Insanity.

        At the moment the favourite popcorn and bubble gum of the mainstream media is the pandemic and the Trump election. All else in the world is calm and not worth reporting, or so it would seem. However the horror of Iraq still spills blood in buckets full, all those years after we installed "Western democracy", Afghanistan still keeps adding to its dead and maimed, on a daily basis, after 19 years of Western attempts at bring the people "freedom" and to punish them for a event they had no part in, 9/11. Then there is Libya, where the West freed the people by getting rid of an evil man and turned the country into a blood letting tribal battle ground, and now it is about to once again explode as the Western powers have not got the compliant structure that would delivery what they wanted. Then let's not forget Syria, a country where millions have fled their homes, hundreds of thousands have been killed and the slaughter still goes on. A country where a world war is being fought with the people of Syria being the collateral damage. In that country at the moment, Israel, Turkey, Russia, and America, aided and abetted by the EU are shelling, bombing maiming and killing, while the media would have us all focus on the election between a lying, egotistical, psychological deranged, delusional idiot and an authoritarian, money grabbing, duplicitous manipulator, from which the outcome will not alter anything.

Libya

     Add to this mayhem and insanity, the gross ineptitude in handling this pandemic, with the powers that be keeping their emphasis on the economy as that is where their wealth and power lies, without their control of the economy they have nothing, and they will never allow that to happen. So expect this pandemic to continue with its stop-start, spike and leveling off, restrictions on-off and on again. In between all that saving the economy, people will die unnecessarily. And there are those who say that the human is a rational animal.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

The West And Slavery.

 

     Libya has slipped out of the media glare, except for the odd report about the nasty Haftar, who is attacking the "legitimate" government of Libya. For "legitimate" translate as hand pick Western stooges who were planted in to facilitate the Western imperialists wishes. This so called "legitimate" government has never had control of the whole country just a slice around Tripoli. The rest of the country is controlled by various factions, tribes, war lords, all squabbling for power. Haftar has more or less taken control of the oil, as far as the West is concerned, that's all that matters about Libya, oil. Though, for the moment, this bloody episode in Libya has stalled into a death creating stalemate.

    What the media has put into "forgotten memory" is why Libya is in such a state of turmoil, poverty, violence, corruption, destitution and death. This is all down to the West's engineered disposal of Gaddafi. Though I'm not one who kneels at the feet of Gaddafi, this western lead blood bath has been responsible for turning a country with a developed health service and education system, where the majority of the people were living in reasonable conditions, into a quagmire of poverty and violence, where the ordinary people are suffering death and destitution on a daily basis. Libya is now a territory controlled by warring factions, who see violence as their road to power. It is now a territory where slave trading is carried out openly, where African migrants are openly sold to the highest bidder.

    All this misery, deprivation, violence and death lies clearly at the feet of the Western "democracies" who engineered and supplied the armoury and the devastating air power to destroy this once developed country. The people of Libya continue to live under this quagmire of violence, corruption and misery, while the West has moved on to destroy our countries in its march for control of resources.

Libya's slave trade:

    By the time his Libyan captors branded his face, Sunday Iabarot had already run away twice and had been sold three times.The gnarled scar that covers most of the left side of his face appears to show a crude number 3. His jailer carved it into his cheek with a fire-heated knife, cutting and cauterizing at the same time.

From Ted Galen Carpenter:

A new report from the United Nations bluntly conveys the extent of the continuing chaos in Libya and the suffering it has caused. Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Libya, stated that the impact on civilians of the country’s nine-year internecine war “is incalculable.” That horrible situation is the long-term outcome of U.S. and NATO actions, and it is well past time that guilty officials are held accountable for their disastrous policies.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Don't Iraq Iran!

        My ears are now hearing the familiar beat of the drums of war. Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea and Iran have been on the US agenda for regime change for almost 20 years, perhaps more. They have destroyed Iraq and Libya, they have  decimated Syria, Though the Assad regime still holds the power, that battle is still ongoing, to America, it is unfinished business. That now moves Iran up the list of regime change by the US and its puppet regimes. The reason those Middle East countries were labelled "evil", was the fact that their gas and oil reserves were nationalised, that doesn't suit the big boys in the Western financial Mafia. That pool of wealth has to be brought into coffers of the Western corporate world. Another country that has felt the wrath of the mighty dollar is Venezuela, yes, its oil and gas is nationalised, that makes them "evil".

Winter.

Dark malefic clouds crowd the sky

winds carry the stench of carrion to every nostril,

the crazy ape has followed the faculty of hawks.

