NATURAL GAS, OIL, MINERALS = WAR.

       It is sickening to think, that here we are in the West, shouting peace and democracy and yet have been fighting in wars more or less continuously since the end of WW2. We in the UK came out of that war and then continued for years, fighting numerous wars across the globe, in an attempt to hold on to “our colonies” as one by one the people of those “colonies”, done their best to kick our arse out of their homelands. Then there was, in no particular order, the Suez disaster, the Korean war, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Not content with that little catalogue of death and destruction, we are ready to hold hands with that great liberator, the USA, and have a totally unequal go at Syria. It is the same old formula, there is this dreadful dictator, a real bad man, he has horrible weapons and he might use them, so we have to go in and sort it out. Remember Saddam and those Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, that never were? Of course although Syria has such natural resources as, petroleum, phosphates, chrome, manganese ores, asphalt, iron ore, rock salt, marble, gypsum and hydropower, that doesn't influence the West, Assad's biggest crime is, like Saddam, he won't play ball with the Western corporate big boys. So they call on their minders, the Western States and their military arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. The West will not stop its spread of death and destruction until the entire resource rich Middle East is in turmoil, making it so much easier to exploit all those rich natural resources. You either play ball with the Western corporate world, or the big bully boys will kick the shit out of you. Iran, beware, another bad, bad man, with weapons of mass destruction, who won't play ball with the Wester corporate world, the fact that Iran is sitting on such natural resources as, petroleum, natural gas, coal, chromium, copper, iron ore, lead, manganese, zinc and sulfur, will not influence the West one little bit, the death and destruction will be for the benefit of those getting the shit kicked out of them.

This from Russia Today:

     The arrival of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the 11 US Navy aircraft carriers that has the capacity to hold thousands of men, is now stationed at the coast of Syria, DEBKAfile reports. The aircraft carrier joined the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, which holds about 2,500 Marines.

      “We have (US) special operations forces at the right posture, they don’t have to be sent,” an unnamed US official told The Australian, which suggested that US military troops are already near Syria and ready to intervene in the conflict, if necessary.

     If the US decides to intervene militarily in Syria, it now has at its disposal 10,000 fighting men, 17 warships, 70 fighter-bombers, 10 destroyers and frigates and a guided military cruises. Some of the vessels are also equipped with Aegis missile interceptors to shoot down any missiles Syria might have at hand, according to DEBKAfile.

Read the full article HERE:

This from ZEROHEDGE:

     France is preparing its special forces for a mission in war-torn Syria, French weekly magazine Le Point reports.

     The mission would only involve a relatively small amount of special forces, and a number of NATO countries — including the UK and the US — would be involved. The mission would be modelled on the Western intervention in Libya, the magazine reports.The action appears to be in response to fears that the regime is planning on using chemical weapons in the conflict. Earlier this week one US official told reporters that it was believed Bashar al-Assad's forces had moved two key components of a deadly nerve gas in preparation for an attack (a later report refuted this, however).

     Le Point says a large ground operation "is out of the question" and that a smaller action aimed largely at securing chemical weapon stockpiles. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today vowed a swift response if Assad's regime used chemical weapons.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

THE ENEMY IS HERE, AT HOME.

     You and I may know this, but how many people don't? He may be talking about Iraq, but the same applies to Afghanistan as it did in Vietnam and thousands of other unfortunate countries across the globe. Though I do believe that more and more people are beginning to realise the our real enemy is right here in our own country, and most of them wear expensive suits.

ann arky's home.

THE BEAST LIVES ON.

       Officially the Iraq war is over, though the Americans are still in that country, so this video may seem dated, but we are still doing the same in Afghanistan, recently 200 Marines have been sent to Guatamala to fight in the "war against drugs" and we are looking at ways to bring down Iran. The beast lives and continues to devour innocent lives and will do so until the people say no and demolish this corporate/military fascist reign of blood for money.

ann arky's home.

JUST ANOTHER IMPERIALIST WAR.

