Empathy.

 

           I posted this away back in 2010, and we are still at it, fostering hate in the defence of the wealth and power of the privileged few in the capitalist world. If only we would walk a mile in somebody else's shoes. Or as Rabbie Burns said, 

" O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us"

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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
 

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.

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From The Horse's Mouth.

        It is always nice to hear from someone who has been inside the savage beast of corruption, what you already know, it adds that little bit more weight to the view that the system stinks from top to bottom.

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Oil And Genocide.

        He says it so well, his voice is a voice for justice, David Rovics has sang around the world, and it usually is a powerful message delivered with sincerity and compassion. Syria suffers as does a lot of the Middle East, mainly due to the Imperialists who want to control the oil and gas. However, Gaza has sufferer for decades, because of a religious belief, that some man in the sky promised that land to the Jews. So they go about a brutal land grab and a policy of savage genocide, while the rich Western nations supply the funding and the weaponry. The powers that be are not blind to the suffering of the people of Gaza, it just suits their purpose, as Syria bleeds and Gaza dies, the Imperialists bleat about helping them. So the slaughter and deprivation will continue, until we get rid of those powers that be.

 

     "If we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless we side with the powerful — we don’t remain neutral.“

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The Voice of An Imerialist Soldier.

      We all know, or should know that the invasion of Iraq was based on a false picture, an illusion created by the Western imperial states and propagated by that vile babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media. However it is still good to keep hearing it, and driving home the truth, that wars are about resources, power and wealth for that secret cabal sitting in the marble halls of power. 

     I saw this personal account of the vile nature that inevitably creeps into the individuals that find themselves caught up in these imperialist brutal wars, on the arrezafe site.

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As The Oil Flows, So Does The Blood.

       We all know that wars are fought not for principles of morality, defending democracy, or freeing "the people", but for the gain of those in power, the controlling of resources for big corporations, and dominance in resource rich territory. Anybody who can't see this, just isn't paying attention. Sometimes the manoeuvring remains shrouded in illusion and the fog of lies, sometimes it comes out quite quickly, but it is always a struggle to get the facts accepted.

       The Saudi lead massacre in the Yemen is one of those charades that the light of truth falls on while it is still in operation. The whole Yemeni slaughter is no more than bombing a clear path for a Western/Saudi backed oil pipeline to by-pass the Strait of Hormuz, and be free from Iranian influence. 

        We will support organisations like al-Qaeda, one day, then bomb them the next, depending how the powerful can use them.

        The following is an extract from a very interesting article on that Western backed Yemeni slaughter, taken from The Canary:

Massive attack

         In an official statement after the April operation, the Saudi-led coalition said that “more than 800 al-Qaeda elements” had been killed in the military confrontation. Mainstream media outlets parroted the coalition claim. The Wall Street Journal referred to a successful “offensive” marking a “new direction for the coalition.” And Reuters described the operation as a “lighting advance” that “routed the militants” from their stronghold. In the official narrative, on the day Saudi-led Yemeni and UAE troops moved to the outskirts of Mukalla, local Islamic clerics and tribesmen were enrolled to mediate al-Qaeda’s withdrawal. AQAP subsequently “fled westwards” in the wake of the frightening military advance.
        A statement from the Saudi embassy in Washington said: Saudi forces are also on the ground alongside the UAE forces in Mukalla… it is a Saudi-led Arab Coalition that is fighting AQAP alongside the US military contingent on the ground. New details about the alleged US and UK-backed assault emerged on Wednesday from an interview with the Commander of the Saudi-led Yemeni forces behind the Mukalla operation.
         In the Al Jazeera interview, Major General Faraj Salmeen al-Bahsini painted a Hollywood-esque picture of a: big number of [AQAP] fighters… destroyed first by the coalition’s warplanes and then by [our] forces on the ground. None of the al-Qaeda fighters was able to flee these camps.
       Al-Bahsini said that the total number of AQAP fighters killed was “probably” much higher than the 800 originally claimed. The general described: precise air strikes by the coalition’s warplanes on [AQAP’s] key positions, gatherings, ammunition depots and centres-of-command rooms.
         There were also, he said, bold coalition navy attacks on hundreds of fighters who were fleeing the city on boats and vessels bound for the Horn of Africa.
Not to mention: special commandos who attacked al-Qaeda from the sea The commandos bravely secured the Dhabah oil terminal from the AQAP barbarians, before rapidly defusing hundreds of landmines.