All around stand crows, magpies, jackdaws, vultures,

edacious eyes anticipating their putrid feast.

A weary Cassandra laments;

doves, hearts weeping for a better yesterday

forsake their olive branches.

         The following is from Code Pink:

      BREAKING NEWS: Just hours after the attack on the Japanese and Norweigan oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, Secretary of State Pompeo was already blaming Iran. He is using the attack to push his agenda of going to war with Iran, just like the Bush administration manufactured a crisis to go to war with Iraq. Take action right now. Tell Congress: Don’t let Trump take us to war with Iran.
        The attacks came as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wrapped up his trip to Iran to help ease tensions between the U.S. and Iran. We don’t know who is behind the sabotage, but whoever is behind it wants to escalate the conflict between the two nations.
        The only REAL news here is that the Trump administration’s maximum pressure policy is pushing us closer to war. It’s the Trump administration’s bellicose actions, withdrawing from the nuclear agreement, imposing brutal sanctions, and deploying warships closer to the Persian Gulf to “send a clear and unmistakable message to Iran” that is driving this escalation. The facts of this latest attack on the oil tankers are not clear, but we know that we can’t trust anything warmonger Pompeo and serial liar John Bolton tell us about Iran without providing internationally verified evidence. And no matter who was responsible for this attack, the solution is mediation.
        What’s happening right now with Iran is all too reminiscent of the prelude to the war with Iraq in 2003, when Bush’s “intelligence” showed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — which turned out to be all lies. Now in 2019, Trump’s “intelligence” insists that Iran is responsible for the attacks in the Gulf of Oman.
       Key members of Trump’s administration, especially John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, have been looking for a pretext for war with Iran. So have their allies in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Israel. Against the will of Congress, the Trump administration is trying to sell more weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE under the guise of a national emergency — the emergency being Iran. And now the warmongers in the administration are using the incident in the Gulf to try to create that emergency. The Middle East is still coping with the horrible consequences of the Iraq war. Send a message to Congress now that they can’t let the Trump administration take us to war with Iran.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Britain, Rogue State.

         An interesting article from TruePublica, yes I know it is a pro-capitalist organisation, but that doesn't change the points made in the article. It just highlights how the "Mother of Parliaments", home of "freedom and democracy" really functions. Of course not unlike many other states embroiled in this capitalist economic system. It is just that Britain with its imperialist history, has much more experience and expertise in this field.

