Our smart bombs bringing democracy to the Middle east.
Hi all, I'm back after a break away from the normal routine, it does wonders for you mind, clears out some fixed ideas that you're not too sure why they are fixed in the first place, gives birth to new ideas, you wonder why you never thought of them before. No matter where we hide, the destruction and misery that is capitalism continues. However, in my case, no matter where I escape to, the focus is always the same, unnecessary injustice, avoidable misery, implemented poverty, and the horrors of the power struggles that spawn avoidable wars, with all their attendant suffering, trauma and countless violent deaths of innocent bystanders, and what we can do about them. These are all symptoms of the festering disease, born of the cancerous marriage of the nation state and capitalism.
Capitalism is blind, irrational, and destructive, it will race towards the precipice, unwilling and unable to stop before the edge, it is only after it has crashed does it pause to see how to modify itself, to continue on its course of total destruction. To allow this to continue will obviously lead to the destruction of everything, from climate, environment and human civilisation. To hope for anything else from this system is naive in the extreme.
Frankie Boyle is a Glasgow comedian I much admire, as well as making us laugh, he uses his skill with words, to make us think, pointing at things with his own brand of humour and wit. Humour can be a great weapon against authority and its corrupt thoughts and decisions, and against the woven illusions, and smoke and mirrors, of that babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media. I repeat here his latest piece.
Frankie Boyle
A column I wrote about Trump and Syria:
Nothing more perfectly embodies White America than a 70 year old golfer firing missiles at the Middle East from his country
club. Some sticks in the mud probably expect a host of formalities to
be gone through before attacking another country: a UN investigation, or
congressional approval perhaps, but personally I'm just glad to see a
guy with the temperament of a mistreated circus animal launching
ballistic missiles on a hunch. It seems statesmanlike and decisive. It's
difficult to tell what Syria's moderate rebels are really like, as
journalists can't really be embedded with them, because they'd be
beheaded. But I refuse to be cynical: there's every chance that Assad's
end will see a peaceful, pastoral period for Syria once groups like
Allah's Flamethrower and Infidel Abattoir get round the table and
good-naturedly sort out their deep seated differences on the finer
points of Islamic Law. Perhaps this is a period which Syrians will one
day look back on and laugh, if laughter is still allowed.
Not only will Democrats support any war Trump chooses to start, they'll
be outraged by any voters who hold it against them at the next
election. Hillary Clinton called for the airstrikes immediately before
they happened. We'd do well to listen to the woman who is the architect
of modern Libya, where her neoliberal intervention introduced the
principals of the free market with such clarity that the country now has
several different governments competing for the right to kill
everybody. Clinton was criticised for running a tone-deaf, aloof
campaign but Democrats have rallied, pointing out that many people
didn't vote for Hilary because Trump is a Russian spy, and people who
didn't vote for Hillary are Russian stooges, and people who voted for
Hillary but not very enthusiastically are also Russian stooges, and
slowly but surely the goodwill has begun to return.
Personally, I
think it would be great if Putin was controlling Trump. I'd love to
think there was a rational, malevolent actor directing him rather than
just a combination of his own blood sugar levels and the concept of
vengeance. I honestly think we'd be in less trouble if he was being
controlled by the dark wizard Thoth Amon, or if his body had been taken
over by a sentient bacterial civilisation that was using him as a kind
of Lifeship. I'm not saying it's impossible that Trump was moved by the
plight of Syria's children, perhaps in the same way that Tony Soprano
got really upset when that guy killed his horse, it's just that the
balance of probabilities is that he doesn't care about them, even enough
not to ban them from entering his country.
The Defence
Secretary Michael Fallon said that the UK government had close
discussions with the US over the few days running up to the attack and
had been given "advance notice of the President's final decision". Odd
then, that immediately after the chemical attack the Guardian cites
Downing Street officials (on a tour of despots with the prime minister
in the Middle East) who, when asked about military reprisals, said
“nobody is talking about that”. Sort of makes you wonder if there's any
contempt that can be shown by the US that will stop us drooling about
our "special relationship" like we're some kind of stalker. I doubt the
Americans see us as a valued ally. We're just somewhere that they stick a
few missiles. My best guess is that they think of us in the way that we
would think of a shed.
At the prospect of a war, the media
reacted with the exuberant joy that I remember fights bringing to a
school playground. War copy sells well, and is easier to write. A good
way to get a handle on the media's attitude to conflict is to try to
write a thousand words on a United Nations sponsored bilateral
negotiation, then the same on a missile cutting a hospital in half. The
Guardian exuberantly described the "pinpoint accuracy" of Tomahawks.
I'm not sure accuracy is strictly relevant when you're delivering high
explosives, the ultimate variable. In the West, we've never needed the
military spectaculars favoured by Soviets and dictators; the news has
always been our missile parade. On MSNBC the launch of the Tomahawks was
repeatedly described as "beautiful". And there is a certain beauty at
that point in their trajectory. Perhaps we should focus on some other
point. It would be nice to see a shot of them ten seconds before they
drop on their screaming victims. Or two days later when bodies are being
pulled from the rubble. Maybe a shot from ten years down the line when
the shell casings form part of a makeshift gallows, reflected in the
glass eye of an implacable amputee warlord. Perhaps our whole fucked up
attitude to war comes from only ever seeing our missiles taking off,
only ever seeing our soldiers setting out.
Ignoring
international law is bad for all sorts of reasons, not least because
it's the same position as Assad's. Knowing that our own resolve is only
strengthened when people attack us and expecting other people's to be
weakened is suggestive of a kind of racism. Pouring arms and bombs into
an intractable conflict means that you are happy for it to be prolonged
and worsen. Britain's activities in the Middle East historically mean we
almost can't imagine what a moral position might look like. We have a
huge navy that we could use to pick up the thousands of Syrians, Libyans
and others scheduled to drown in the Mediterranean this year, for a
fraction of the cost of the bombs we've dropped on them. I wonder if
those people know, clambering onto boats with their frightened children,
many of whom have never seen the sea before and will never see land
again, that we aggressively tune out images like this, should they ever
reach us at all. That we see all these lives we could save as part of a
chaotic, insoluble mess, better not thought about; we who focus so
intently on the sleek, clear lines of bombs.
Visit ann arky's home at
www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk
