Sudan.

          While our media are all a frenzy over the Ukrainian affair, you would tend to think that all is well in the rest of the world. However, that is far from the truth, their are brutal wars and repressions dotted all around the planet, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Rojava, to mention a few, and practically no media coverage of the situation in Sudan. The people of Sudan have been continuing to hold mass peaceful protests against the military coup that took place on October 2021. These ongoing peaceful protests have been met with savage and brutal force by the military war lords in charge of Sudan, resulting in many grotesque injures and deaths. Despite the viciousness of the state repression, the people continue to take to the streets and face down the state violence. They deserve our fullest support and solidarity, their fight for freedom is our fight.

The following from Enough is Enough:

           Sudan. March 25. 2022. Mohammed Abdellatif, 28 years old, was killed with a shotgun as he was shot at close range in the chest, abdomen, and neck by the joint security forces in Wad Madani during yesterday’s Marches of the Millions, bringing the total number of martyrs since the October 25 military coup to 90.

Originally published by Dabanga.

           In a preliminary field report on the Khartoum marches yesterday, the Socialist Doctors Association (SDA) said that the number of injuries recorded was 43, including 8 bullet wounds from live ammunition.
        The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) confirmed that the coup authorities in Khartoum are still using deadly violence against the peaceful revolutionaries and that the revolutionary protesters are still adhering to their peaceful protest tactics, ‘which have proven their strength against bullets and the security arsenal’. The total number of injuries in the Khartoum North (Bahri) marchers on Wednesday, March 23, reached 7 cases, including 5 injuries from live bullets, including a wound to the chest. The doctors’ report indicated that there were other cases of injuries that were treated by field aid teams, and they are not included in the list.

Shotgun use

         The joint security forces used heavily used shotguns as part of their repression of the Marches of the Millions in February and March, and a number of revolutionaries were killed whilst hundreds sustained injuries from shotguns. The surgery of such shotgun wounds is complicated by the difficulty of removing the scattered shrapnel that can settle next to some vital organs. A shotgun firearm designed to shoot a cartridge known as a ‘shotshell’, which usually discharges numerous small sub-projectiles, like shrapnel. According to the CCSD, 101 cases of shotgun wound infection were monitored on March 21, 2022, including a serious injury that led to the loss of an eye in the processions of the city of Wad Madani.
         The committee announced its report entitled ‘The New Killer’, issued yesterday, that it had recorded 4 deaths and 327 cases of gunshot wounds with this firearm since the coup of last October 25. The committee also mentioned in its report the presence of some other light injuries with shotguns that are treated by field teams.

All over Sudan

        Three central cities that witnessed Marches of the Millions yesterday Khartoum, Khartoum North (Bahri), and Omdurman. All three witnessed brutal repression by the joint security forces during their march towards the Republican Palace and the march in Omdurman’s streets heading to the parliament buildings.
        The repression led to a number of wounded who were transferred to hospitals whilse others were treated in the field. The joint security forces met the peaceful demonstrators with excessive force, using tear gas, live bullets, and stun grenades in an attempt to prevent the peaceful processions from reaching the Republican Palace. The Omdurman processions managed, under the sound of stun grenades and tear gas, to reach Parliament. The demonstrators chanted throughout the capital, condemning the coup of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) leader Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Commander Mohamed ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo.
        Marches of the Millions, called for by the Resistance Committees also took place in several cities in the states, including Wad Madani, Port Sudan, Nyala, Atbara, Singa, El Geneina, and El Gedaref. Everywhere, the protesters demanded full civilian rule and the return of the military to their barracks and held the coup authorities responsible for the deterioration of the economic and living conditions in Sudan. A member of the El Gedaref Resistance Committees told Radio Dabanga that the El Gedaref demonstrations moved past the murals for the martyrs, next to the morgue, and met on Marches of the Millions Revolution Street in the city center with chants denouncing the coup and demanding full civil rule. The police confronted the demonstrators and closed the El Gedaref market.

 

Visit ann arky's home home at https://spiritofrevolt.info 

Just War??

