“For goose-steppers,” wrote the historian Norman Pollack, “substitute the seemingly more innocuous militarisation of the total culture. And for the bombastic leader, we have the reformer manque, blithely at work, planning and executing assassination, smiling all the while.”
One important piece of unspoken information conveyed in this WSJ report is that the CIA is supporting terrorists as a means to triggering “regime change” in Syria, implying the conduct of covert intelligence operations within Syrian territory:
The formula by now is clear: bombing whatever countries it wants, justifying it all by reflexively labeling their targets as “terrorists,” and then dishonestly denying or casually dismissing the civilians they slaughter as “collateral damage.”
Since the pro-Kurdish HDP party won seats in the general election in June, Turkey has once again carried out attacks on the Kurdish population living within its borders. In the past week, Turkish military and police have mounted a relentless assault on the town of Cizre, and twenty-one people have been killed within the past few days. A ten year old girl was shot dead by snipers as she left her home with her hands in the air whilst attempting to get medical help for her father
The truth is that the NATO countries have been using ISIS et al to destabilise Syria for years, and it has not worked as well as they would like. The truth is that this “civil war” was started in much the same way as the Afghan civil war in 1979 – from the outside, with Western money and western weapons. And the truth is that, no matter how many “chemical attacks” they invent, or how many “barrel bombs” Assad uses…nobody wants a war with Syria. And the truth is now the Russians are coming.
We fear that this latest extension of war will only worsen the threat of terrorism, as have the previous wars involving the British government. Cameron is cynically using the refugee crisis to urge more war. He should not be allowed to.
“This is bigger than me, it’s bigger than all of us. We are so close to a nuclear disaster it is shocking, and
yet everybody is accepting the risk to the public.”
The ongoing atrocities by Saudi Arabia and its “coalition partners” in Yemen reflect powerfully – and horribly – on both the U.S. and UK. That’s true not only because those two countries in general are among the closest allies of the Saudi regime, but also because they are specifically lavishing Saudi despots with the very arms and intelligence being used to kill large numbers of Yemeni civilians.
“The actions of the DWP are counter to transparent government and freedom of the press, upon which a functioning democracy rely. We consider the actions of the DWP to be highly offensive and discriminatory.”
The media are currently intent on demonising Jeremy Corbyn as a republican by inventing conflict between him and the Queen. The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg asked him in a corridor whether he would be prepared to kneel and kiss the Queen’s hand as part of the ceremony of joining the Privy Council, and the media splashed his demurral as the lead broadcast and print story of the day. It subsequently became plain that Kuenssberg is a medieval fantasist and there is no hand-kissing involved.
The struggle captured by that video has to be seen against the backdrop of Israel’s day to day—everyday—war against the Palestinian people, men, women and children alike: shooting them, tear-gassing them, snatching them, harassing them, beating them up, burning them alive, smashing their wells, uprooting their trees, bulldozing their homes…
In these anxious circumstances, the BBC broadcasting an emotionally laden piece of apparently raw undoctored footage in which a female doctor talked about “chemical weapons” becomes loaded with potential propaganda impact. People might easily believe they were watching proof that Assad did possess and use chemical weapons, and that in turn might help to turn the tide in favour of military action against him.
