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Stopping 21st Century Catastrophe - ‘lighting candles, not cursing darkness’,
by Alan Trotter
It is a sad fact that the hopes and optimism we all had for a peaceful future at the turn of the century were soon ravaged by our elected gangsters.
As we look back to the beginnings of the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war and its consequences what do we see?
We see a terrible catalogue of:
+ illegal invasions
+ destruction
+ lies
+ death
+ use of cluster bombs and other terrible weapons
+ slaughter
+ abuse of human rights at Guantanamo Bay and other torture camps
+ more lies
+ rape
+ murder
+ carnage
+ more torture
+ dodgy dossiers, non-existent ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and other dishonest reasons for war
+ billions of pounds wasted on war during times of financial crisis
+ even more lies ...
And, while all this early 21st century catastrophe has been going on most of the professional media has been backing up the government in justifying illegal invasions and occupations and other outrages.
To those in positions of power and influence, the human cost does not seem to have any importance any more.
If a British soldier is killed it ranks fourth or fifth item on National news and is reported in seconds, it doesn’t seem to matter that this soldier has family and friends who will be grieving.
The individual outrages should not be forgotten.
Who could forget the pitiful enduring image of ‘little Ali’ Abbass who’s horrific injuries shocked the civilized world?
And there was the outrageous killing of John Charles de Menezes, an innocent man on his way to work in London.
Perhaps the most shameful images were of civilians being abused by soldiers - Lynndie England humiliating a naked detainee and using dogs as part of their torture technique.
When George Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan who would know the dreadful consequences and where his 'war on terror' - AKA 'overseas contingency operation' - will end?
Throughout these fearful years The Stop the war Coalition has worked relentlessly, with their partners in the wider peace movement, to keep the public informed of the truth of what is happening in their name.
What does the future hold for us all?
In these days of unrelenting cutbacks we cannot afford this madness of wholesale slaughter.
It is difficult to remain constantly optimistic, but there is a saying that 'it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness'.
We must act and think positive:
+ get all our troops back home
+ stop the deliberate targeting of the Muslim community
+ show tolerance and create cultural, social and economic welfare that are in the interests of all
+ create a truly anti-war government and society.
Alan Trotter
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Stop the War - 10 years on, and still going ...
10 Years of 'opposing pro-war governments' in Britain and elsewhere - while instead striving to build movements to end 'Crimes Against Peace' ...
On Tuesday, September 27, 2011, at Trinity House Social Centre, in Laygate, South Shields, a small group of supporters of South Tyneside Stop The War Coalition held a forum between 7.30pm and 9.00pm.
They were a small part of a large wider movement that has developed over last 10 years in Britain and elsewhere to oppose successive wars launched by various governments - starting with the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.
Following the attack on the Twin Towers and other places in September 2001, U.S. president Bush and British prime minister Blair launched what they called a 'war on terror' - using the attack on key American structures on 11 September 2011 as an excuse to launch their own weapons of mass destruction against populations and cities of Afghanistan, Iraq and other places.
They invaded and occupied Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries - and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people (including thousands of troops from Britain and America sent to kill and be killed) in the name of 'preserving our ways of life'.
The occupation of Afghanistan continues after 10 years - one of the longest foreign intervention wars of the 'big powers' in modern times - and, quite obviously a 'failure' (by any definition of that word).
Recently, in Libya, under the leadership of Britain, France, the USA, and other NATO powers, yet another sovereign country has been bombed and plunged into chaos - resulting in the killing of many thousands people in bombing raids (the details of which have been largely unreported in the mainstream western media).
The bombing of Libya - and consequent death and destruction - was a concerted attack on one of the most modern countries in Africa - which, whatever the rights and wrongs of its regime, was a nation whose people had a high standard of living, and which was at the forefront of the (post-European empire) 'African Union' movement.
