The High Cost Of Killing.

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

What Cost Bombing?

     It is no surprise that after last night's expected success of the imperialist warmongers, in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, the same cabal that tell us we must have austerity to balance the books, we can't afford decent social services, these are difficult times, we shouldn't live beyond our means, have no problem opening the nations cheque book for war.

        According to the the Ministry of Defence, (should be renamed, Ministry of War) figures released in 2010 state that every time a Tornado plane takes to the air, it costs the taxpayer £35,000 per hour. Assuming the average flight lasts about six hours, not excessive, that comes in at £210,000 an excursion. Of course they will not be flying paying tourist, each Tornado will have a payload of probably four Pathway bombs, (£22,000 each) and two Brimstone missiles, (£105,000 each) that takes us to the staggering cost of £508,000 per plane per mission. Of course these instruments of destruction rarely fly solo on missions, they tend to fly in pairs. So that takes your cost of each mission to a little over £1 million. Of course our air-force has much more expensive weaponry at its disposal, they could take off with our super-duper destructive toy, the Storm Shadow, at a cool £800,000 each. Now that would make a nice big bang. 

         During our imperialist intervention in Libya in 2011, 16 Tornado GR4s were employed, at £35,000 per hour flying cost, and used 230 Brimstones missiles, (£105,000 each) and a number of Storm Shadows, (£800,000 each). Of course there are other costs involved, support and back up services, also these planes often have to refuel in the air, a very expensive exercise. What if just one aircraft is lost, at a cost of £9.4 million.

      So you see how the costs stack up as the missions continue over a period of years. The other imperialist forces have been bombing Syria for approximately 15 months so far. Considering that some of the most powerful military in the world have been bombing the hell out of Syria for that amount of time, what difference do you think the British imperialists will make?

       Like I keep saying, we are a very rich country, it is just that that wealth, created by all the working people in this country, is not shared out fairly among those wealth creators. It is hoarded by our lords and master to keep them in unimaginable opulence, and for operations to protect their imperialist power.

         Apart from the outrageous financial cost of these imperialist escapades, there is of course the human cost, the destruction of villages, towns and cities, comes with incomprehensible death, misery and trauma, to hundreds of thousands of families. We are seeing the result of our imperialist's recent endeavours in the Middle East, as hundreds of thousands of families now find themselves facing a European winter living in fields and inadequate camps. Among those families are sick, elderly, and children, all fleeing a hell-hole, a dystopia, created by the actions of the imperialists quest for power and wealth.  

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