Depleted Uranium, A War Crime.

          I wrote the following article some years ago, to highlight the scandal of depleted uranium, being acted out in Europe, Iraq and elsewhere, and at the Dundrennan firing range near the Solway Firth in south west Scotland, but due to the fact that the US has used depleted uranium in the present illegal Syrian invasion, I thought it would be worth repeating. Once again, the state shows itself, in its savagery of war, to have little to no regard for humanity.

 Remember him? UN ambassador for peace in the Middle East!!!

          Depleted Uranium, (DU) is a radioactive waste product which is also chemically toxic and is used by the military in armour piercing shells and bullets. When it hits a hard target it ignites and aerolizies into a fine mist of radioactive particles, if inhaled or ingested can cause cancer, leukaemia, birth defects, Gulf War Syndrome and other illnesses. It can also enter the food chain through water and/or soil. The wind can send particles in all directions over a wide area. The area near the Dundrennan base in Scotland, where depleted uranium weaponry is tested, has the highest incidence of Leukaemia in the UK.

        The UK MOD claim that they don’t hit hard targets at the range but only fire into the Solway Firth. Around 20-30 tons of DU waste is lying on the Solway seabed with the MOD making no attempt to retrieve this danger. As DU is a radioactive waste, it is in breach of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping Wastes and other Matter, 1972. The MOD are therefore in breach of international law through the dumping of radioactive waste in the Solway Firth. There are also claims that they are creating environmental and health problems by hitting hard targets with DU weapons.

        After the NATO invasion in former Yugoslavia evidence was found that NATO forces used DU on 8 sites. Seven of these sites were in the Republic of Serbia and one in the Republic of Montenegro. Remains of weapons with DU were taken from the soil in these regions and contaminated soil was registered in each of these regions. It is difficult to establish the amount of DU that contaminated these sites. However, Yugoslav Army reports compiled during the war, plus investigation of projectile fragments and data about these types of weapons and how they are used, it can be estimated that NATO fired approximately 3,000-5,000 shells which is the equivalent 1-1.5 tons of uranium 238.
        After the US operation Anaconda in Afghanistan in the region of Tora Bora, it was found that urine samples taken from the local population contained uranium amounts 200 times higher than the population at large.
         These weapons were also used in both attacks on Iraq. The Gulf War 1 in 1991 resulted in 350 metric tons of DU being deposited in the environment and 3-6 million grms of DU being released into the atmosphere. Its legacy to the troops involved in the war, Gulf War Disease, a progressive, incapacitating, multiorgan system disorder, its symptoms include, incapacitating fatigue, musculoskeletel and joint pains, headaches, neuropsychiatric disorders, confusion, visual problems, changes in gait, lose of memory, respiratory impairment, impotence and urinary tract morphological and functional alterations. The understanding of the disease is far from adequate. Uranium isotopes have been detected in urine samples of Gulf War veterans 10 years after inhalation exposure.
          Rageh Omaar, a BBC journalist reporting from Basra stated that Iraqi doctors reported a 20-fold increase in cancers since the end of the 1st Gulf war. Internal contamination with DU isotopes were detected in British, American and Canadian veterans 9 years after inhalation exposure to radioactive dust in Gulf War 1. DU isotopes were also identified in a Canadian veteran’s autopsy samples of lung, liver, kidney and bone. DU danger is illustrated by the following example. In February 1980 a court order from the State of New York forced National Lead Industries, a manufacturer of DU tips, to stop production as they had exceeded the proscribed monthly limits of discharging radioactive material into the air of 150Ci. This value corresponds to 387g of DU. The tip of one shell in a 30mm gun contains 298g. Some time later in a letter to the Atomic Scientists’ Bulletin, Mr Dietz asks if the authorities were worried about discharges that were the monthly equivalent of the particles from 1 or 2 uranium projectiles, why wasn’t the US government worried about the effects of tens of thousands of projectiles fired in the several days of the Gulf War?
        The US Army’s radiology unit suggested press releases should be issued to prevent possible negative international reaction to the use of DU due to public concerns. The report offers the use of tungsten or titanium as an alternative, stating that the only reason to use DU was a cheap way of getting rid of waste. It also outlines ways in which “using arms with depleted uranium is in violation of the basic principles of international law.”