       By TruePublica: Leaving aside Britain’s past, most particularly that of empire, the country is not just continually moving towards authoritarianism it is beginning to demonstrate all the early signs of a rogue state. These are strong words but the actual definition of a rogue state is – “a nation or state regarded as breaking international law and posing a threat to the security of other nations.” Examples such as the illegal invasion of Iraq, Syria and latterly Libya are very clear. Irrespective of the technicalities, they all broke the rules of International laws or norms. But other examples demonstrate how lawless Britain as a state really is.
      Chagos: Here, an entire population were forcibly removed from their island homeland at British gunpoint to make way for a US Air Force nuclear base, the people were dumped destitute over a thousand miles away, their domestic animals gassed by the British army, their homes fired and then demolished. To achieve this, Britain maliciously threatened the Mauritian government into ceding the Chagos Islands as a condition of its Independence. Recently, the International Court of Justice found that the British occupation of the Chagos Islands was unlawful by a majority of 13 to 1. Britain rejected this ruling. Ex British ambassador Craig Murray wrote – “this represents a serious escalation in the UK’s rejection of multilateralism and international law and a move towards joining the US model of exceptionalism, standing outside the rule of international law. As such, it is arguably the most significant foreign policy development for generations. In the Iraq war, while Britain launched war without UN Security Council authority, it did so on a tenuous argument that it had Security Council authority from earlier resolutions. The UK was therefore not outright rejecting the international system. On Chagos it is now simply denying the authority of the International Court of Justice; this is utterly unprecedented.”
       Weapons and war crimes: Britain’s arms and munitions sales are now regularly in the news. Even The Lords international relations committee said that British weapons were “highly likely to be the cause of significant civilian casualties” in various countries where illegal wars, acts of genocide and war crimes are being committed. A quick online search lists numerous examples.
        Israel: Then there is Britain’s relationship with Israel, which is taking a battering due to internal politics and finger-pointing over claims of racism. Fundamentally though, the issue is about war crimes being committed against the Palestinian people. British arms sales to Israel is at best questionable, especially the news that British made sniper rifles were used to kill and injure thousands of Palestinians recently. But Britain’s support in this genocidal war again goes against all international norms where the conflict is described by Amnesty International as an “abhorrent violation of international laws.” It added that – “This is another horrific example of the Israeli military using excessive force and live ammunition in a totally deplorable way. This is a violation of international standards, in some instances committing what appear to be wilful killings constituting war crimes.” In addition, UK policy is allowing trade with ‘Israeli’ goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories. The British government has stated that it does not even keep a record of imports into the UK from these illegal Israeli settlements. Acquiescing in this illegal trade by an occupying power is a violation of international law. The December 2016 UN Security Council Resolution, to which the UK agreed: ‘reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”
        Libya: Mark Curtis, a British foreign policy expert and historian writes about Britain’s illegal attack of a soverign state – Libya: “British bombing in Libya, which began in March 2011, was a violation of UN Resolution 1973, which authorised member states to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya and to use ‘all necessary measures’ to prevent attacks on civilians but did not authorise the use of ground troops or regime change promoted by the Cameron government. That these policies were illegal is confirmed by Cameron himself, who told Parliament on 21 March 2011 that the UN resolution ‘explicitly does not provide legal authority for action to bring about Gaddafi’s removal from power by military means.” Today, Libya is a failed state and overrun by militant factions.
      Extrajudicial assassinations: and even a kill list. Reprieve’s report entitled Britain’s Kill List accused the Conservative government of extreme deception of parliament. Officially, Britain has never had a so-called ‘kill list’ but David Cameron had to admit to an extrajudicial assassinations programme in the Middle East, which we at TruePublica reported. All such killings break the most fundamental of international laws and norms as detailed HERE. The Reprieve introductory paragraph reads -“On September 7th, 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron came to Parliament and announced a “new departure” for Britain, a policy of killing individuals the Security Services and the military do not like, people placed on a list of individuals who the UK (acting along with the US and others) have identified and systematically plan to kill. The mere admission that there is a Kill List certainly should, indeed, have been a “departure” for a country that prides itself on decency. Unfortunately, it was not a “new departure” at all, as we had been doing it secretly for more than a decade.”
        Statelessness: Britain has once again broken international norms. The goals of UNHCR’s stateless campaign, a Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014 – 2024 introduced a guiding framework comprised of 10 Actions to be undertaken by states. In the case of high-profile ‘ISIS Bride’ runaway from Bethnal Green to Baghuz, Shamima Begum, the UK disregarded Actions 4 and 9:
Action 4: Prevent denial, loss or deprivation of nationality on discriminatory grounds. Action 9: Accede to the UN Statelessness Conventions. But Britain’s has its own laws. Section 40(2) of the 1981 British Nationality Act states the Home Secretary won’t make any individual rendered stateless as a result. Under this, the UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to revoke Begum’s citizenship breaks UK law and international norms.
        Political prisoner: Then, there is the persecution of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, which is now seven years old. Ecuador has protected Assange for the past half decade from being turned over to Washington until his arrest by British police yesterday. By definition, Assange is the only political prisoner in western Europe. A United Nations legal panel ruled that Assange should be allowed to walk free and be compensated for his “deprivation of liberty” and that his detention was illegal. Assange has been nominated for a Nobel peace prize every year since 2010. His really big crime was releasing film of an American helicopter gunship killing civilians and journalists in Iraq. Britain is more than just complicit of it attack of fundamental and important press freedoms in arresting him. Assange’s lawyer criticised the British government for being poised to arrest and extradite Assange to the United States. “That a government would cooperate with another state to extradite a publisher for publishing truthful information outside its territory sets a dangerous precedent here in the UK and elsewhere,” she said. “No one can deny that risk. That is why he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.”
       Surveillance: The UK government’s record on bulk data handling for intelligence purposes saw the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that state surveillance practices such as those practised in Britain violated human rights law. United National Special Rapporteur on Privacy Joe Cannataci said Britain was setting a bad example to the world and that Britain’s surveillance techniques on its own citizens was – “worse than Orwell’s 1984.” The highest courts in Britain have ruled against the government on mass surveillance. In 2014, British spies were (illegally) granted the authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications, according to documents. The documents were made public as a result of a legal case brought against the British government by Libyan families who allege that they were subjected to extraordinary rendition and torture, where Britain was proven to be in violation of international laws, in a joint British-American operation that took place in 2004. A lawyer, in this case, said – “It could mean, amazingly, that the government uses the information they have got from snooping on you, against you, in a case you have brought. This clearly violates an age-old principle of English law set down in the 16th century – that the correspondence between a person and their lawyer is confidential.” In addition, just one of the many operations carried out by the British state was called Optic Nerve. It illegally went about capturing images from webcams of millions of completely innocent citizens accused of nothing. Between 3% and 11% of the images captured by the webcams were sexually explicit in nature and deemed “undesirable nudity.” The public has not been reassured that these files still exist or not that were taken to build an illegal facial recognition system the government had not declared. Surveillance operations such as – Muscular, Socialist, Gemalto, Three Smurfs, XKeyScore, Upstream and Tempora are all examples of extreme surveillance systems being used in Britain that would be completely unknown if it had not been for Edward Snowden – another political prisoner. All such operations would be deemed illegal in court and of breaking international laws or norms in normal democratic countries.
          Health and Safety: In 2015, the Government pushed through a law that exempted a large number of self-employed people from the protection of the Health and Safety at Work Act. The Government managed to get away with reducing the level of protection because the self-employed are not covered by the European “Framework Directive”, which is the regulation that sets minimum standards that countries have to comply with. At the time the TUC pointed out to the Government that there were other international laws that the UK had signed up to in many other non European countries that did cover the self-employed including those of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Council of Europe.
          Disability: The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities examined the British government’s progress in fulfilling its commitments to the UN convention on disabled people’s rights, to which the UK has been a signatory since 2007. Its report concludes that the UK has not done enough to ensure the convention, which enshrines the rights of disabled people to live independently, to work and to enjoy social protection without discrimination – is reflected in UK law and policy. Although it praises some initiatives by the Scottish and Welsh governments to promote inclusion, it is scathing of the UK government’s inconsistent and patchy approach to protecting disability rights and its failure to audit the impact of its austerity policies on disabled people.
         Trust: Breaking international laws and norms has a long-term effect, mainly that of detriment to national security, long-term interests and trust. There is an assumption, of course, that international law cannot be enforced but in today’s world, international sanctions can be as damaging as using force. Those sanctions could be economic or diplomatic in nature. And if Britain wants to be an international player, it very strongly needs to appreciate and adhere to international laws and norms.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Suffering Of The Libyan People, Part Of The Grand Plan.