This aggressive war (masked as a 'liberation struggle') by the NATO powers seems in reality to have been motivated by their own supposed strategic interests - in short, re-colonising Africa (under European and American influence), with consequent control of oil, financial and other resources.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair launched their wars of conquest - under the 'false flag' banner of the 'war on terror' - mostly in of the Middle East.
Now (the supposedly 'modern liberal cosmopolitan champion') Mr Obama and (the rather more old fashioned Eton-educated British imperialist) Mr Cameron seem intent on extending the Bush-Blair wars into Africa and elsewhere.
The discussion forum of the small town anti-war group South Tyneside Stop The War Coalition was held to mark the tenth anniversary of the stop the war movement's opposition to Britain’s pro-war governments.
In marking this anniversary, we also looked toward the next 10 years of the anti-war movement - with the aim to further build the movement to end these crimes against peace and to bring about an anti-war government in Britain.
We aim for a government that stands for:
• the peaceful resolution of international conflicts.
• bringing all troops home from foreign soil.
• withdrawing Britain from NATO.
We encourage all people to join the ongoing discussion of these issues ...
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The Stop The War movement was set up 10 years ago specifically to oppose the so-called 'war on terror' - a concept that was nonsensical contradiction in terms from the start
The 'war on terror' might be well defined as
+ a profitable racket for the arms and 'security' (sic) corporations
+ a violent excerise in paranoid fantasy
+ a costly episode of out-moded cultural and economic imperialism
+ a terrible distraction from financial crises and corruption in high places
+ a horrible waste of lives, time, money and human potential
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Stopping Yesterday's Wars Today and Tomorrow
Though in Britain we have elections only occasionally, in a truly free and democratic country, every day is a kind of "election day".
Through our collected individual choices, our collected individual belief systems, and our collected individual actions, we collectively drive our nation into the future.
Recognizing that we are ultimately responsible for the actions of our country, anti-war groups such as Stop The War continue to promote foreign and domestic policies that places a priority on internationally-recognized principles.
Acknowledging the dangerous shortcomings of narrow, militaristic responses to terrorism, we continue to encourage a collaborative effort to bring those responsible for breaches of internatinal law to justice.
We call attention to threats to civil liberties, human rights, and other freedoms at home and abroad as a consequence of war and our government's responses to terrorism - recognizing that it is our duty to defend those principles in our own lives and in our own communities.
We continue to promote dialogue with the public on issues of war and peace, including alternatives to war and the underlying causes of violence, including terrorism - recognizing the necessity for honest debate and the power of good faith human communication.
We support movments of people around the world who are seeking non-violent responses to all forms of terrorism - by states and individuals within them - recognizing that mutual success will benefit us and future generations everywhere.
Most of all, we continue to acknowledge our fellowship with all people affected by violence and war.
We recognizing all fellow human beings as brothers and sisters in a human struggle that transcends politics, nationality or religious affiliation and is central to our continued co-existence.
In a free society, we are all responsible for the actions taken by the people we call our 'leaders'.
In a truly democratic society, we lead our so-called 'leaders' - not them us.
Today, and every day, we acknowledge our individual responsibility to lead our leaders toward creating a society in which we want to live - a society that lives up to the possibilities of human potentional, and means no one has to live in states of terror, fear, violence and unnecessary death.
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Ongoing Costs of 'War on Terror'
· COSTS IN LIVES LOST - The number of lost human lives is not actually known to any degree of certainty - because [to cover up the scale of their own violent acts] the American and British governments 'don't do body counts' - but it is fact that hundreds of thousands have died, most of them unarmed civilians, many by invading and occupying powers.
· COSTS IN INJURIES AND OTHER TRAUMAS - Again there are no precise figures available, but they must be in the hundreds of thousands, even perhaps millions.
· EMOTIONAL COSTS - Including people traumatized and brutalized by the violence and including the grief of victims' families.
· MORAL COSTS - Including a general brutalization and blunting of moral sensibility - in a world in which murder, violence, arbitrary arrest, and torture are being done on a huge scale in the travestied name of 'protecting freedom and democracy'.