       It is obvious that DU is a highly dangerous substance and is indiscriminate in where it blows and who it affects. The fact that the states that use it are aware of this but continue to use it and put their own troops and the local populations at risk to further their own imperialist gains is just another example of the State’s disregard for the people. War is an arm of the state and it needs ordinary people as cannon fodder but has little interest in the resultant suffering. If we wish to put an end to war and its suffering we have to find a way round the state. We have to eliminate its power by organising at community level, bring power into the hands of the people, work in federation with other communities, creating a world of mutual aid, not profit, of co-operation, not competition, seeing to need, not greed.

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Cosy Relationships Between Repressive States.

              It is obvious that the repressive Germany government is in a cosy relationship with the war mongering Turkish dictator Erdogan, as he sends his blood machine in to crush the Kurdish enclaves in northern Syria. Turkey buys lots of weapons from Germany and the German state, like any other, can't let the blood of innocents interfere with the arms trade. Besides, Afrin, Rojava, Kobani are not the sort of ideas that the Germany state, or any other for that matter, would want to see expand. So pro-freedom demonstrations in favour of Afrin, and criticising the Turkish invasion will not be tolerated.

 Cops confiscated YPJ and YPG flags in Dortmund, Germany, Feb 3.

This from Enough is Enough:

          I arrived in Dortmund at 02:00pm and the first thing I saw were cops… everywhere. The gathering in solidarity with Afrin was completely surrounded by cops. After the authoritarian German police showed it’s face in Cologne last week, this time the cops decided to ban the march from the beginning. Only a stationary gathering was allowed.
       Cops also confiscated YPJ and YPG flags during a demo in Hamburg today and removed a banner and YPH and YPG flags from the Rote Flora earlier this week. The list is getting longer and longer. The German state exported many arms to Turkey and many of the tanks that are killing people in Rojava are therefore made in Germany. This seems to make the German government nervous (Apart from the growing tension between Turkish fascists and leftwing kurds and Turkish people that are living in Germany.)
       Many speakers on the gathering denounced the ban by police authorities of the march in Dortmund today. Where the cops don’t have a problem to clear German streets for German fascists, they stop or ban demonstrations in solidarity with Rojava because of a couple flags from the only groups that were effective against ISIS. Last week in Cologne the demo was stopped because of Öcalan flags, YPJ and YPG flags were allowed. This week the cops started to confiscate these flags as well. Where is this going to end? It was shocking that there were not many people from the autonomous movement last week. But today their numbers were even less. In Dortmund you could count them, there were maby 25 people from the anti-authoritarian autonomous movement among the 1500 people today.
        Repression is growing and the war against the revolutionary project in Rojava is a war against us all. Against our ideas and philosophy. While we take the streets against German nazis (which is good), it doesn’t seem to bother a lot of people that Turkish fascists are attacking people who take the streets in solidarity with Rojava. Today the cops kettled Turkish fascists who were on their way to the Afrin gathering in Dortmund.
         When the gathering ended a Turkish fascist waved with a Turkish flag, the cops sended him away but not after he got punched by an activist who was immediately arrested (Video above). This provocation by a fascist had no other consequences. No arrest, nothing. When the authoritarian police state is opressing activists who take the streets in solidarity with Rojava and doesn’t arrest fascists who want to attack them, we need to stand up, all!
         We always chant “no borders, no nations” but Rojava seems to be far away. We also shout: “An attack against one of us, is an attack against all!” Its about time that we start to live it. Join the resistance against the German export of German arms and take the streets for the anarchist and autonomous idea.

Defend Afrin!

War starts here!

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Imperialism Is Imperialism,Is Imperialism.

 

         The Turkish state under the grip of dictator Erdogan is doing what all dictators and  imperialists do, attempting to build his strength at home by conjuring up the "enemy" across the border. He also, like all his breed, craves expansion of his power and territory, and blood will flow to fulfill his messianic dream. He is just another slither of the capitalist imperialist cancer that is soaking our planet in the blood of ordinary people.

        Two extracts from articles at opposite ends of the political spectrum, Insurrection News and The Washington Post. Both are a call for solidarity.