    The recent conference Non-Aligned-Movement, held in Tehran may be seen as a counter movement to that other grouping of national states, the UN. However what it can't be seen as, is a move for democracy.  What we all know is that the UN is the implementer of the world's most powerful nation's corporate and imperialist wishes, and it will use what ever brutal force it needs to achieve those ends. The slaughter of thousands, the displacement of millions and the total destruction of a country's infra-structure, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. damage that will last at least a generation, is hardly putting the ordinary people first. The UN, like the corporate system that it supports, is mired in corruption, driven by greed and has no other purpose than to defend the hegemony of the world's most powerful corporate bodies, and the expansion of Western imperialism.

      The Non-Aligned-Movement, is no different in its form, its aims are to create an alternative power structure to the UN but not to bring freedom and democracy to the people of those countries, but to protect and increase the power of those institutions that control those countries. It is just another imperialist body gearing up to challenge for total control.

     Just as in the past the British Empire, the German Empire, the Spanish Empire and the French Empire, all squabbled and slaughtered to keep and gain the spoils of empire, so now we have moved on to the world more or less being dominated by one empire, the Western corporate imperialists. The Non-Aligned-Movement is at present, a junior player in another imperialist war. We can expect that war to become more brutal as the dominant sees the other as a threat.

      Is this the best that man can come up with, the slaughter of millions of ordinary people to protect the wealth of the few? That beast that some call the pinnacle of evolution has slaughtered more of its own kind than any other beast on earth. Surely we as thinking beings can come up with an alternative to follow -my-leader and start to destroy that which is destroying us, this corporate system of greed, driven by the few.

      Our imagination, compassion and experience can surely create a system of fairness that sees to the needs of all our people. We can create a better world built on co-operation, mutual aid and sustainability, but the old one has to come crumbling down and end up in the dustbin of history.

 

OUR FUTURE.

Once upon a time,

in our not so distant past

stood a beautiful, a unique world,

laden with promise,

a world where our future was open,

our potential vast.

Now, seduced by glinting tinsel of the mad

our reason quivers

on the edge of a dark abyss.

We have created a world

where wastelands abound

where we

the many, the marginalised, the ordinary,

struggle to survive in voracity that astounds

are seduced

to create wastelands in our minds,

slowly accepting chaos

in a world of insanity.

Here corporate monsters

of hypocrisy, contradictions,

sever the fragile cord

that unites being with being,

ann arky's home.

WHY AFGHANISTAN?

          The war in Afghanistan has been a costly, bloody and brutal affair, it has been 11years of savage conflict where the NATO countries have poured in money and young lives. The total NATO deaths has passed the 3,000 mark, of those more than 2,000 were American forces and over 400 were from UK forces. On top of that there has been tens of thousands of physically injured and mentally scarred young people from the NATO forces. Then of course there is the figures that get very little coverage in that babbling brook of bullshit, Western media, Afghan civilians killed. The figures are horrendous, according the UN figures almost 13,000 have been killed in the last six years, 2,332 in 2011 alone, a 10% increase on the previous year. Then it being a capitalist war we have to look at the financial side. The estimated cost to the US tax payer, calculated up to September this year, will be a staggering $487.6 billion, and to the UK tax payer it will be £20billion. How much is that in social services?

        Why have the Western nations poured so much in suffering and money into this poor country? To catch/kill, Osama bib Laden? To bring democracy to the Afghans? Well they have succeed the first mentioned, at what cost? They have of course failed miserably in the latter.

       However could the reason for this costly savage slaughter be clarified by this extract from a BBC article:

 

      Afghanistan is known to have vast reserves of oil, gas, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium. In late 2011, a consortium of Indian companies inked a deal to begin mining some of the country's large stores of iron. But the country is known to have a wider array of mineral resources; in 2010, the Afghan ministry of mines claimed a value of its reserves of nearly a trillion dollars, then carrying out tours to promote investment in them.

Continue READING:

       Of course a Western compliant puppet government in Afghanistan would see them control those assets as the have done in Libya and Iraq, with Syria and Iran in their radar.

ann arky's home.

HOUSING BENEFIT.

       

        Read this on Guardian on line and thought it said what we all know and feel but put it rather eloquently.