 

          I just wish those calling for an end to the war in Ukraine would widen their call to end war. It is not just in Europe that countries are being bombed, the population being slaughtered. Let's look a little further afield, Yemen, 24 MILLION Estimated number of people in need of assistance Source, 100,000 Estimated number of people killed since 2015 Source 4 MILLION Estimated number of displaced people, Still the bombing goes on, but it is done by one of our "friendly" nations, Saudi Arabia, so turn a blind eye. Somalia, a civil war raging since the 1980's,  Casualties: 300,000 (SFG)–400,000+ (AFP) Displaced: 1.1 million+, various nations giving support to try to prop up a government that will work with them, not the for people of Somalia. Rojava, a region in northern Syria that has claimed independence and is being bombed by Turkey on a daily basis in an attempt to crush and destroy any idea of Kurdish independence. Then let's not forget the Israeli genocide on the people of Palestine, with daily killings and land grabs by the Israeli Zionist apartheid regime, and the West again turns a blind eye, because Israel is one of our "friendly" nations.  

       It seems that Europe is sacrosanct so a war in Europe is of greater importance than any war else where. Are European lives worth more than Yemen citizen, Somalia citizens, Kurdish citizens, or Palestinian citizens? Direct our anger at the imperialist power blocks that are trying to tie up the planet in their own  particular power block, and will take any action they deem necessary to maintain  and further their control of the planet and its resources. You and I are the pawns in their cruel, despicable and vicious  plans and are called on to rally behind what they deem a "just war" and getting us to condemn what they deem to be an "unjust war", we are also the cannon fodder in their greed driven desire for world control. There is no such thing as a "just war", slaughter of innocents is never and can never be, just. 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Disobedience.

     Two pieces of information I recently read, to me highlight the dreadful state of our world today. The first is the human savagery that results in the fact that every ten minutes a Yemeni child under 5 years of age dies of hunger. The other is the state to which we have driven the planet, the recent Australian fires have more or less wiped out the Koalas, having destroyed 80% of their habitat.

    There is much more, millions of people across the globe are on the streets fighting to end inequality, injustice, corruption and state brutality. We have devised a system that perpetuates wide spread poverty, injustice and corruption. A system that spawns wars and all the misery, death and destruction that goes with those wars. A system that has driven life on our planet to the edge of extinction. None of this was an unforeseen accident, nor was it inevitable, it was driven by blind greed and deliberate exploitation. If we continue down this road, sadly those driving this human tragedy will not be the only ones to suffer as the inevitable collapse unfolds.

     It may already be too late, even so, humanity that desires that decent world for all, must continue and re-double every effort, and find new imaginative ways to destroy this economic disastrous system and halt this man made disaster. We just can't throw our hands in the air, continue as we are, and watch our grandchildren's future disappear in a brutal man made extinction.

     The following quote is one answer to our problem:

     "You want sanity, democracy, community, an intact Earth? We can't get there obeying Constitutional theory and law crafted by slave masters, imperialists, corporate masters, and Nature destroyers. We can't get there kneeling before robed lawyers stockpiling class plunder precedent up their venerable sleeves. So isn't disobedience the challenge of our age? Principled, inventive, escalating disobedience to liberate our souls, to transfigure our work as humans on this Earth." Richard Grossman

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

War Kills A Child, We Are Responsible.

          This vile insane system that we live under has spawned endless wars, millions of deaths, devastation, and millions of displaced people, mass poverty and deprivation, with no end in sight. The babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media pumps out its biased misinformation about the "conflict" in Syria, but not a lot about the horrifying situation in Yemen. What started as a "civil war" in Yemen has developed  into an international power grab involving Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan and Senegal, all lined up against the Houthi in Yemen. As if that line up was not enough to be involved in another country's affairs, of course the UK would have to stick its nose into any conflict involving a Middle East country that has oil and gas. We are sending weaponry and military advisers, to Saudi Arabia to assist them in their battle in Yemen.

     The situation in Yemen is dire to say the least. In war it seems that the children are of no consequences, their deaths just mount up and become a statistic in a list of statistics. Not our children, so their deaths fade into the fog of lost memories. But every child has a family that is devastated and torn asunder by that death.

          As of March 26, 2018, at least 10,000 Yemenis had been killed by the fighting, with more than 40,000 casualties overall.
Getting accurate information on the death toll is difficult, but Save The Children estimated at least 50,000 children died in 2017, an average of 130 every day.
       The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has estimated that Saudi-led coalition air attacks caused almost two-thirds of reported civilian deaths, while the Houthis have been accused of causing mass civilian casualties due to their siege of Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city.

       All wars are vile and destructive, and in most cases completely unnecessary, but combatants that target hospitals must surely have reached the bottom of the barrel of humanity's dregs.

     Saudi Arabia has pressured aid groups to leave rebel-controlled areas of Yemen, saying that aid workers are at risk. In January 2016, a hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders was hit by a rocket, killing four people. A bombing carried out by the Saudi-led coalition injured at least six people at a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in October 2015.

       Remember, Saudi Arabia is the country that we are sending weaponry and military advisers to assist them in the battles in Yemen. Where does that leave our Honourable Gentlemen that sit around that symbol of privilege and power, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption?

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 Office Worker War.

        Something that we don't read a lot about in our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, is the war being waged by America in different parts of the world, by means of drones. This office worker war, where the perpetrators of the violence sit comfortable, miles away from the havoc and destruction that they dispatch on persons unknown, could be, and should be, categorised as war crimes. In war, the combatants are supposed to differentiate from legitimate combatant targets and civilians, drones fail miserably in this respect. 

      A new analysis of the data available to the public about drone strikes, conducted by the human-rights group Reprieve, indicates that even when operators target specific individuals – the most focused effort of what Barack Obama calls “targeted killing” – they kill vastly more people than their targets, often needing to strike multiple times. Attempts to kill 41 men resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, as of 24 November.

       This type of warfare is the preferred option, as it can be sold to the public easier than boots on the ground, with such illusionary labels as “clean” “surgical” and “accurate”, all lies, as the above information makes clear. It is not going to go away as America has seen a forty fold increase in its drone capacity 

According to the GAO report, "From 2002 to 2010, the number of unmanned aerial systems in DOD's [Department of Defense] inventory has increased about forty fold, from about 170 to 7,500 aircraft." The CIA has over 80 Predator drones, while the Air Force has 468 Predators and the Army has 110, according to an October 2014 War Is Boring piece - based on General Atomics' (company that makes Predator drones) numbers - on drone fleet figures.

       Pakistan has suffered drone strikes on a vast scale which increased massively after Obama came to office. In that country since 2004, over 3,000 people have been killed by drones, with an estimated mere 2% being high ranking combatants and almost 200 were children. America is not at war with Pakistan, but attacks and kills the people of that country on a regular basis.
       What other country regularly bombs another “friendly” country, and gets away with it, with no questions asked by the international community? The same is happening in Yemen and Somalia, attacks on other nations without any declaration of war. This is the new American imperialism, brutal and indiscriminate attacks around the world, all done from the comfort of an office thousands of miles from the death and destruction.

        Of course the UK state is not innocent in this office worker warfare, as of 2013, the UK state has 500 drones.

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

The State's Soldierless War.

       War is the state's method of defending and expanding its corporate empire, but becomes increasingly difficult to sustain as public opinion starts to rebel against the continuing line of young dead and injured returning for foreign lands. Enter the drone, the ideal state weapon, war with no casualties to the perpetrator. You can carry out your carnage from a comfortable office, the young people involved can lead a normal office life. No need to get dirty, no need to be fit, no need to risk your life as you kill the others. There is something sinister and immoral about young people sitting in an office, looking at a monitor and unleashing death and devastation on unsuspecting people in another country.

       Over the last ten years or so the use of armed drones has seen an very dramatic increase and an ever increasing spread across more countries, the most recent count is that ten countries in the world have been hit by drone strikes. For a while it was Afghanistan and Pakistan that received the majority of these strikes, but in recent years they have spread to Africa. Yemen being the country that now receives daily strikes, that not only kill, but create terror among the local population of innocent people including children and elderly.