          First from Insurrection News:

            The Erdoganist army and its barbarian allies (namely the Turkish backed Free Syrian Army /TFSA & the so-called Syrian National Army /SNA) invaded 4 outer villages and 4 defensive points in the Afrin region. They are moving really very slow. They have air power and more superior weapons than us but our defense line fuck Erdoganists and their Syrian terrorists’ moral. Erdogan’s fighter jets are bombing blank points. His special operations units are fearful of moving into the Afrin city center. Our last stand defense line can survive at least 4 months. Yes unfortunately, without international support, Erdoganists can invade Afrin. But it will be a great chaos for them. Erdoganist army will be sad!
        Comrades, we need your help more than everything. Its a life or death situation. This invasion isnt only about Afrin nor Rojava/Assyria/N. Syria but Erdogan wants to invade also the whole border territory, including Iraq’s Ezidistan (Zoroaster Kurdish lands /Sinjar), Ninewah (Iraqi Assyria), Turkmeneli (Iraqi Shia Turkomans) and Iraqi Kurdistan’s Qandil mountains area (PKK’s HQ and dissidents and opressed people’s refugee villages and camps). Its clearly IMPERIALISM and he wants to destroy everything and massacre every people he just hate.
          Another important thing is Turkish and Bakur (Turkish Kurdistan) Kurdish comrades situation. Before the invasion, Erdogan first invaded Turkish Kurdistan and Eastern Turkey to eliminate PKK and her Turkish Marxists allies. Not only guerrillas but also autonomous municipalities were invaded. Erdogan and his fake opposition (Kemalists and Nationalists) are all fascists, they even arrested members of parliament from HDP (pro-Kurdish and Turkish Marxist alliance, 3rd biggest party in parliament). Our comrades in Turkey and Turkish Kurdistan are in HELL.

Read the full article HERE:
                This from a source that I don't often quote, as I see them as part of that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, but sometimes we can glean some information from their usual biased propaganda.

        From The Washington Post:  (April 28th. 2017) 

 

          On Tuesday, Turkey bombed the headquarters of Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, killing 20 of our soldiers. Immediately after the strike, the leaders of our forces — known as the People’s Protection Groups, or YPG — rushed from their operations center near Raqqa, where they’ve been working with the U.S. military to push the Islamic State out of its Syrian stronghold, to view the site of the attack. The American colonel and other officers who accompanied the YPG leaders were met by tens of thousands of protesters, including the mothers of soldiers who have died fighting the Islamic State. They asked the Americans a simple question: “How is it possible that our soldiers are fighting with you against ISIS while your ally Turkey is attacking us here?”
         This is not the first time that Turkey has attacked us. Turkish planes and artillery have been bombing northern Syria for more than a year, and Turkish forces invaded the country last year. In each case, the Turks have acted under false pretenses. They claim to have invaded Syria to fight terrorism, and yet the groups they support on the ground (Ahrar Al Sham and Nour Eddin Al Zanki) share the same jihadist ideology that the United States has been fighting since 9/11.
         The Turks said they bombed our headquarters because they claimed our territory is being used to launch attacks against Turkey, but those accusations are unfounded. Let me be as clear as can be: We have never used northern Syria to launch any attack against Turkey. If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t trust us when we say this, fine. But why can’t he trust the U.S. personnel in our area who assure him of the same?
        Erdogan justifies these illegal attacks with the same baseless claim: that the YPG is the same as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is currently fighting the government inside Turkey. This claim is based on the fact that we share a founder and many intellectual values with the PKK — but this is equally true of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a legal political party in Turkey with 58 members in the Turkish parliament. They are no more PKK than we are, and any attempt to equate us with the PKK is disingenuous.
       Erdogan knows this. He knows that our political and military leadership is completely separate from that of the PKK. He knows that any attempt to combine YPG with PKK would run contrary to our core value of decentralization of power. He knows we are not using northern Syria to launch attacks on Turkey. He knows all this. He just doesn’t care. Erdogan is trying to force the United States to choose between us and Turkey. We don’t think such a choice is necessary, but it is worth considering what that choice entails. We, the Democratic Council of Syria, are an alliance of progressive, democratic parties that govern the Northern Syria Federation. Though we are besieged from all sides (by the Islamic State, the Assad regime and Erdogan’s Turkey), our region is more stable than any other part of the country. So much so, in fact, that in addition to our population of 3 million, we have taken in an additional 500,000 refugees (Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, Armenians and Yazidis) from across Syria.

Read the full article HERE:

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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. 

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The West, The Bringer Of Peace!!!

          These little extracts explain how the "free democratic West" with its "peace loving" leaders plan the future. Wars are part of its strategy for world domination, simply to control the world's resources, all for profit and greed.

        In his book, A Time To Lead, General Clark states: (Wikipedia)

 ------a conversation Clark had with Paul Wolfowitz in May 1991 after the Gulf War, quoting Wolfowitz as lamenting the non-removal of Saddam Hussein, but also telling him that "...we did learn one thing that’s very important. With the end of the Cold War, we can now use our military with impunity. The Soviets won’t come in to block us. And we’ve got five, maybe 10, years to clean up these old Soviet surrogate regimes like Iraq and Syria before the next superpower emerges to challenge us...".^[133]

        Retired four-star General Wesley Clark has given a number of interviews over the years in which he has revealed a covert plan whereby the “US will attack 7 countries In 5 years”. The context was always the Middle East and the seven countries were “Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” In each case Clark appears to be unaware that he was unwittingly exposing the essence of a clandestine scheme known in some circles as the Greater Israel project.
         Gen. Clark has performed a great service to the nation, and the world, by disclosing this crucial insider info. His public sharing of this critical piece of the Mideast puzzle has probably had an adverse effect on his post military career. Unfortunately, Clark’s forced retirement by the U.S. Army has likely made it much more difficult to acquire similar types of extremely valuable intelligence.

     
What follows is General Clark’s stunning revelation word for word:

          So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”[1]
— General Wesley Clark

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The Mediterranean Graveyard Is Overflowing.

         We claim that we humans are "civilised" and have brought advanced civilisation to the world. Of course in the developed world it can be easier to swallow that illusion, than in vast swaths of the planets surface. However in this "civilised" world we have created more than 65 million displaced individuals, that is approximately the entire population of the UK being moved out and told to move on. Most of these displaced persons are fleeing raging wars perpetrated by those "civilised" human beings. Of that 65+ million displaced persons, approximately 12 million of them are from just five areas: Syria, Afghanistan, the Lake Chad basin, South Sudan, and Somalia. 

      Of course "displaced person" is a very sanitised way of expressing what that means, it almost sounds like somebody being moved from their home to an apartment that they don't particularly like. The true picture is very different, it is one of desperation, savagery, brutality, misery, trauma, death and destruction. In the year 2016, more than 5,000 of those "displaced persons" trying to flee the raging wars, ended their lives in the water grave that is the Mediterranean. They were fleeing lives that were so horrifying that death seemed a reasonable option. The reason for such death and destruction fades into the fog of propaganda and misinformation. Can anybody really say why we are in Syria, tearing the country apart, destroying its infrastructure, killing its people? Or how we can justify the 4.9 million "displaced persons" that have fled that country? Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, will record the various battles, heroically and fairly fought by "our" boys, and other battles fought with inhuman savagery by the "bad" guys, but why we are there, not much on that subject, probably we'll get some shit about a bad guy we are trying to get rid of, to save the Syrian people from misery. It is obvious, for the Syrian people, the cure is much worse than the illness.

       We can take it that practically all today's wars and the ensuing trauma, death and destruction, are about wealth, power and resources, and capitalism is the driving force, none of them are being waged for the benefit of the people. As long as we tolerate this system of capitalist greed, we will be mired in wars, death, destruction, fleeing refugees, "displaced persons" poverty and deprivation. Unity among all people's is the necessary prerequisite to ending this capitalist "civilisation", and creating a world free from borders, exploitation and wars, a world that sees to the needs of all our people, free from the profit motive.

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Truth, Buried In A Sea Of Speculation And Bias.

        I'm no apologist for Assad, nor an applauder for Putin and his military machine, but when it comes to situations like Syria, it is right that we try to find the truth. Syria is a country where millions of its citizens have been displaced, tens of thousands have been killed and maimed, most of its major cities have been turned to rubble, there are thousands of children being born homeless, or being born as refugees, but our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, spews out second hand, unverified western propaganda, while the truth lies buried in a sea of speculation and bias. There are other voices in this imperialist blood bath that is Syria, we have a duty to hear them. 

These Videos from Arrezafe:

      The Western military went into Afghanistan in 2001, since then a trail of death and destruction has moved across a vast swath of that part of the world, here we are in 2017, we are still in there with our military might, and the death and destruction continues at an accelerated rate. Let's not forget, that the vast majority of those displaced, deaths and injuries are of ordinary people from that region. We are talking about bus drivers, plumbers, teachers, shop assistants, doctors, elderly and children. Everybody must ask, why are they paying this price? 

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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.