Why do the young need housing benefit? Let their parents keep them.

DrPorkbeast 25 June 2012 2:20PM

The Big Fat Lie.

          It was not the banks and their casino business practices paid for by borrowing other people’s pensions. It is not the idle undeserving rich who own 90% of the wealth despite only paying a fraction in taxes if any at all. Its not all our politicians who were bought by big business years ago and championed the gambling addiction of the banks.

     No the Big Fat Lie is that it was your fault people. You are lazy, addicted to welfare, demotivated to take up the hundreds of thousands of full-time high paying jobs that employers have to offer. Its often the immigrants fault because they are easy to spot on the whole and even easier to scapegoat as 20th century history warns us. Also you voted for - insert party you hate here – and they have destroyed our economy with their –insert your very own cretinus world view here. Also its is Europe that has beggared us as if the French were personally responsible for Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns. What about foreign aid, or the disabled’s unreasonable demands to have access to a job like at Remploy. Yes little people it as your fault and now you must pay with your pensions, services and freedoms.

      No we need to funnel even more money from the bottom to pay bankrupt Zombie banks billions in UNSECURED loans. To achieve this we need to stop the poor from going to university or receiving training (EMA). We need to make the disabled compete on “a level playing field” in the job market, scrap funding for libraries and council run crèches. Stop the unemployed from living in social housing, push them into the landlord’s greedy hands. If they need to move to work they can always sleep under a bridge. Whats more our military industrial complex needs your taxes to invade foreigners and bomb them back into the Neolithic past. We have been at war forever it seems. War on communists, war on drugs, war on Argentineans over a rock and some Penguins, war with Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan (again), war on terrorists, war on wedding parties for some reason and more to come. Welfare is expensive but death from above is not cheap either.

     Why do they lie? Because they are a class of rich expensively educated out of touch toffs who hate ordinary people. Don't be old, don't be ill, don't be unemployed under the Conservatives. All they have to offer is lies, lies, self serving lies.

I would amend the last bit to read:
        "Don't be old, don't be ill, don't be unemployed under CAPITALISM. All 
They have to offer is lies, lies, self serving lies."

 ann arky's home.

THE OLYMPICS, THE MOST EXPENSIVE TV SHOW EVER.

         The media having overdosed on the “jubilee” it is now ramming the “carrying the torch” down our throats, they get the kids out of school to make sure they have a crowd. May I suggest to all those good folk who line the streets to see the big cigarette lighter being paraded through their village/town/city, to take a good look as it will be about all they will see of the Olympics, unless they stay seated in front of a TV. What they probably don't realise is that, that television viewing will one of the most expensive viewings in their lives. They get to see the “torch” and pick up a tab of £24 billion for a television show.

      Our millionaire lords and masters spouted about the Olympics being a mere £2.4 billion which would be mainly private capital, however the price-tag rocket and private capital evaporate, leaving the tax payer to pick up the tab. By 2007 the cost was revised up to £9.3 billion, the public funding had tripled and private capital had dwindled to less than 2%. It doesn't stop there, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee now put the cost at £11 billion with the tax payer taking the hit. While a SKY Sports investigation, including the transport upgrade put the cost at £24 billion. An awful lot of money for a TV show!! Since that is all most of the people of this country will ever see.

     The other more sinister side of this billion pound fun TV show will be the militarisation of London. The city will have surface-to-air missiles, a naval battleship moored offshore, 13,500 military personnel roaming around, which is about 4,000 more than we have based in Afghanistan. Hovering overhead will be lightweight aerial drones with elite firearms response units and snipers lurking below. All of this is not enough for the US, who will be sending their own security team which will include 500 FBI agents. This security comes at a price, £1 billion and counting. Plus it will set a precedent for drones, sniper and military patrolling our streets. Yes it will leave a lasting legacy, of debt and surveillance.

ann arky's home.

STOP THE WAR.

An appeal from Stop the War Coalition.