       The destruction of Libya by the Western imperialist military wing, NATO, is no longer news. We are supposed to sit back and consider it a success and the people of Libya have been given democracy, thanks to our unselfish assistance. What a massive distortion of the truth, eight years on and Libya, and I'm not spouting praise for Gaddafi, far from it, what was a modern state with a national education system, health service and other modern facilities, has been reduced to a barbaric feuding tribal land, where poverty and bloodshed are co-joined twins. All part of the Imperialists' strategy to destroy any power structure in that part of the world, so that its resources can be freely plundered. Syria an on going process and Iraq, are similar scenarios, with Iran and Venezuela, marked for similar treatment. The callous savagery of Western imperialism knows no bounds. 

Democracy Western Style.

Some extracts from a Middle East Eye article: 

       NATO’s bombardment of Libya in 2011 was never about human rights. Rather, it was the wilful creation of a failed state, designed to ensure the country could never again re-emerge as a strong, united, independent power

       Of course there is not always unity between the Western imperialists, there is deep rivalry between the various power blocks within the power hungry cabal.

A blood-soaked chessboard

      At the same time, Libya continues to serve as a blood-soaked chessboard for inter-imperial rivalries between Western powers, with France and Italy backing different sides in the ongoing civil war, each vying to position itself as the "indispensable power" in the region. To this end, May saw a conference hosted by Emmanuel Macron in Paris – with the Italians cut out – while Italy held its own rival event in Palermo six months later.

     Neither produced anything concrete for Libyans, although the French president's promise of December elections may well have spurred further violence, as each side sought to create facts on the ground in the run-up. The elections, needless to say, never happened - nor could they have, in the absence of any kind of agreed constitutional framework for carrying them out. 

      Even when they come together to destroy a country, they can't always agree on dividing the spoils, greed dominates their entire individual ideology.

     - the progress of the LNA, the reconciliation with Gaddafi loyalists, and the success of the Libyan-led negotiations - were a blow to the US-UK policy of militia-led destabilisation.

Read the full article HERE:
   
      Looking at the Libya, Iraq and Venezuela situation, the logic should surely follow that with the mass protests in France and America, surely it is time for intervention to bring these poor suffering people democracy, NATO, where are you when you are needed.

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

History Should Teach Us Something??