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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

Stateless Democracy.

        Recently, for some, Rojava has been hailed as the new 1936 Spain, with its libertarian dreams being painfully brought to life, this being the case it would be expected that the surrounding states would take a dim view of that type of structure, and work to undermine its progress. Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, doesn't give it any of that "oxygen of publicity", that it spews out on trivia, sex and scandal. Despite this Rojava has struggled painfully on its course to that better world. However, the cards are stacked against it, as the various states, all of them opposed to any form of libertarian society, try to strangle the dream, as they did in Spain all those years ago, with sanctions, and brutal violence. Now the ultimate weapon is being used in Rojava, starving the region of the blood of life, water. Nothing is too sadistic, nothing is too brutal, as they work hard at stopping the idea of a libertarian society gaining ground. To our imperialist masters with their state apparatus, death and destruction is a price worth paying as they preach their mantra, capitalism or nothing.  

This from Insurrection News:

        The water and electricity cuts continue on its 4th day in Kobane. The Firat river’s water supply is so low that the base of the river, at least 3 kilometres in width is visible. The canton has announced that the cuts are indefinite. Those who have wells are sharing their water supply with their neighbours but this is a limited and ineffective alternative and thousands are without a drop of water.
       The use and control of natural resources has been something that the Turkish state has used against the Kurds for decades. As the crackdown and mass human rights violations against the Kurds continue in Bakur, Rojava is slowly strangled with the ongoing humanitarian embargo and water cuts. Worse, when Turkey finally releases the water from their end hundreds of villages will be flooded causing massive damages and disruptions to agriculture and livestock (as it did last year) which is the backbone of the economy. This is a tactic that Turkey has used repeatedly against Rojava; as did Assad by cutting water supplies to Kurdish regions or rerouting water from Kurdish areas to Arab regions.
        Terrorism takes many forms, whether its bombing and destroying thousands of villages, to burning hundreds of acres of forests and farms, to stopping water flowing further down to other regions, to embargoes. The use of the environment and land to oppress and terrorise the colonised is a well used tactic by states against indigenous communities and minorities.
       The motto of the Rojava Revolution is “Resistance is Life”, but I wonder how a deeply oppressed, economically underdeveloped society that lacks resources, infrastructure and access to multiple borders is able to resist such terrorism.

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

Capitalism=Hypocrisy.

        In this insane system of capitalism it is not difficult to find monumental hypocrisy, in this web of illusions, businesses are supposed to develop and make goods and then sell them and keep the profit. However, that rule is not always followed. Take the arms industry that multi-billion pound corporate creator of death and destruction, they like other corporate greed merchants receive public money, yours and mine, make the weapons of destruction, or whatever, then sell them back to us direct or via the government’s military spending. A nice little earner if you can get it.
       It has just been announced that the UK government is giving a European arms consortium £30 million to develop a laser weapon, no doubt once they have perfected it, they will sell it back to us and pocket the profit. £30 million to develop a new weapon at the same time as telling us, the ordinary people, we can’t afford welfare and social services. 

 

       Hypocrisy is part and parcel of this insane system, austerity for you and me, but our lords and masters are quite prepared to pay almost £2 million a day to bomb Syria into “freedom” with all the resultant death, misery and destruction that has ensued.
        It is estimated that our attempt at bombing Libya into freedom cost you and I, £1.4 billion, just part of the estimated £33 billion the UK has spent in overseas military adventures the last couple of decades in bolstering its corporate interests.
       All this under a campaign of austerity, where you and see, wage freezes/cuts, slashing of welfare and social services, the corporate world sees subsidies and increasing profits, while those at the receiving end of our “spreading democracy” see death, destruction, and mayhem. That is the capitalist system at work, doing what it was meant to do, make lots of wealth and power for that small cabal with their hands on the levers of power. 

 

Our Political System.

Wanker bankers, with their bundles of booty,
Sleazy solicitors, spewing slimy words for pieces of silver,
Lying lawyers, licking posteriors in the corridors of power,
Pompous politicians, products of posh fee paying schools,
Fraudulent financiers, fiddling the fruits of our labour,
Movers and shakers, false dream makers,
Weavers of illusions, creators of charades,
Perfidious pedlars of devious deals,
Nauseating narcissistic brainless mouths,
Candidates offered up to lead us to the promised land??? 

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

 

The Hand Of Hypocrisy.