1) HOW YOU CAN HELP MAKE THE WORLD A SAFER PLACE
        The astonishing comments by two UK army majors serving in Afghanistan, that the war is lost and politicians are "trading soldiers' lives for votes", only reflects the views of most people in this country (SEE: http://bit.ly/Ifl4L1).
        The government is continuing to wage the war knowing that the overwhelming majority of people in Britain want the troops brought home now. In addition, the government is pressing for increased Western intervention in Syria -- almost certainly as a stepping stone to a military attack on Iran.
       David Cameron is clearly no different from Tony Blair in his slavish support for America's wars without end. These war policies are making the world ever more insecure and unstable. It is more necessary than ever for the anti-war movement to mobilise the widest possible active opposition to the warmongering of our political leaders.
       We have much work to do,

ann arky's home. 

WAR IS TERRORISM.

DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST NATO 

From Stop the War Coalition:

Saturday May 19th Troops out of Afghanistan,

Don't Attack Iran,

No intervention in the Middle East

         The occupation of Afghanistan has passed crisis point. Afghan soldiers are turning their guns on NATO troops, negotiations with the Taliban have broken down and protests against occupation are continuing.
        Meanwhile, further war in the Middle East is terrifyingly close. The debate about war on Iran in Israel is more about when rather than whether to attack. In the US there is also a sense of inevitability about war. Officials in the International Atomic Energy Agency say their leadership is being used by the US to justify war on Iran. The US is opposing direct intervention in Syria for the moment, but this can change and meanwhile Western allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar are arming the Free Syrian Army.
      Stop the War is calling a day of protest on Saturday May 19th to coincide with big protests in Chicago against the NATO summit.

Details will be announced in the next few days.

ann arky's home.

IRAN - STOP THE WAR.

This from Stop the War coalition:

1) DAY OF PROTEST, SAT 24TH MARCH:
DON'T IRAQ IRAN, TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN
      The unravelling of the war in Afghanistan has been apparent in recent weeks. The shooting of 16 Afghans, mostly women and children, by a US soldier, surely marked a turning point in the war as Afghans reacted with anger to the latest in a long line of outrages by demanding the soldier was put on trial in their country. The Americans responded by flying him to Kansas. This week both their ally President Karzai and their enemy the Taliban have underlined just how much the western powers are losing the war. Karzai demanded that ISAF troops should be confined to barracks while the Taliban broke off talks.
       You would hardly know this from the summit in Washington last week which saw Cameron and Obama feting each other in the White House. Instead they said the war was on course and would continue till 2014 (although they are privately bringing the dates forward as they know it is unlikely to hold for that long).
      Even worse they made clear their determination to attack Iran. The recent visit by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu to the US piled on the pressure to back an attack. This week the Israeli deputy prime minister is visiting London to drum up support for an attack on Iran and is clearly confident of winning the backing of the US and British governments.
       We have held successful protests and meetings over both issues in recent weeks, particularly attracting young people. This Saturday we have a national day of protest based around 'Don't Iraq Iran' - see http://bit.ly/x67PUk. On the 9^th anniversary of the attack on Iraq, and the first anniversary of the bombing of Libya, the interest in anti war activity is being heightened. Protests can bring in these issues, plus the threats to Syria. This is the chance to get out on the streets and build a campaign against the next main threat.

See http://bit.ly/x67PUk for more details on the day of protest.
2) ONLINE PETITION
      Our letter to the Guardian against an attack on Iran, which was signed by a number of celebrities, will go live in the next few days as an online petition. We want as many signatories on it as possible. Check the website and add your name.

3) NEW MATERIALS

       We have a range of new materials available now or soon, to spread the message about the don't attack Iran campaign: '10 reasons' leaflets, 'don't Iraq Iran' badges, special tote bags, 'Who's threatening who' maps of the region and posters.

Contact 0207 561 9311 or office@stowpar.org.uk to order or for more information.

 ann arky's home.

LIES, LIES AND MORE DAMNED LIES.