        The state will not give up on war, though we have not declared war since the end of the second world war, we have never been at peace. The US and the UK have been involved in combat in different countries across the globe almost unceasingly. Now with the advent of the drone, that job is becoming easier for the state. We make drone strikes in foreign countries, killing and maiming its citizens, without any declaration of war, we often refer to these countries as friendly nations.

       Countries with drones are on the increase, this is the shape of war to come, no declaration, no troops on the ground, no dead or injured coming home, just death and carnage in a far away place, that we don't know too much about. We are supposed to get on with watching tele and shopping, while the various states squabble as they carve up the the world's resources by means of death and destruction. We can surely do better than this.
This from Watchdog.net:

      Over half of Yemen's 24.8 million citizens hear it every day — the sound of a robot plane bringing death from the sky.
      Drone strikes don't require troops on the ground. They happen off-screen, and out of Americans' minds. But for the people of Yemen, the constant terror of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, of playing or working near a suspect of some unspecified crime, is what's breeding terrorists in an area crippled by fear.
     Enough of children's scarred skeletons, of cars reduced to melted metal, of the massacre of a foreign people without reason or mercy.
      Please, join us in demanding President Obama stop murder by drone, and stop breeding a new culture of hate, terror and trauma!
PETITION TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: Drone strikes in Yemen do nothing to stop Al Qaeda and everything to terrify civilians, kill innocents and traumatize generations. Stop this brutal practice now.

Click here to sign -- it just takes a second.
Thanks,
-- The folks at Watchdog.net

P.S. If the other links aren't working for you, please go here to sign: http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/4528?n=66047434.-3y5PV

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

Death Of An 8 Year Old Bride!!

      Today, people are living in slavery in countries all around the world. Slavery is hidden away in factories, on farms, and behind closed doors, in homes and other places in the cities and towns of the world’s richest and poorest nations. But with the power of a worldwide movement, social networks, and technologies, we can expose these hidden crimes – so that ours is the last generation that needs to fight the trade in human lives.

An appeal from walkfree.org:

      The story is all over the news – days ago, Rawan, an 8-year-old Yemeni girl was sold by her parents, forced to marry a man five times her age and on her “wedding night”, her fragile young body sustained fatal injuries. 

      Right now, the collective horror of the world is focused on the devastating death of an 8-year-old girl. We’ve seen thousands of emails, Facebook posts and tweets from our community calling for action. We know that ending Forced Child Marriage everywhere poses big obstacles and yet, this may be one of few fleeting moments when millions of at-risk girls are counting on the support of a global movement of activists. We’re not going to let them down.

     Forced Child Marriage is a form of modern slavery, and in Yemen there is no law that makes it illegal. It’s common for girls as young as 8 to be forced to marry to settle debts. In fact, 50% of girls in Yemen are married before they reach the age of 18.

    The Yemeni Government has the power to bring an end to Forced Child Marriage forever; the first step is to ban the marriage of anyone under the age of 18, protecting children from a life of domestic and sexual slavery. The Yemeni government needs to know that the eyes of the world are watching and expect their swift response. Will you help?  

      Ask the Yemeni Government to end Forced Child Marriage by making marriage under 18 illegal.

     Rawan’s story has struck a chord with people everywhere.  As well as depriving girls of their right to a childhood, Forced Child Marriage leaves victims vulnerable to sexual, emotional and physical abuse at the hands of their so-called husbands and extended families.

    Now is the time to act. The Walk Free community is over 3.7 million strong and growing rapidly. Our collective voice is powerful – we can urge the government of Yemen to pass crucial legislation protecting children and young girls from the brutalities of forced marriage.

      Forced Marriage is modern slavery and can be stopped. Call on the government of Yemen to ban Forced Child Marriage.

