troops were forced to conduct an ignominious retreat from the country after they alienated almost the entire population of Mogadishu, and the United States, which has been too terrified to carry out any major military operations in sub-Saharan Africa ever since.

The Kenyan intervention is likely to end in failure. As the Ethiopians and Americans both eventually learned, there is no viable stand-alone military solution to the breakdown of governance, peace, and order in Somalia. The underlying political, economic, and social problems, such as the lack of food security, disunity and distrust among rival clans, corruption, and fear of central government (after the brutal and factional rule of the Somali dictator, Siad Barre), have to be solved if there is to be any serious improvement in the security situation. Read more of this post

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The Calculus of Intervention

January 3, 2012 by Leave a comment

Andrew Noakes

Image © Maggie Osama

With the NATO campaign in Libya now over and the reputation of humanitarian intervention restored, why has the West failed to use military force to challenge the Syrian regime as it brutalises its own people? It is clear that the responsibility to protect is universal so, if we intervened to stop a slaughter in the besieged towns of Benghazi and Misrata, then why not in Homs and Hama?

Of course, there are some on the left who will interpret any example of Western inconsistency as proof of the hollowness of our liberal ideals. But there is a calculus at play here. Libya was an easy intervention. The Gaddafi regime lacked reliable international and regional allies and the crisis was not complicated by regional, sectarian, or ethnic divisions within Libyan society (although post-Gaddafi Libya may prove to be a different story). Nor was the internal violence likely to develop into a wider, regional conflict. It was a war of national liberation, confined to Libya and fought with overwhelming international and regional support. Read more of this post

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Winter of Discontent: Arab Winter

December 22, 2011 by Leave a comment

Georgia Lewis

Image © The Advocacy Project

Image © The Advocacy Project

The picture of a woman in Cairo with her abaya torn away by men who do not deserve the respect of a soldier job title has gone global. With her face covered but her blue bra on display, her awful humiliation has gone global largely thanks to Twitter and Facebook, two tools which have played a massive role in disseminating information on the events of the Arab Spring.

She has not been identified but she has become an important symbol of the events in Egypt and the wider Arab world. The role of women, the role of powerful images and the role of social media cannot be underestimated and the blue bra photograph captures all this graphically and shockingly. The photograph also demonstrated that the military is not in any hurry to relinquish power so that the people of Egypt can enjoy a sane and functioning democracy. It also flies in the face of the tired myth that the Arab world is not ready for democracy. Egypt’s military may not be keen to give power to the people but nobody can deny the people want power and are prepared to fight hard for it.  Read more of this post

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Mission Accomplished?

December 20, 2011 by 2 Comments

Andrew Noakes

Image © U.S. Army

 

Almost ten years on from the 2003 invasion of Iraq, President Obama has fulfilled his 2008 campaign pledge to withdraw US troops from the oil rich country. Last week, he told American soldiers that they could return home with their ‘heads held high.’ For America, now, the Iraq saga is finally over. But for Iraqis, the carnage goes on. As John Simpson tells us, there have been 79 bomb attacks in the last month alone.

Knowing what we know now, it is hard to imagine that the Iraq War could ever have been a success as the Bush administration envisaged it. Since 2003, the country has been gripped by a sectarian civil war; it has become a haven for terrorists; and Iran, meanwhile, has been transformed by the conflict into a regional superpower. And yet, looking back, it seems perfectly obvious that the invasion would have produced these outcomes. Read more of this post

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Demanding an End to World Hunger

December 14, 2011 by Leave a comment

Mohammed Mesbahi

All the commentary from expert analysts about the crumbling financial system is almost useless to understand what is really happening in the world today. Countless articles are written about how to fix the economy and restore growth to the system, but they are only relevant to a system that was never sustainable and is now coming to an end. What we call the ‘system’ has become so complicated that it appears to have a life of its own, and not even the most sophisticated banker understands what is going on anymore. Few economists or politicians speak in terms that mean anything to the ordinary person who is struggling to find or keep a job, make ends meet and provide for their family. But at the same time, something profoundly new is happening throughout the world that requires a much simpler way of looking at things if we are to comprehend what it means.

The protests now taking place in almost every country are a magnificent sight, but we must look closely at what it means when we cry for justice. There are many stories now being reported about the accumulating wealth of the richest people in the midst of a worsening economic crisis, which of course leads to rightful anger against bankers and the unbridled greed that has been sanctified in modern-day society. But which is the greater sin: the banker’s bonus, or the fact that thousands of people are dying from hunger each day in a world of plenty? The global economy is sinking and so the people’s voice is rising, but why are there no demonstrations in our city squares when people are dying from hunger? Read more of this post

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Ten international relationships the UK must develop

December 13, 2011 by Leave a comment

Mike Morgan-Giles

Image © Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Following the Prime Minister’s decision to veto the proposed EU Treaty last week, which has put the UK in the slow lane within a two speed Europe, it’s important the Government looks to develop our other international relationships. Here are ten they should move forward:

  1. BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China are vast growing markets that we must look to enhance our ties with. Each can be approached in a different way, with perhaps closer links to Brazil on sustainability, energy cooperation with Russia, major trade links with India and offering cash-rich China unbeatable investment opportunities.
  1. Scandinavia – They share some of the euro-scepticism often cited in the UK; Norway isn’t an EU member, whilst Sweden and Denmark stand outside the eurozone. Ties can be strengthened over issues such as fishing and energy policy – for instance by creating a shared super grid. A more ambitious move would be to create an informal Northern European group, including all of the Nordic countries. Read more of this post

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