Except they didn’t.

Attack? What Attack?
        Independent on-the-ground sources have denied there was any such attack. Veteran BBC journalist Iona Craig, who has reported extensively from Yemen, said that the coalition statement was “ridiculous”, as AQAP had already deserted the city before the alleged military ‘rout’: There weren’t even 800 fighters left there. There was no fighting inside the city because al-Qaeda had already left. She described the 800 figure as “a lie that’s not even plausible.” Craig had been in Mukalla a month before the military operation. She said that Saudi-led forces had been secretly negotiating with AQAP for the previous two weeks “to let fighters leave”. Far from being ‘routed’, al-Qaeda “had been given free passage out of the city” by their Saudi benefactors.
         There were sporadic clashes on roads leading into Mukalla, but none within the city itself. She also said that coalition airstrikes were hitting targets that had already been repeatedly bombed.
        Mohammed al-Yazidi, a Mukalla-based writer, said during the operation that locals were surprised at the “prompt and bloodless exit” of AQAP from the city.
         Hisham al-Omeisy, a Yemeni political analyst, similarly reported that there was “no real battle” as AQAP fighters had left the city within twelve hours. Yet, he said: Coalition capitalise, claim huge battle killed 800. In other words, the Saudi ‘victory’ against AQAP in Mukalla was achieved without a single fire-fight in the city.

The US and UK collude in Saudi pipeline plan        While under al-Qaeda’s control, Hadramawt had remained curiously free from Saudi aerial bombardment since the beginning of the war. The province is central to a long standing Saudi plan, supported by the US and UK, to install an oil and gas pipeline route through Yemen to the Gulf of Aden. The idea is to bypass Iranian influence via the Strait of Hormuz. Regional oil supplies must currently pass through the Strait to reach world oil markets.
       The pipeline plan is mentioned in a top secret 2008 State Department cable from the US embassy in Yemen to the Secretary of State: A British diplomat based in Yemen told PolOff [US embassy political officer] that Saudi Arabia had an interest to build a pipeline, wholly owned, operated and protected by Saudi Arabia, through Hadramawt to a port on the Gulf of Aden, thereby bypassing the Arabian Gulf/Persian Gulf and the straits of Hormuz.
        Ousted Yemeni President Abdullah Saleh had originally supported the project, but eventually became its chief opponent.

The full article is a must read HERE:

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Western Imperialism, Plain And Simple.

      The working class should take a few lessons from the UK state apparatus, they never give up. They spout about listening to the will of the people, but when the people say something they don't like, they just wait a bit and then after an avalanche of propaganda, ask again. So the people have spoken, Britain will not bomb Syria, well let's beef up the propaganda of fear, and then ask again. 

A modern graveyard of ordinary people.

      They will destroy Syria, well it is practically destroyed already, but they still want rid of Assad and his cronies, and the rat bag of fundamentalists aren't doing it quick enough. So they need to up the stakes, to complete their original plan, get rid of Assad and claim the oil and gas fields for Western corporatism. Compare this approach with that taken by the UK state on the Scottish independence vote, the people have spoken, it should not be raised again at least for a generation, no matter if circumstances change. They are obviously keener on bombing other sovereign states than they are at allowing a people their independence.

The shape of Western freedom in the Middle East.

       We must stop this insanity being piloted by Cameron and his cronies, we the people of the UK have nothing to gain from blasting the civilian population of any other country. Make no mistake, if UK imperialists start bombing Syria, it will be civilians that will feel the brunt of that savage brutality. Like Iraq, towns and cities will be crushed beneath the power of modern day weapons. It will be ordinary men, women and children that will lie beneath the rumble. The officer and political class will be well protected from the Armageddon spawned by the destructive power of modern weaponry.