· COSTS IN TERMS OF REDUCED CIVIL LIBERTY - The 'war on terror' is increasing rather than reducing the 'terror problem', and the big government responses - essentially: increasing state power and reducing civil liberties - further 'terrorizes' many sections of the population.
· COSTS OF THE 'SLOW POISONING' OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE - By, for example, the demonization of entire ethnic, religious and political groups - and the type-casting 'them' as 'the enemy' who 'threaten our way of life'.
· COSTS IN TERMS OF PUBLIC TRUST - We were lied to about the reasons for war. We have been lied to about the details of the war. More and more people just don't believe a word they are told about anything anymore - and while 'scepticism' might be healthy, the present extreme levels of 'cynicism' seem unhealthy.
· COSTS IN TERMS OF WORSENING 'GLOBAL INSECURITY' - The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the wider 'war on terror' have worsened the 'terror problem' and opened up a violent 'can of worms'. It is a fact of life that 'those to whom violence is done tend to do violence in return'.
· COSTS OF THE WRECKING OF INTERNATIONAL LAW - America and Britain have set terrible examples to the rest of the world. Via the Iraq war, America - aided and abetted by Britain - has torn up established conventions of modern international law ... and returned the world to a dark age of rule by force, imprisonment without trial, and torture chambers ... and all in the travestied names of 'freedom' and 'democracy'.
· ECONOMIC COSTS - These are huge, but almost incalculable. A few people have clearly benefited - most obviously those personally gaining from profits made by oil, military, security corporations - but for most people the war has been a loss-making affair. In so far as estimates of monetary costs have been made, it is generally in terms of the direct cost to U.S. and U.K. tax-payers. Such estimates produce big numbers ... billions ... tens of billions ... even trillions ... of dollars ... numbers so big as to be more or less incomprehensible to most people. But these big number tax costs are in fact small proportions of the wider economic costs - which include: the effects of disruptions to trade due to global instability; the effects of fuel price volatility; the effects of diversion of investment resources; etc. Meanwhile, far from being 'reconstructed', the economies of occupied nations have effectively been destroyed.
· COSTS IN TERMS OF LOST OPPORTUNITIES - War should be a relic of the past, as should violent imperialism. But with the attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, we have lost the opportunity to start a new century with fresh, more civilized, modes of international behaviour. The best way to reduce the 'terror problem' is not to behave in a terrorist manner ourselves.
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'for the people, by the people'
By Doreen Henderson
In 1945 I punched the air - a Labour Party had been elected with a large majority: 'socialism here we come!'
But disappointment soon followed - they supposedly nationalised the pits, but compensated the owners for the years they had bled the pitmen.
Then I thought: 'Don't jump to conclusions, give them time - see if they compensate anyone when they nationalise the banks and the land' - as you would have expected them to do, but they didn't.
A golden opportunity was lost forever - the people were ready for socialism then and would have backed the government 100 per cent.
If that had happened, I am sure we would not be in the situation we are today
I cannot see a solution to this present world wide financially mess, as it needs a moral solution and morals don't fit into the capitalist bankers' equation.
Capitalism has finally shot itself in the foot as was bound to happen.
It has out-stripped viability with greed, and will not solve the problem.
When greed is still its only motive they cannot function.
And unless we the working class refuse to help them we cannot win
Governments are now another form of big business and are motivated by greed - and act as any big business does, only they have greater power over the mass of the population.
And it is the mass of the population who have to pay every time with wage cuts, job losses, education cuts, etc.
We will go on paying until we realize we have the power to charge the people who made the mess to start repaying monies they took wrongly.
This government which is run by overgrown school boys work on the principle of trial and error - and error prevails!
I do not know what the solution is under the present system - as the Labour Party is so close to the Tories in hit and miss politics.
Until we get back to the principles of government 'for the people, by the people' I see no rescue.
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