Today, Turkey continues its brutality in its war against its Kurdish population. The state is imposing new curfews daily in the south-east of the country. Hundreds of citizens have been killed so far, whilst the western mainstream media and politicians remain largely silent about the massacres. Anti-militarist activists in the UK, however, are taking action against atrocities carried out by […]
A new United Nations report published this February has criticised prevalent approaches to countering ‘radicalisation’ as ineffective, conceptually flawed, and more likely to reinforce extremist narratives than prevent them. The report to the UN Human Rights Council is authored by Ben Emmerson QC, the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights. Emmerson is a leading British lawyer, deputy […]
Before 2011, Libya had achieved economic independence, with its own water, its own food, its own oil, its own money, and its own state-owned bank. It had arisen under Qaddafi from one of the poorest of countries to the richest in Africa. Education and medical treatment were free; having a home was considered a human right; and Libyans participated in an original system of local democracy. The country boasted the world’s largest irrigation system, the Great Man-made River project, which brought water from the desert to the cities and coastal areas; and Qaddafi was embarking on a program to spread this model throughout Africa.
Thanks largely to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, most Americans now realize that the intelligence community monitors and archives all sorts of online behaviors of both foreign nationals and US citizens. But did you know that the very fact that you know this could have subliminally stopped you from speaking out online on issues you care about? Now research […]
Western media is using the reported number of 250,000 war dead as if they were all civilian victims of the government – which is far from truth
I’ve never given a lecture before, so let me apologise in advance. I’ll be talking about things which some of you will know more about than me, I’ll touch on struggles that are not my own, and I’ll definitely get some of this wrong. I had second thoughts about doing this: guys with beards telling everybody how it is is […]
American, European and Russian corporations are the only ones winning from humanitarian disasters of their own making. As a tentative ceasefire continues to hold in Syria, with the next round of peace talks having resumed this week, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there might be an end in sight to a conflict that has raged for nearly five years. […]
A gathering of journalists, hackers and whistleblowers in Berlin this weekend heard former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, Edward Snowden, issue a call for citizens to find ways to take direct control over the information technologies we use everyday. The Logan Symposium, organized by the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) based in Goldsmiths University, London, also heard from Wikileaks publisher […]
The downing by NATO member, Turkey, of a Russian aircraft on the Syrian-Turkish border in November 2015 – the first of its kind since 1952 – brought into sharp focus the complex patchwork of contending geopolitical and strategic allegiances against what is ostensibly a unified military response to ISIS. Turkey’s role in supporting the Al-Qaeda affiliate, the Al Nusra Front, starkly emphasises […]
The real coalition against Daesh is the “4+1”: Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq plus Hezbollah. Their advances on the ground, and on the record, speak for themselves. The US-led-from-behind coalition is mostly for show. Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging […]
Veterans For Peace received these questions a while back from serving soldiers via the Fill Your Boots Facebook Page. VFP UK Coordinator Ben Griffin has finally gotten around to answering the questions, his answers are by no means comprehensive. Comments appreciated… 1. Do you think it’s suitable to refer to the organisation as veterans when they clearly renounce all ties to […]
On February 23, I wrote “Syrian Ceasefire Agreement: How Putin got what he clearly articulated in October 2015, and why Western Elites are worried” followed by “How Western Media is Setting Up Assad and Russia to Blame for Ceasefire Failure” and on February 24, “Seems the US Government is Backtracking on Efforts to Make the Ceasefire Stick“. As events move […]