      I came across this little piece I penned at the start of the illegal invasion of Iraq, for the paper I produced, "The Anarchist Critic". Since then the imperialist slaughter has washed across Libya and Syria with Iran in the cross-hairs. At the time it was difficult to drink in the horror and terror inflicted on the ordinary people of Iraq by the Western imperialist's callous and brutal "Shock and Awe", a deliberate action of savagery unleashed on the innocent, children, elderly and infirm. All because one man and his team wouldn't play ball with the Western imperialists. Since then the faces of the figureheads of Western imperialism have changed, but the policy is still the same. We have seen the faces of Bush, Clinton, Blair and Cameron come and go, we now have the Trump and May duo, but that's all that has changed, the brutal imperialist bloodshed continues unabated.

     When will it finally sink in, that voting to change the faces of these figureheads, these puppets of corporate imperialism, will change nothing. They say that doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result, is one of the first signs of insanity, is that where we are at now?

From 2003:

IF THEY WERE COMEDIANS WE COULD LAUGH AT THEM.

         However, these two arrogant Christian fundamentalists nutters are for real. Their brutal Afghanistan and Iraq bloodbaths have turned the world into a nightmare, a breeding ground for other fundamentalist nutters to pursue their "God given" dogmatic beliefs. The number of innocent civilian deaths cannot be justifies on the banner of "A good cause". The impoverished country of Afghanistan has been returned to the stone age where 5% have access to fresh water, 25% of all children are dead by the age of five, 400 a month are blown up by land mines and civil war festers just below the surface. Conservative estimates put the civilian deaths in Iraq, since the illegal invasion at 15,000 and still rising. Coalition aggressors deaths nearing the 1,000 mark and an estimated 8,000 US soldiers injured. Economically the costs of this brutal, illegal Iraq adventure are put at $100 billion, (tax payers money of course) and most agree that this is a grossly under estimated figure. Iraq's infrastructure is in tatter and once again it is the innocent civilians and their children that have to try to survive in this Bush/Blair disaster.

         Getting rid of the Bush/Blair "God disciple duo" is not the answer, they are merely the selected strong-arm war lords of the corporate world, doing its bidding, (with a little help from God). They would be replaced with a different personality but the same brutal agenda would still be pursued. We have to crush the system that welds the state apparatus and corporate power into a brutal force that controls the worlds resources. We have to bring all the world's resources under the control of the ordinary people. The state and its repressive apparatus must be dismantled, multi-national corporations taken over by those who work in them and moulded to the benefit of all, a new society created, one that is based on free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid. Tomorrow must belong to us the ordinary people or there is no tomorrow.

                                                                                              ann arky.

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Red Sunset Of Blood.

 

        Today our senses are numbed by the suffering of the people of Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, the 6.5 million displaced persons, the sea of the fleeing who end under the banner of migrants/refugees/asylum seekers, and so it goes on, a litany of misery, death and destruction. Even in the midst of the rich developed countries, supposedly to be at peace, we find poverty, misery and deprivation. It seems there is no spring, no summer, no autumn, only cruel winter. How do you absorb such suffering how do you comprehend such a large section of humanity living on the edge of chaos, misery and death? All the actions that are responsible for this tsunami of unimaginable suffering, are no accident of nature, no inevitable sequence of events, but are the results of deliberate actions by people with power, they have names, they have faces, but they hide in the marble corridors of corrupt power. With no regard for humanity, but a constant eye on the balance sheet, they calculate the profit and loss, and see all this human suffering as acceptable collateral damage. That is the nature of the capitalist beast, power and wealth to be protected and increased at all costs. The beast will devour us all, unless we slay the beast before it is too late.

       It is difficult to love when you realise that the bright red sunset is the blood of the innocent.

Winter

Dark malefic clouds crowd the sky

winds carry the stench of carrion to every nostril,

the crazy ape has followed the faculty of hawks.

All around stand crows, magpies, jackdaws, vultures,

edacious eyes anticipating their putrid feast.

A weary Cassandra laments;

doves, hearts weeping for a better yesterday

forsake their olive branches.

 

 

The High Cost Of Killing.

        The UK has been involved in continuous bloody slaughter in the Middle East for approximately 16 years. In that time we have seen several countries returned to the stone age, millions of ordinary people displaced and millions maimed and killed. Afghanistan, now a never ending battle scene, Iraq, a bloody tribal battle ground, Libya, a lawless land of killing and plunder, Syria, a land soaked in blood and misery, and still it goes on.
         Is there anybody out there naive enough to honestly believe that the UK, USA and the Western military cabal, indulged themselves in this quagmire of blood and slaughter, for the benefit of the people of those countries? Sixteen years of "bringing democracy" to the people of these countries has resulted in a vast swath of the planet where people live in constant fear, in poverty and ever present death. When will it end?
         One of the main beneficiaries of this savage display of Western imperialism has been the arms industry. High-tec missiles and other weaponry come with a hefty price tag, all paid for by you and I, tax payers money, we are complicit.