      The idea of being sold into a life of domestic and sexual slavery seems unbelievable, and it’s sad that only extreme cases like Rawan’s gain attention. How amazing would it be if these cases never made the media – not because they were unreported, but because Forced Child Marriage no longer existed?

     Thank you in advance for your support. If you have a moment, please forward this email to 3 of your friends so we can become one step closer to building a world free of this form of modern slavery. 

In solidarity,

Debra, Nick, Mich, Kate, Ryan, Jess, Amy and the Walk Free Team

P.S. On Twitter? Follow us  

1. http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/10/yemen-end-child-marriage

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Robotic Bombing Of Friendly Nations.

     The soldierless war is here and in full swing and the innocent deaths are piling up. I say war but the deaths are inflicted by a country that has not declared war against the country which is suffering the innocent casualties. America, that defender of peace and freedom, is currently sending  drones into Pakistan and Yemen, with very little reporting on the results which include the deaths ever increasing numbers of children.

     This is a list of those children who are known to have been killed by drone attacks, the number of children injured and adults killed and injured would obviously create a much longer list. If these sort of numbers of children being killed was in any Western country there would be an outcry, and rightly so, where is our outrage? All this in countries that are not at war with America. Where is the International Community on this flagrant violation of a country's sovereignty? This list was taken from Drone Watch:

List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen

Compiled from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports
PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male
YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19

ann arky's home.

Imperialist Office Warriors.

      President Obama's inaugural speech last month was the voice of hypocrisy, The Prince of Peace stated, and stated without a hint of embarrassment, that “A decade of war is now ending,” --”We, the people, still believe that enduring and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.” What that translates into is, “We will not be sending so many of you overseas to kill and maim, you will be able to do this from a comfortable office in Nevada and Saudi Arabia.

     We are now seeing foreign invading troops preparing to leave Afghanistan without having achieved their object, since nobody seems to be able to say what was the object. That doesn't mean the end of the military campaign, the war will continue from computer screens in the form of drones. According to a report from the area of North Waziristan, from 2008 to 1012, there have been around 147 drone strikes, killing 894 people with 211 injured. This year has seen an escalation in the number of drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen.

      The face of imperialist wars is changing, weapon laden armour plated boots will still be called on to do some of the dirty work, but this will be their cleaning up operations. The real slaughter will be done by young smooth faced office workers, sitting at their desks marking up scores on hits, just like any other computer game. Only this time it is for real, real bodies being blown to bits, real children dying, real homes being demolished. No need to be a battle hardened trained killer, you can make you way up the military ladder by having the highest score of hits in the office.

       Just to encourage those 9 to 5 office work killers and make them feel part of the “hero” brigade, they are considering creating a medal for the cyber-killers. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta recently announced that the Pentagon is creating a medal that can be awarded to troops who have a direct impact on combat operations, but do it well away from any combat zone.

     To those on the receiving end of drone warfare, the result is just as bloody, destructive and terrifying as any other type of warfare. There is no such thing as clean humane warfare. Drones of course sanitise it for the perpetrators of that destructive violence. You can kill from 9 to 5 and then go home to your family and have a night out. This is the new imperialist warfare. In an interview Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta. Asked by journalist Martha Raddatz whether the 2014 pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan would mean an increased reliance on drones, Panetta said: “ I think that's reality. We've done that in Pakistan. We're doing it in Yemen and elsewhere. And I think the reality is it's going to be a continuing tool of national defense in the future.”

     There is a ready trained army of computer literate kids, experts at computer games all well able to spend a few hours a day playing their game and getting paid and walking away as if it were “just a game”. It is a frightening thought, but it is our future, unless we do something to change the system.

 

 

ann arky's home.

BOMBING THEM IN TO DEMOCRACY.

      One feature of Western foreign policy is that other countries can't create democracy without the might of the Western military and Western government intervention. The powers that be preach this idiotic message that for democracy to spread anywhere in the world, it needs the fire power of the West, of course ignoring the fact that we don't have democracy here. People across the world can't do that for themselves, the ordinary people of Pakistan and Yemen can't have democracy unless we go in with our drones and special forces. The West's big lie is that by its war on terror, it is spreading democracy, when in fact they are creating chaos in an attempt at permanent domination.