 

        I wrote this post, The Hand of Hypocrisy, away back in March, 2011, since then we now know that our policy in Libya has borne the fruit of chaos, the disintegration of civil society, continuous bloodshed, misery and death, but it has now disappeared off the scene from our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media. We set off to do the same in Syria, but those nasty Russians jumped in to upset the equation. So now the Syrian people will just have to tolerate a longer, darker hell, and greater bloodshed. From 2011  to 2016, can anybody tell me what has changed in this imperialist world?

 The Hand of Hypocrisy:

         As Western Cruise missiles blast holes in Libya's infrastructure, killing Libyans to save Libyans, and possibly laying the ground work for a civil war, nobody is saying where they go from here. How long will the no-fly zone last, don't know. What do we do if the Libyans killing Libyans drags on in a long stalemate, do we send in the Western cavalry to take sides and give one side a wee push, more or less guaranteeing a prolonged civil war and possible occupation. Just to keep the peace mind you. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, the moral policemen are up to the necks in shit. The idea that this will be a nice clean surgical operation with all of Libya being ever thankful to the West is an illusion. We have been “policing” Iraq since 1991 and Afghanistan since 2001. When does our involvement in Libya end and at what cost? Not counting the Libyan deaths and injured, there is already one American plane down with one pilot missing, and we have just started.

        Setting aside the human horror of what is happening in Libya and casting a glance at the financial side, there must be questions. Each time a Tornado jet runs a sortie it takes approximately £30,000 of fuel. How many have we run so far? If a Tornado is brought down there is the £50 million cost of a replacement. Each cruise missile that is fired cost £500,000. There have been more than 110 cruise missiles fired so far. A quick calculation comes up with £55 million already up in smoke and misery from cruise missiles alone, with the arms industry rubbing its hands at the thought of all those being replaced. I don't know what proportion of those cruise missiles were fire by the UK but I reckon that we would fire our fair share. Then of course we have our submarines out there in the Med. and I have no doubt our boys wanted a shot at firing their gear off, I wonder what it cost to send a sub to the Med. and then fire off a few £500,000 missiles? While this little pygmy war is being played out in Libya, let's not forget our long running and on going £4 billion a year affair in Afghanistan.
        I know you can't put a price on human life but at a time when we in the UK are being faced with draconian cuts to every fibre of the social structure of our society, wage cuts and mass unemployment, is this the right policy. Can we in the UK really afford to strut around the world bombing democracy into other countries? When we look at the figures of death and misery resulting from our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan can Libya be justified?
      Meanwhile in nearby Yemen and Bahrain protesters are being brutally crushed but no call for a no-fly zone. Well Bahrain is really a US naval base, which is very handy to have so near all that oil, and Bahrain is also on best buddy terms with that other autocratic despot regime, Saudi Arabia. So we don't want to upset that little power structure do we? Then of course no call for a no-fly zone over Israel while it carried out its policy of genocide in Gaza 2008/09
      It's all hypocrisy and is really about oil, resources and power, the Western powers have proved often enough that when it comes to the people of the Middle East and Africa, they don't give a shit.

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

Defending The Rich With The Blood Of The Poor.

 

        As Syria explodes and Libya convulses and Iraq bleeds, all due to the military adventures of the various imperialists of this world, and the UK is spending more than some small countries entire GDP, on nuclear weapons, it is all the more important that we stand up and resist the continued drive for militarism as an answer to the world's problems.

An appeal from The Scottish Peace Network:

    Two events coming up organised by the Scottish Peace Network:

       On Thursday, October 27, we will hold our monthly vigil at Dewar's statue on Buchanan Street from 5-6pm. We will have a banner, placards and a flyer.
        By coincidence, this Thursday the UN General Assembly will vote on a motion to establish a conference in 2017 to negotiate a treaty banning all nuclear weapons. I am afraid it will take more than a UN resolution to overcome the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex, but a UN vote promoting a ban on all nuclear weapons provides us with an opportunity to raise this critical issue.
       So join us on the vigil and we will bring placards calling for a ban on nuclear weapons.
      2. On Saturday, October 29, the Peace Network will set up a stall from 12-2 on Buchanan Street in front of where Borders bookstore was located and opposite to the TGIF restaurant. We will have white poppies to distribute for a donation and a flyer explaining the history of the white poppy.
       Come along and help us with the stall. This will be a good time to talk to people about peace issues and the need to resist militarism.

 

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