 

       A little drop in the cost of the ocean of obscenity of missile slaughter would be the number of UK bombs and missiles dropped in Syria and Iraq
From 1 January - 9 April 2017:

129 Paveway IV bombs, £22,000 each
37 Hellfire missiles, £80,000 each
20 Brimstone missiles, £105,000 each
30 Unspecified / other, Ministry of Defence, cost unknown.
        Of course missiles do not go off on missions by themselves, there is a whole world of very expensive backup and delivery processes, again, all paid for courtesy of the UK cash strapped, austerity riven tax payer.

         According to a Ministry of Defence report to Parliament in 2010, each Tornado flight costs £35,000 per hour. Typically, two Tornados fly each mission, lasting anywhere between four and eight hours.
       So let's land somewhere in the middle: a six-hour mission costs a basic £210,000.
         Then we have to consider the cost of the missiles. The expected payload would be four Paveway bombs, £22,000 each, and two Brimstone missiles, £105,000 per unit.
        So let's say that's £508,000 per aircraft in total, just a smidgen over £1m per mission.
        If they carry Storm Shadows at £800,000 a pop, then the cost rises considerably

          The UK parliament backed British participation in air strikes against IS in Iraq back in September 2014. Just over a year later in 2015, MPs authorised air strikes against IS in Syria.The UK has conducted more than 1,200 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since it became involved - more than any other coalition country bar the United States. In 2016 alone, the US dropped 12,192 bombs in Syria and 12,095 in Iraq, according to the American think tank Council on Foreign Relations. 

       This money, robbed from the public purse, for our 16 years of "bringing democracy" to the Middle East is responsible for killing and maiming bus drivers, teachers, surgeons, office workers, factory workers, elderly and children, it is responsible for the destruction of hospitals, factories, homes and offices. It is responsible for creating a generation of displaced and traumatised people across a large slice of the planet. Apart from the countries being pulverised by missiles, the damage is also here at home. All that money, time and resources employed in destruction could be deployed at home improving the social fabric of our country. This is all part and parcel of capitalism as one set of power mongers fight to gain control of natural resources and markets from from another set of power mongers. It will only end we we call a halt to the insanity of the capitalism system of greed and exploitation. Capitalism cannot be reformed, it destruction is the only answer. 

 Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

UK, Defender Of --What??

       The UK establishment always spout how they are the defenders of freedom and human rights, but words are cheap, and actions always speak louder than words. So I suppose we should look at how the UK interacts with other countries, who it chooses as its friends, and who it chooses as its enemies. One of our dear friends and staunch allies is that citadel to medieval barbarism, Saudi Arabia. A country that still carries out pubic be-headings, public floggings, and stoning to death, where women are denied all accepted 21st. century rights, the right to drive, to go into mixed company unaccompanied, where if she is raped and reports it, she will in all probability, be charged with having sex outside marriage, and is likely to have a public flogging. At the head of this barbaric blot on the face of humanity, is a cabal of unbelievably rich religious fundamentalist fanatics, blind to compassion and anything resembling human rights, but an eye for making money and gathering power around themselves.  So the UK in its defence of human rights sells this cesspool of religious extremists, billions of pounds worth of military hardware, sends in special military advisers to assist them in retaining and expanding their power. I think you have to admit, it kind of blots the UK's human rights mantra.

       Now let's look at one of the UK's enemies, one that the UK played a major part in destroying, Libya. I am not, and never have been, a cheer leader for Gaddafi, but he did carry out a program of social benefits that would shock must people who read about them. Libya was a country of free health care, free electricity,  and interest free loans. Mothers received the equivalent of $5,000 for every child born, on getting married each couple were give the equivalent of $ 50,000 to find a home. Naturally, the UK as one of the world's defenders of human rights and of freedom, saw this abomination, and in a welling up of good will to all men, had to step in and destroy such a misuse of wealth. Now that Libya is a land of tribal feuds, blood letting, religious extremism, and dire poverty, the UK pumps up its chest with pride and points to Libya as a success story.

     As I keep saying, don't listen to their words, look at their actions.
Photos courtesy of arrezafe. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

  

Who Knew What!!!