No politicians here.

     The gainers will be the Western arms industry and the oil and gas corporations, none of whom will ever be at the forefront of the brutality and savagery of modern warfare. 

Iraq, 17 August 2015.

         The UK state has been at war continuously for centuries, this is just another imperialist venture on top of the hundreds of others. A continuous sacrifice of the lives of ordinary people to further the wealth and power of corporations, floated on the illusion of fighting for democracy, and bring freedom to other people. It will continue as long as we touch our forelock and bend our knee in submission to the state and its brutal, imperialistic apparatus.

        To end this insanity, greed and brutal scramble for power and wealth, we have to sweep away the state, all its control, power and surveillance apparatus, its borders, and that divisive man made creation, the nation state. One world, one people, living in communities linked by co-operation, mutual aid, free association and seeing to the needs of all our people. 

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Hands Off Syria.

 

   

    The West is hell bent in turning the entire Middle East into a stone age area awash with sectarian violence, Iraq, Libya, now Syria with Iran still in their sights. All this misery heaped on the people of the area, to open up its rich resources to the dollar driven corporate greed machine. This is not about compassion for the ordinary people, it's not about democracy. The Western corporate juggernaut doesn't give a shit about the people of any area, but it does care about oil and gas and the control of these resources. When the corporate world speaks the political puppets obey, this is not Western politicians concerned about the well being of people in the Middle East, it is simply a plunder of another countries natural resources, control and profit, plain and simple.

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Stop the War bulletin | June 2013 | stopwar.org.uk

Tomorrow: demonstrate against US sending arms to Syria

Stop Western Intervention in Syria

US Embassy Grosvenor Square London W1A 2LQ
Saturday 15 June 2013 1pm

     Earlier today the US approved sending arms to Syrian rebel groups, a policy that has been pushed by Britain and France for months and one that threatens to escalate violence in Syria.

      The possibility of a no fly zone - the prelude to the horrific bombing campaign carried about by Britain and France in Libya - now looks more likely as the West seeks to intensify an already difficult conflict with devastating humanitarian consequences.

Join us tomorrow to Stop Western Intervention in Syria: US Embassy, 1pm Saturday June 15.

Please make sure you attend and spread the word.

Take action

• Join our protest at the US Embassy on 15th June at 1pm.
• Share the event with your Facebook contacts.
  

Read more on Syria:

• Shamus Cooke: The real reason Obama is going to war with Syria has nothing to do with chemical weapons

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A SOLD REVOLUTION???

        As Cameron's battle for Libya thunders on we have to admit that it bears no resemblance to the original idea of an “Arab Spring” What was originally floated as a wee umbrella to help the pro-democracy uprising in Libya get on with the their revolution, has now changed into a NATO attack on the government of a North African country. In the regime change being sought in Libya, we have to ask the question, “who is doing the changing” and why? The Libyan people would do well to remember that there is no such think in politics as a free lunch, and also, that NATO and the Europeans are not spending a projected £1 billion in a six month military expenditure out of benevolence towards a North African pro-democracy movement. The European track record in that part of the world does not read of benevolence and democracy.

         The best that the Libyans can expect out of this is a partitioned country, or a civil war. In either case the infrastructure of their country will be in tatters, they will be dependent on the West for loans in an attempt to reconstruct the country. The West will have it troops in, just to keep the peace, of course, and it will also have control of the oil. The Libyans meanwhile can get on as best they can with their civil war or partitioned country.

      Is there anybody out there that believes that the Libyan people will come out of this the victors? When the "rebels"called in a foreign imperialist military power, they sold their revolution. They may get rid of Gaddafi, but their new masters, the West backed up by NATO will prove to be just as ruthless and perhaps even more so. When it comes to oil and profit, people come away down the scale.

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