    Eleven years of  fighting terrorism and thousands of articles of our supposed success, that is Afghanistan, according to our governments and our media. However the truth is a distant picture from that official spin. Eleven years of bombing, killing and maiming and nothing on the ground to show for all that misery, is the truth they will not tell you. Afghanistan must stand as one of the most monumental wastes of human life by any recent governments. Eleven years of lies, spin, death and destruction, eleven years of throwing billions of dollars at the arms industry, and the coalition deaths keep rising. As of December 29 2011 there have been 2,765 coalition deaths in Afghanistan and many, many thousands more injured.  The number of Afghans killed far out numbers the coalition forces, but figures are difficult to come by as the coalition doesn't supply these numbers, but as of 2011 the lowest creditable number of deaths in Aghanistan and Iraq is given as 919,967, that is the lowest creditable figure and it is just short of 1 million.

        Below is a graph showing the ever increasing number of coalition deaths in Afghanistan, and this is spinned out as SUCCESS?

        The media is still spinning success in Afghanistan but that lie can be laid to rest with the publication of a recent article. The following is a short extract, the full article is necessary reading if the truth is what you seek.

How military leaders have let us down

By LT. COL. DANIEL L. DAVIS

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress. Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

Continue READING:

 ann arky's home.

THE SAD TALE OF A POINTLESS WAR.

             While the West continues with its Afghan adventure, the drug barons continue to make millions from the poppy fields of Afghanistan, The West while fighting the Taliban, now claim that their aim is to get rid of the opium poppy fields and choke the heroin trade. What they fail to mention is that the Taliban had already done that before the West went in to get rid of the Taliban. It was also the discontinuing of Western aid after the Soviet era that re-started the opium growing in Afganistan before the Taliban came to power. 

          During the Taliban rule, Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,500 metric tons in 1999,.[13] However, in July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. As a result of this ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 91% from the previous year's estimate of 82,172 hectares. The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had accounted for more than half of this area, recorded no poppy cultivation during the 2001 season.[14]  (wikipedia)

            It is only since the West invaded that the heroin trade has once again flourished and grown to the multi-million dollar business that it is now. The Afghan puppet government is riddled with corruption and drug barons, who are making millions while the Western troops fight a losing battle.

         11 years of bloodshed and misery to remove the Taliban and as the West pulls out the Taliban are ready to move in and take control. However what we have left is a country in ruins with massive unemployment, heart breaking drug addiction, unbelievable poverty and wealthy drug barons in control. This is the legacy the West hands to the Afghan people, they paid in lives and misery, we paid in billions of dollars and the pointless deaths of far too many of our young people. The story in Iraq is much the same, the ordinary people pay and are left to cope with depleted uranium, deaths in every family, destroyed infrastructure, homelessness, poverty and deprivation. Where is the benefit of either of these actions, where is the public outrage in the West. We accept this slaughter and no doubt if the powers that be decide, for what ever insane reason, to do the same to Syria and /or Iran, the people of the West will put up with it with the usual anti-war protest by the handful. We live under a state of international corporate fascism and the public seem to want it, accept it, or are blind to the fact. WHY.

ann arky's home.

CLEARING THE GROUND FOR WAR AGAINST IRAN.

       Here we go, here we go, here we go, the three nuclear bullies of the West, America, UK and France, are foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs as they circle Iran. The US has sent another carrier to the Gulf, and the shrieks from the war mongers in the various parliaments is reaching fever pitch. The second world war lasted 5 years, but since 2001 we have been at war in Afghanistan, that's 11 years. The West has been killing in Iraq since 2003, more than that if you include the killings from the ten years of sanctions before we invaded, and though the UK is out, the Americans are still there and the killing still goes on. However even with this amount of blood on their hands they want more, they are ratcheting up the tension to the same pitch as the “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq and we all know the validity in that line.

       Why is it that the so called defenders of freedom and democracy seem to be the only countries that invade other countries? Shouldn't it be the other way? After eleven years of bloodshed in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban, we are all set to leave and a leaked report form the top military, states that the Taliban are poised to take control after we leave. Iraq, nine years after we bombed them into liberation, the country is in turmoil with death a daily occurrence. With these kind of results you would think that invasion would be away down the list if ideas, but no, blood and death are of no consequence when the country to be decimated contains lots of oil and gas. Corporate fascism will spill the blood of any amount of ordinary people just to get control of what they deem valuable assets. How long will we tolerate the type of insanity that trades our blood for oil?