          States throughout the centuries have always worked with spies, double agents and undesirables, all in the name of power and foreign policy strategy. So we should accept that this still goes on, in their secret little chambers, under the label of "national security". So what did our government know of those twist minds responsible for the brutal carnage of ordinary people in Manchester and London? What dirty dealings with these psychopaths were they involved in to achieve their aims of power and control in the Middle East? If they had knowledge of these people and their twisted ideology, why was no action taken, was this to achieve their aims in foreign policy, it could hardly have been for the safety of the people.

      As usual John Pilger speaks out fearlessly and sincerely on matters which our elected political ballerinas close their eyes and ears. Thanks Loam for the link.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Dollar, Built On Blood.

 

 The bringer of democracy!!

      How can you in a sane and rational manner justify the total destruction of two countries which have never invaded or attacked you? Iraq and Syria are now fields of ruin, swamps of blood, filling the air with the stench of violent death. So we the moral and righteous West, decided that Saddam and Assad were bad men, therefore justifying the deaths of countless thousands of innocent people, and the displacing of millions, creating an endless flow of miserable, traumatised refugees fleeing death and destruction and ending up either drowned in the Mediterranean, or in concentration camps across Europe.  

      The UK has played a brutal and savage pivotal part in this modern Dante's Inferno. This country, weighted down with austerity, has seen fit to spend billions of pounds on this blood soaked imperialist resource grab, we have to accept, that is all this is about. During our "difficult times" when we the people of this country were seeing our social services being decimated, wages slashed, and benefits cut, with the cry, "we can't afford these thing", our beloved lords and masters saw fit to spend more than £30 billion on destroying Iraq, with all the misery, death and destruction that that entailed.

      Not content with that, our blood soaked parasitic masters decide to go gung-ho into Syria. To date our cash strapped loving, caring, people's government, this year alone, (2017) has  unloaded 216 bombs and missiles on that unfortunate country of Syria. Each of these implements of death costing between £22,000 to £800,000, not counting the cost of getting them there and then deploying them. Of course all of them will be replaced, with the arms industry rubbing its sweaty hands in glee, and praying that the war continues or intensifies. 

      What we have done to the Syrian people is dwarfed by that malevolent cabal that is American imperialism. In 2016 alone, the US dropped 12,192 bombs in Syria and 12,095 in Iraq, according to the American think tank Council on Foreign Relations. 

       What do you honestly think has been the outcome of all this lavishly expensive, death and destruction, what has it done for the people of that region? The only gainers in this human tragedy, has been the large Western corporations, mainly the arms industry and the oil and gas industry, not forgetting the financial Mafia. We pay for it in austerity, the people of the region pay for it in misery, blood and death.
     Not satisfied with their blood fest, in the Middle East, that brain dead, moronic psychopath, who sits at the helm of the world's largest and most dangerous war machine, narcissistic Trump, is bellowing about a nuclear attack on North Korea. A country, that as far as I am aware, has never attack any other country on the planet. Though it is one of only three countries in the world where the central bank is not controlled by the dollar. In 2000 there were seven, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. Now there are only three, Iran, North Korea and Cuba. Could that be a reason why they are classified as "evil" countries. Of course China is also a state owned Bank, but that is a bigger fish, but no doubt the "evil" propaganda will continue, keeping it as the demon, until such times as the dollar monster sees fit to take it out. The strength of the dollar is built on blood.

 Packed with the gifts of democracy.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

War, The Capitalist Cancer.

 

      A reminder: The next Scottish Peace Network, anti-war vigil, will take place this Thursday, 23rd. March, from 5-6pm at Donald Dewar's statue at the top of Buchanan Street, Glasgow. Spring is around the corner so it is time to get out on the streets to show our opposition to war and militarism.

       People in the developed Western world live under the illusion that we are at peace, and have been since 1945. They wander around their shopping malls, go on holiday, watch the football, take the kids to the park, go for a friendly chat in the pub. All unimaginable luxuries to those who live in a vast swath of our planet where the soil is being watered with the blood of millions of innocent people, men, women, young, old, sick, and infirm. Their lives are being destroyed in what can only be described as World War III. From Afghanistan to Iraq, from Libya, to Yemen, all the world's major military powers are in there, with air-strikes, missiles, heavy artillery, and troops on the ground. The whole area is the battle ground  for the world's imperialist powers as they attempt land grabs, regime changes and resource plunders. We the public are supposed to believe that all this bloody mayhem and wholesale slaughter of innocents, is simple for the benefit of the people of that region. Our leaders preach the lie, "we, the righteous developed world, are slaughtering you and your kids, all for your own good", surely only the most deranged and insane can swallow such a gigantic lie.