This from Freedom Socialist Party (US):

      Who knows how many die from these attacks, since they are carried out secretly by the CIA. And civilian casualties are falsely minimized by counting every male of military age an enemy combatant. I guess “Kill-them-all” is the policy at hand. Hundreds of non-combatants have died, including a good many little girls and boys.
Obviously, this didn’t just start with Obama. Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the world and territorially home to several ancient cultures, was artificially created in 1947 by the British Empire. From the beginning, the country has been dominated by a right-wing military, backed first by Great Britain and then the United States.
Since the 1980s war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, Pakistan’s state apparatus has been mixed up with the Islamic fundamentalists in both countries. In fact, the Taliban was nurtured and funded by the United States in Afghanistan. So much for the myth that the U.S. brings secular democracy and women’s equality to the Middle East.
      Only the people themselves can do that, and they are trying desperately. Before she was attacked, Malala said, “If the new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns by the terrorists. We must raise our voice.”
      Forty-four years ago (1968) Pakistanis, with women in the forefront, launched a stunning revolution. They forced a dictator to abdicate and ran society for 139 days. Workers occupied factories, peasants seized land, and students took over the schools and colleges. This can happen again and I have no doubt that Malala Yousafzai, and other determined young women and men like her, will be a part of that struggle.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

A HIGH SCORE AT THE OFFICE TODAY??

     The march of the robotic war continues at a rapid pace, mostly unobserved in the West but we are the harbingers of the peopleless army. Most people tend to see CCTV cameras as a benign watch on criminals, but they are all part and parcel of the surveillance and control by a central authority and that authority spreads across the globe. the latest stage is the surveillance drones and their big brother, the killer drones.

      America has used drones to strike at and kill citizens in other countries, and since Obama came to power the use of drones as robotic assassins has grown enormously.  In Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Obama administration is using drones to invade other nations sovereign territory and kill people by remote control in those countries, while no state of war exist with the U.S.. Some of those killed have been American citizens. No charges, no jury, no judge. Just a CIA hit list.

            Once one state finds an efficient killing method others soon follow, now 50 countries have drones. Of course drones are not just being used to invade others soveriegn territory but are used as means of surveillance in their own home land. They have been used in the UK for this purpose and in the US, no doubt other countries are fllowing suit. The implications are horrendous, as country after country builds up its peopleless army of spies and assassins. Soon war will become a 9 to 5 office job, you'll have kids sitting in front of what looks like a game consul in some government office, getting excited as they see there hits score go higher and higher. No doubt there will be bonuses for the highest scorers. They will probably boast to their friends and family about their high score, oblivious that each score is the death of a family or a village, or even worse as the drones get larger and carry a heavier payload of destruction and death.

       I wrote on this some time back and make no apologies for doing so again, it is a horror world we should not allow ourselves to sleepwalk into, it is a world that only suits the corporate state.

ann arky's home.   

IT'S ALL FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!!!

STOP THE BOMBING OF LIBYA NOW: PROTEST 19 APRIL

        Britain France and the US have now come clean. The article signed by Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama, and published today in Washington, Paris and London, makes clear the war on Libya is not about protecting civilians but about regime change. Having ignored peace moves from the African Union, NATO is now set on escalating the bombing.

The humanitarian spin they are putting on the operation is exposed by the fact that the Western governments continue to support brutal regimes in Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, where severe repression against democracy activists continues virtually uncriticised.

        Meanwhile as predicted the bombing is claiming many civilian casualties and helping to deepen the division in the country. In response to the continued bombing and this open and illegal statement of intent, Stop the War has called a protest at Downing Street next Tuesday 19 April at 5pm.

IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.

Please attend if you can and spread the word as widely as possible. http://stopwar.org.uk/



PROTEST: STOP THE BOMBING OF LIBYA NOW
TUESDAY 19 APRIL, 5PM
DOWNING STREET, LONDON

ann arky's home.

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.

ann arky's home.