 

From Stop The War: 

            There is a frightening crescendo building towards war in the Middle East. The UN is debating a resolution on Syria demanding regime change. This follows the withdrawal of the Arab League delegation there and calls for intervention. The US military is clearing the ground for war against Iran. In a report to Congress, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claimed that Iranian leaders "are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States."
             Meanwhile Defence Secretary Leon Panetta went on TV to assert that Iran would have a nuclear bomb within a year. The US is conducting a military build-up in parallel to the propaganda offensive. A third US carrier is now on the way to the Gulf. On 28 January, Stop the War launched its national DON'T ATTACK IRAN campaign at a 500 strong rally outside the US Embassy in London. SEE REPORT & VIDEOS OF SPEECHES: http://bit.ly/zMKNEL.
             We are asking Stop the War local groups and supporters to organise urgent activists' meetings in every area to start planning local campaigns against an attack on Iran. On Saturday 11th February we are calling a national day of action with protests, die-ins, sit-ins, mock air raids, petitioning and street meetings, to publicise the arguments against an attack.
          Please check the Stop the War website for details about local activities as they are published. FOR UPDATES SEE: http://bit.ly/wTXnfL
The Facebook Event for the day of action is here:
http://on.fb.me/werrhn
If you want to get involved in the Don't Attack Iran campaign please e-mail office@stopwar.co.uk or call 020 7801 2768.

ann arky's home.

WAR IS BUSINESS, PROFITS OUTWEIGH DEATHS!!!

        Here we go again, the Western “defenders of democracy” are rattling their big sabres. This time it is at Iran. It is rather bizarre the the sabre rattlers are always those with the biggest sabres. The three most vociferous in threatening Iran, USA, UK and France, are in the top four for military budgets. When it comes to the world's military budget the USA is away out in front with a massive 42.8%. Even China, which has a quarter of the world's population is dwarfed by this, coming in with a mere 7.3%, followed by that small island of the coast of Europe, the UK, with a totally disproportionate 3.7% and then France with 3.6%. Iran's percentage is so small it doesn't even register on the chart below.

        We in the West live in a civilization that seems to indulge in endless wars, a civilization that somehow believes that the destruction of other countries, with the resultant thousands of deaths of ordinary innocent civilians is a legitimate answer to a problem. Think of the pretexts offered for our invasion and destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, think of the number of lives lost and those injured physically and mentally on both sides. Has it been the answer? Can we hold our head up and say “problem solved”? Can we honestly say that the world is now a better place because of the destruction of these two countries, has the hundreds of thousands of deaths of innocent people been justified?

        The reasons being put forward for an attack on Iran is that it is trying to do what we and a host of other nations, including Israel, have already done. We have no proof, just speculation. Is that justification for what would be the death of hundreds of thousands of ordinary innocent people. We would be killing plumbers, bus drivers, gardeners, doctors, typists, teachers, elderly and children, for what? Perhaps the really reason is that we in the West live in a society where war makes unimaginable wealth for the corporate world. A society that is under the control of a military industrial complex, producing wealth and power for that small cabal of billionaire parasites. The same billionaire parasites that hold the “elected” governments of the West in their pocket.

Chart from Informed Comment.

From Stop the war coalition.

STOP THE WAR BEFORE IT STARTS - EMERGENCY PROTEST THIS SAT JAN 28
Hands off Iran and Syria
2 - 4pm, US Embassy
Grosvenor Square
London W1K 2Called by Stop the War Coalition.       Supported by UNITE the Union, War on Want, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention on Iran, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Goldsmiths Student Union and SOAS Student Union.

        This is the most dangerous moment in the world since 2003. The sanctions on Iranian oil imposed by the EU on Monday are a provocation that could spark a war at any time. Iran's threats to retaliate by closing the Straits of Hormuz were answered on the weekend by US Defence Secretary Panetta saying the US would 'respond' if there was a closure and by US, British and French navy ships sailing through the Straits.