      In keeping with this insanity, the Israeli government has stated that it will, "without hesitation" destroy Syria's air defence system, it it again launches them against Israeli air-strikes on Syrian territory. There has been no reaction to this swashbuckling bully-boy statement, yet imagine the reaction if say, France stated that it would "without hesitation" destroy Spain's air defence system if it again used them against French planes bombing Spain!!! This is the irrational, insane double standards that our warring imperial masters use on a daily basis.

      All wars, world or pygmy, are just the manifestation of the powerful, taking control of the weak for the gain of the powerful, supported by a tsunami of lying propaganda. The people are merely the duped cannon-fodder, who pay with their blood, but never receive the "spoils of war".

      Wars are no longer "declared", they are now part and parcel of our imperial masters way of life, a world of continuous wars that shape all our lives, that dominate our economy, and stunt the lives of all of us in one way or another. The rich countries starve their children to pay for the slaughter of other children, that is the nature of the society we tolerate. Since war and all its attendant horrors are creating poverty, misery and death world wide, we should never let these facts stray from our minds and continually work to put an end to this madness. 

     To this end the Scottish Peace Network hold a monthly anti-war vigil at the Donald Dewar Statue at the top of Buchanan Street Glasgow. The militarists must be challenged, their lies must be exposed, join the vigil to help raise that anti-war voice.

     A reminder: The next Scottish Peace Network vigil will take place this Thursday, 23rd. March, from 5-6pm at Donald Dewar's statue at the top of Buchanan Street, Glasgow. Spring is around the corner so it is time to get out on the streets to show our opposition to war and militarism.

      Why not join them, bring your voice, show support for all those millions suffering on the imperialist battlefields across the globe, shout for an end to the squandering of billions of pounds worth of resources on a war economy, resources that could be spent to make this world a better place for our kids.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Stay With Us, On The Streets.

 

         It was very heart warming to see the hundreds of thousands of women from across the UK marching against Trumpism. The coming together of all those of different backgrounds to voice their anger at the vicious danger in this new wave of far right authoritarianism. My only concern is, where were you when Libya was being pulverised, where were you when the government was attacking, and still is, the disabled with its "assessment" scheme, where were you when benefit sanction drove people to suicide, and still does, where were you as hundreds of thousands of migrants, men, women and children, fleeing death and destruction, were being herded like cattle all across Europe, and still are. These injustices, and many more, are still with us, now that you have found your voice, please, stay on the streets, please, stay with us, we need you.  

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Price Of Oil Is Always Blood.

          Remember in 2007, the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, filling every avenue of communication with their vomit of how we were liberating Libya?  How we were going in to a despot controlled hell to help the Libyan people liberate themselves from that mad man Gaddafi? How our smart bombs and measured military expertise would allow the country to flourish as a free democracy. Well now, almost 10 years later, due to the silence of our babbling brook of bullshit, on all matters Libya, You could be forgiven for thinking that our lords and masters with their imperialist military might had succeeded, and Libya was now a liberated and free democracy. 

         The truth could not be further removed from that thought, Libya is now a living hell, no longer a country, but a series of warlord and religious fundamentalist controlled areas. All brutally vying for power, in a land where the entire infrastructure has been destroyed, Where the life of vast swathes of the ordinary people has been reduced to drinking foul water and eating rats. Where beheading is a daily occurrence and rape endemic, where misery, fear and hunger is the fabric of life. The West is now seeing thousands upon thousands of migrants make that perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea, thousands of suffering unfortunate people who leave Libya with the one thought, "better to die at sea than return to Libya". This is the Western  type, bomb created democracy we brought to the Libyan people.

          The humanitarian disaster that is now Libya, was totally engineered by the imperialist West, the hell-hole of destroyed cities and towns, was our doing, and you would be an idiot if you thought that our destruction of Libya had nothing to do with the thousands of fleeing migrants, but the babbling brook of bullshit stays silent on that matter, we are now more or less in control of the Libyan oil, no longer any need to report what is going on in that unfortunate part of the world. The suffering of the people is of no concern in matters of control of resources.

         There is an excellent article about Libya with photos on arrezafe, though the English translation is not perfect it is understandable and informative.

 Libya today.

   We do not know how many people have died in Libya today as a result of the brutal intervention by NATO in 2011. Some sources speak of about thirty thousand dead; others, increase that figure. Meanwhile, the Red Cross estimates about one hundred and twenty thousand dead, but there is no doubt that the war which began NATO has destroyed the country and thrown into its six million inhabitants to a sinister nightmare.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk