A few years back , the Herald reminded its readers of the estimated 1.5 million Roma murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe, an episode that has come to be known in the Romani language as the Porraimos (the “devouring”). Later, it is reported that “The far right is on the march in Hungary, literally. In recent months, hardly a week has gone by without a rally being held by the Magyar Garda or “Hungarian Guard,” their members decked out in black boots and uniforms bearing nationalist symbols last employed by Hungarian fascists during World War II. Their target: Romany (gypsy) criminals...
Read more »
Victor Ivanov , head of Russia’s federal drug control agency , said at least 30,000 people died in Russia every year from heroin, 90% of it from Afghanistan. Russia is believed to have around five million drug addicts, half of whom are addicted to heroin. He accused Nato of not doing enough to curb the production of heroin in Afghanistan.He blamed the US administration for ending a military drive to destroy opium poppy crops in Afghan fields. According to statistics from UNODC, in 2001, Afghanistan produced 185 tons of drugs, in 2002 – 3,400 tons, in 2003 – 3,600 tons,...
Read more »
‘You can fool all of the people some of the time . . . and some of the people all of the time . . . but . . . The US occupation forces in Afghanistan have learned a particular lesson from the disaster that is Iraq, and they have learned it big time. In the first, largely contracted out war in history, US and other foreign civilians were brought in to carry out just about every task, from the mundane to those viewed as ‘front-line’. A direct consequence of this strategy was millions of unemployed and very disgruntled...
Read more »
1. We are fighting in Afghanistan because we are loyal Americans. We have unquestioning trust in the wisdom of our leaders. 2. We are fighting in Afghanistan because we are devoted to the principles of free trade and free enterprise. That is why we want to protect the heroin export business of President Karzai’s brother and other Afghan warlords against interference and unfair competition by the Taliban. 3. We are fighting in Afghanistan because we want to secure the route for a pipeline to pump vast quantities of natural gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and...
Read more »
The pressure to misinterpret the deaths, as the bodies come back, as nobly purifying is a cynically orchestrated propaganda exercise intended to justify the war. Among the rituals so consoling to our Servants of the People in Westminster is the solemn roll call of the names of recently fatal casualties of the Afghanistan war proceeding to formulaic assurances of grief, of sympathy for family and friends and an assertion, defiant of a mass of disruptive facts, that from the dead will blossom a victory to bring a happier, freer Afghanistan and a safer Britain. All of this will happen,...
Read more »
A decade on from the Nato bombing campaign, more than 90,000 Serbs are still in danger from unexploded cluster munitions, according to a recent report funded by the Norwegian foreign ministry. The report says they face a daily threat and estimates that there are some 2,500 unexploded devices in 15 areas of Serbia. In the capital, Belgrade, and elsewhere in Serbia you can still see the impact of the bombing. “The 10th anniversary of the air strikes will lead people to think about the bombing campaign, which they saw as unjust, unfair and illegal action carried out by Nato,”...
Read more »
But nowadays arms firms are not the only large-scale “merchants of death.” Companies like Blackwater sell combat capability directly as the labour of hired mercenaries. Other companies, such as Halliburton, sell logistics and other war support services.
Read more »
Chopping up history is a common method of distorting it and preventing anything being learned from it. Chopped-up history comes to us as a series of largely self-contained, unconnected and accidental events which were crucially influenced by the personalities of the leaders of the time. The implication is that there is no overall pattern in what happens in the world, that things would have been different had other people been in charge or if certain events had not coincided. It follows from this that there is no need to make any fundamental changes in society because a bad historical...
Read more »
A recent issue of the magazine TIME (14 October) highlighted the immense profits to be made in capitalism even in a trade recession. ” Need to start a war? No problem. While stock markets grate and financial institutions (and even whole countries, like Iceland) teeter on bankruptcy, one global industry is still drawing plenty of high-end trades and profits: weapons.” The article reported the case in a Paris courtroom where 42 officials went on trial for taking millions in kickbacks and organising huge arms commissions from the Angolan government during the mid-1990s. This group, which included a former French...
Read more »
Why The Economic Crisis?
The WSP has produced three leaflets (in pdf format) meant to aid working people to understand the causes of the current economic crisis: “Booms and slumps – what causes them?” – Discusses in plain terms the causes of economic cycles and why “Ultimately, it is the economy that controls politicians and not the other way around.” “Bubble Troubles” – Deals specifically with the housing market collapse. Good Cap, Bad Cap discusses how capitalism is structured and why economic crisis cannot be blamed on “bad” capitalists. Crises And Depressions Pt 1, Pt 2 We highly recommended this talk given by...
Read more »