Fortress Europe and Fighting Europe

My thoughts after reading 'Fight for the heart of Europe' in 'New Internationalist', Jan/Feb 2016

My very biased, unbalanced, self critical and jaundiced view of what the rich and powerful nations do to the weak, poor and defenceless nations that we can attack without fear of them attacking us.  I know they are also escaping Islamic State but, I think, their thousand of fighters is the whirlwind from NATO sowing the wind over 100 years of drawing straight line boundaries and overthrowing governments in the Meddle East to get the 'right' governments that toe the American/Western line.

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​Migrant rush to N Europe to escape American, European (and now Russian since Sept 2015) death from the air, only to face death from the sea that the European governments allow.  Very nasty behaviour.

or,

We have a second go at wiping them out by refusing to give them safe passage from our fire and flame from the air.  Very immoral.

or,

Fugitives from American and European rocket fire flee to our shores to be on the safe side of the attackers, instead of remaining on the dangerous ​side of the attacked.  Very sensible.

Never before has there been such a chaotic, disorganised, free for all to get away from wars that we have initiated or revolutions (Arab Spring and regime changes) that we support.  We end up killing people with our direct attacks in the Meddle East.  Those that escape our drones and precision air strikes then have to run the gauntlet of death by drowning or hypothermia in the Med.​

We do nothing or very little to stop the desperate from dying because too many are already arriving successfully to take our jobs, our green belt with their housing and our NHS beds.  The cheek of it!  But this is a most dishonourable and immoral stance, especially when we are largely responsible for the wars they are fleeing from.  And wars, in every single year since 1914, has been a natural and normal part of our foreign policy around the globe - to this day.

UK Collusion in Gazan killings

from: thewallmustfall@riseup.net

*On trial: Anti-Nato protesters who demanded Barclays divest from the arms trade*

Barclays Bank will be back in the spotlight today at Newport Magistrates Court, when 4 activists stand trial on charges of aggravated trespass. The activists were arrested when they occupied the Newport branch of Barclays as part of the anti-NATO week of action organised by Stop NATO Cymru at the beginning of September. The trial is set to last for a day and a half. All defendants have plead not guilty to all charges

On Friday 5th September this year, scores of people occupied the bank on Newport high street. They held banners calling on Barclays to divest from the arms trade and to stop investing in Israel's war crimes.

The protest was part of a campaign, called for by Palestinians in Gaza,[1] aimed at persuading Barclays to pull its money out of Elbit Systems, Israel's largest military company which manufactures the unpiloted drones used to bomb Palestinians in Gaza.

During July and August 2014, 2,150 Palestinians were killed as Israel carried out another massacre of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza strip. Entire neighbourhoods were destroyed and mosques, market places, UN relief compounds and schools were deliberately targeted. There was no safe place for the 1.7 million people in Gaza to take shelter from the Israeli bombardment. Israeli drones, carried out over 800 major strikes.

Barclays has been condemned in recent years for its excessive use of tax havens, for creating a special 'tax avoidance division', for paying well below the nominal UK rate of corporation tax and manipulating the Libor rate. But this protest was more reminiscent of those which plagued Barclays through the 1970s and 1980s when the bank was heavily invested in apartheid South Africa.

The activists claim that Israel's drone programme is dependent on the investments of companies like Barclays. They called on customers and staff to boycott Barclays, just as anti apartheid campaigners did over
30 years ago.

The occupation of Barclays had been timed to coincide with the NATO summit. Elbit's drones are also used by NATO members. The company is part of a partnership manufacturing the Watchkeeper drone for use by the UK military.

*Campaigners will hold a demonstration outside Newport Magistrates Court on Monday morning in support of the defendant. The four defendants are due in court at 10am. *

For more details or to interview the defendants please email thewallmustfall@riseup.net or call07907385974.

re Stephanie's letter to Archbishop Welby

Excellent letter, Stephanie that I fully agree with.

I wrote this before I read Jeremy Bowen, 'The Making of the Modern Middle East', published

For me, vapourising mainly Muslims, largely civilians since the 7 October 2001, in horrific fire and flame from our safe, secure, aircraft cockpits or missile launchers or from our computers operating drones, is far more reprehensible than one-to-one beheadings of a handful of 'Christian', Western journalists and aid workers.  And, their deaths it seems, came from the reactivation of our attacks on the Muslim military in Iraq.  This time, known as Islamic State.

Since we have our democratic, capitalist 'Judeo-Christian' states, even in the very heart of the Arab Middle East (Western-aligned Israel is our regional superpower), is it really so surprising that some fundamentalist Muslims want their own Islamic state on what they strongly believe to be holy, Muslim soil for only Muslims to tread?  We even have much difficulty in letting them have two or three Muslim schools in Birmingham!

There seems to be almost total incomprehension of the Muslim point of view, as well as abject ignorance of the non-violent Christ of the Gospels, whom many of us in the wicked West claim to follow!

Valiant attempts to justify our Fourth Anglo-Afghan War

Comments I heard on the 'Today' programme in June 2013.

What it was all for:-

£40bn spent and 444 soldiers killed.  Commander of the Task Force in Helmand gave the following comments.  It was in Britain's interests to fight.  All the armed forces have shown sacrifice and courage in fighting this war to improve national security in the UK.  We are proud of the soldiers' courage, of our achievements and the differences we have made made.

£40 billion is much less than building HS2 (over £50 bn).  444 soldiers killed is considerably less than the losses suffered by our great friend and ally in the Vietnam War to protect Western freedom and security.  That was 58,000 soldiers.  A masssive difference even if you count in the so noble and heroic sacrifice of the other Western soldiers killing and killed in Afghanistan.

We are certainly getting better at suffering fewer losses when we fight our wars against these pesky foreigners.  Thanks to drones that keep up the killing without us suffering anymore.  Just how it should be, of course.