        The new sanctions mark a sharp escalation in an ongoing campaign of cyber attacks, assassinations and US troop deployments in the area all designed to destabilise the Iranian regime. Such a strategy of tension isn't just deeply irresponsible. It shows the argument for war is gaining ground in the west. An article by influential US hawk Mattew Kroenig in the current edition of Foreign Affairs is headlined 'Time to Attack Iran'. His basic argument is summed up in a single subheading: 'Strike Now or Suffer Later'.

       As yesterdays Financial Times pointed out, this approach is making headway. Both US Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich favour an attack. Sections of the British establishment are now talking up confrontation. Meanwhile calls for intervention against Iran's ally Syria are also growing.The echoes of the build up to war on Iraq are loud and clear.
        If you oppose the terrible prospect of a war on Iran or Syria please join the protest this Saturday. Speakers will include Tony Benn, Lindsey German, Roger Lloyd Pack, Abbas Edalat, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Sabah Jawad, Shirin Shafie.

TWEET-OUT TO SPREAD THE WORD, TODAY 12 ONWARDS

       Please help publicise the protest by joining our tweet-out and facebook surge today, starting at 12 noon. Tweet with hashtag  #DontAttackIran, retweet our tweets, share links, share photos and anything else using this same hashtag. Copy us into your tweets if you like using @StwUK so we know what you want us to repost. Also please do include the Facebook event for the protest - http://on.fb.me/yR9Q3i .

If we can get #DontAttackIran trending in London it will be a big publicity boost for the protest.

Join the Tweet-out - #DontAttackIran
Invite friends on Facebook - http://on.fb.me/yR9Q3i
Follow StoptheWar on Twitter - http://twitter.com/STWuk

ann arky's home.

A MERRY XMAS TO THE ARMS INDUSTRY!!!

        It is the festive season and the ordinary people of the UK are facing an “austerity” Christmas. The slashing and cutting of social services, benefits, wages, pensions, on top of rising unemployment, being implemented by our millionaire public school thugs, with their mantra, “we can't afford them” sounds rather hollow when we look at what is being squandered on death and destruction. The money poured into Iraq and Afghanistan is well passed the £20 billion mark. To put this figure in perspective we can take Ken Livingstone's statement, "The true cost of our policy of international adventures is now being shown - £20bn is 10 times the amount it would cost to scrap student fees in England, for example.". So would you rather have ten years of free education for your kids or ten years of bombing, killing and destroying some foreign country? When this figure was released, Lindsey German, convener of “Stop the War Coalition” said, "People will be astonished that the government had the cheek to call for public spending cuts when such an obscene amount has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan." This figure of over £20 billion, believe it or not, does not include the wages of the troops, (10,000 in Afghanistan at the moment) nor the cost of treating those injured in these unacceptable brutalities. Bob Crow's statement also helps to let us grasp the reality of this situation, “The money that's been drained away on illegal war-mongering is only outstripped by the cash ripped off in the bankers bail-out," This figure still does not have Cameron's little ego trip, the Libyan disaster, added, another vast expenditure on death and destruction. We still have to count in such things as the UK's illegal weapon of mass destruction "Trident".

Don't you know,the arms industry creates jobs??

         When governments talk about can't afford, it is a matter of choices. They have in their coffers a vast pot of gold, they decide where to spend that gold. It so happens this mob choose to spend unbelievable sums on bank bailouts, followed by foreign policy adventures of death and destruction and nuclear weapons. They could choose to spend it on improving social services, education, health and welfare of the people and pensions. They choose not to. However they still claim that this is a democracy, it is a strange democracy when the wealth of a country is drained away in destructive and financial policies that not one member of the public voted for, and then we the public, are told we will have to suffer “austerity cuts” to all the fabric of our society. At the same time all those who made those decisions will in no way be implemented in the suffering from the “austerity cuts” nor the death and destruction from their foreign policy. In fact, they belong to the same club that they helped to bail-out, the only group that will benefit from their choices. If you think that is democracy, you are delusional, it's called corporate fascism.

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"SAVE THE BANKERS" CHARITY.

