Why France’s brave new war on ISIS is a sick joke, and an insult to the victims of the Paris attacks. “We stand alongside Turkey in its efforts in protecting its national security and fighting against terrorism. France and Turkey are on the same side within the framework of the international coalition against the terrorist group ISIS.” Statement by French […]
There’s been widespread grief and sympathy over the terrible killings in Paris. All very human and commendable. But, as Jonathan Cook asks, why the selective coverage, outrage and empathy? Were those innocents blown up a day before in Beirut by the, apparently, same Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) not worthy of the same humanity, the same demonstrations of global support? Those calling attention to the disparity are reminded […]
Introduction by BSNews co-editor Alison Banville: In my recent report on the Veterans For Peace march to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, I had the great pleasure of meeting Vietnam vets, Barry Ladendorf and Gene Marx, who had traveled from the USA with other veterans as representatives of their country’s own Veterans For Peace group which has been ‘exposing the true cost of war and […]
In transmitting President Richard Nixon’s orders for a “massive” bombing of Cambodia in 1969, Henry Kissinger said, “Anything that flies on everything that moves”. As Barack Obama wages his seventh war against the Muslim world since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and Francois Hollande promises a “merciless” attack on that ruined country, the orchestrated hysteria and lies make […]
Sometimes things happen and it’s best to keep your disagreements to yourself. People who you cannot countenance not having on your side; people who you turn to for help, to think things through, start adopting a form of behaviour that you find alien. So alien to the high regard you hold them in, that you want to do the equivalent […]
Anyone else think it’s time our governments stopped colluding with radical Islam? Stopped arming, training and financing these crazed psychopaths? Imposed sanctions on their ideological sponsors, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia? No? Ok, fuck it, its just me then!
Years spent depicting head chopping fanatics as rebels, moderates, and revolutionaries in an effort to effect the toppling of another secular government in the Middle East. Years spent cultivating Saudi Arabia as an ally against extremism and fanaticism rather than treating it as a country where extremism and fanaticism resides. Years spent treating the Assad government, Iran, and Russia as […]
An article in the Australian publication New Matilda gets to the real point about last night’s attacks in Paris – one that no one wants to talk about. What westerners feel right now is a powerful and very selective outrage that identifies with the suffering of people “like us”. We mourn the deaths in Paris while not even noticing those […]
It was nothing short of a privilege to meet men and women who embody and demonstrate the kind of bravery not celebrated by our corporate media, a media that operates with a slavish adherence to an elite-friendly narrative only interested in drumming up support for more illegal and immoral military action around the globe. It’s an end arrived at only by exploiting the public’s distorted notion of patriotism, fostered on overdrive every year during Remembrance season. But how incredibly powerful it is to talk to people like members of Veterans For Peace who have had a change of mind and heart so profound that their entire worldview is shattered, only to be rebuilt on truth.
The Guardian’s “Let’s Hate Russia” crusade, like the old Windmill Theatre, never closes. It’s a 24/7 op and needs a constant supply of attack pieces to keep those fires of division and racism stoked. So it’s not surprising a lot of barrel-scraping has to be done, and in fact sometimes the results can be so unintentionally self-parodying they become almost […]
Of course, the BBC has always been an instrument of the British state, established by statute in 1928 and run by a governor appointed by the Prime Minister. As Seumas Milne has pointed out: “There is no point in romanticizing a BBC golden age. The corporation was always an establishment institution, deeply embedded in the security state and subject to direct government control in an emergency…[with] around 40 percent of the staff… vetted by MI5.”
With its links to the arms trade, increasingly militarised presentation of Remembrance, and growing commercialisation and corporatisation of the poppy “brand”, it’s time to reconsider whether the Royal British Legion is still suitable to be the “national custodian of Remembrance”. My Name is Legion: The British Legion and the Control of Remembrance explores how the Royal British Legion’s status as […]