         As we all contribute to "Save the Bankers" charity by accepting savage cuts to our living standards and accepting the decimation of our kids education, while at the same time giving our pensions to the "Bankers Bonus Fund" we should not forget, it is going to hurt. The main effect of all the legislation being passed by the millionaire cabal will by to safeguard the financial sector and destroy the lives of vast swathes of ordinary people. There is no shortage of money, it is all up to the choices our millionaire public school thugs decide to make. All that money that is being stolen from the public sector is going somewhere, that's the choices they have to make. Do we take the taxpayers money and spend it on the welfare of the people, or do we give it to the bond markets? Do we spend it on health and education or spend it on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc.? Do we give people a decent civilised pension or do we replace our nuclear weapons of mass destruction and build status symbol massive aircraft carriers? To our millionaire political class that inhabit The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, it isn't a difficult decision, the former wins every time and screw the people. Big business must be helped, the people must pay, our parasite politicians see this as how to run a country. What's your idea of running a country?

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BREAK THE SILENCE ON AFGHANISTAN.

From STOP THE WAR.       

        There is a conspiracy of silence about the war in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the occupation is in growing trouble. Five British soldiers have died in the last ten days but their deaths have barely been reported. Britain and the US are trying to push an agreement that they can keep thousands of soldiers in the country after the so-called withdrawal date of 2014. Polls show this is deeply unpopular with the Afghans. On Saturday 1,000 students marched against the deal in Jalalabad. But the plans are barely mentioned in the British media.

        Stop the War is supporting an Afghanistan Withdrawal Group meeting tonight in parliament featuring Rodric Braithwaite, author of an important book about the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, 'Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89'. Tariq Ali wrote in the London Review of Books that: 'Each page reads like a warning to Afghanistan's current occupiers.'

PUBLIC MEETING:
Afghanistan Withdrawal Group of MPs
The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89: Lessons for Today
Tuesday 22 November, 6.30-8.30pm
Committee Room 9, House of Commons, SW1A 0AA
(St Stephens entrance, nearest tube Westminster)
See: http://bit.ly/s0KZ48

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AMERICA,LAND OF THE FREE, PLENTY AND OPPORTUNITY!!!

        America, the most developed capitalist country in the world, land of the free, opportunity and plenty?? Well the figures on the ground don't paint that picture.

      Land of the free-- According to a recent study America has more than 2.3 million people behind bars, and leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second. This is costing state governments $50 billion a year plus a further cost to the federal government of $5 billion each year. These figures are on the rise year by year.

        Land of Opportunity---Unemployment in America is running at 13.9 million, approximately 9% of the population. According to recent figures, 49.1 million, approximately 16%, are classified as poor. The figure for 2010 for those who have accessed emergency food programs more than twice  was 5.6 million, 4.8% of all households. Approximately 50% of American workers have an annual income of less than $25,000.

         Land of Plenty---The figures for 2010, classified the number of households in food insecurity as 48.8 million, approximately 17.2% of the population. In household with children the figure was higher, 20.2%. According to government figures more than 16 million low income families paid more for rent and utilities than the federal government said was affordable. Another very disturbing figure for a so called civilised country, more than 46 million Americans have no form of health insurance.

          From a report by “World Hunger Education Service” "There are, we believe, three main causes of poverty in the United States: poverty in the world; the operation of the political and economic system in the United States which has tended to keep people from poor families poor, and actual physical mental and behavioural issues among some people who are poor."

         America is also seen as the consumer capital of the world, but even that doesn't hold water. Recent figures show that 40% of all consumer spending in America is done by the 5% richest section of the population.

        America, the richest country in the world, has a a government debt of $10.5 trillion, spends 4.7% of its GDP on defence, twice that of China, and in spite of that massive debt managed to pour over $1 trillion of borrowed money on its adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

         "Three years after the onset of the financial and economic crisis, hunger remains high in the United States. The financial and economic crisis that erupted in 2008 caused a dramatic increase in hunger in the United States. This high level of hunger continues in 2010, according to the latest government report (with the most recent statistics) released in September 2011 (Coleman-Jensen 2011)."

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