 |
|
John Pilger - The enemy then was fascism. The enemy then was a great world power, rapacious, with plans of domination, of capturing the world’s natural resources: the oil fields of the Caspian and the Middle east, the mineral riches of Africa. They seemed invincible. The enemy then was also lies. Deceit. News dressed up as propaganda. Appeasement. A large section of the British establishment saw fascism as its friend. Some understood the nature of fascism, and they saw through the lies ands the deceit and the appeasement. They also knew that the true enemy didn’t always wear arm bands, and didn’t always strut, or command great rallies, but were impeccable English gentlemen who supported ruthless power behind a smokescreen of propaganda that appropriated noble concepts like “democracy” and “freedom” and “our way of life” and “our values”.
Mike Whitney - There are only two implements in the imperial tool-chest; fear and deception. Any serious investigation of the London bombings must keep this in mind; fear and deception are the lone forces that animate the administration and move policy. We will never completely know the level of government involvement in the London bombings, nor do we need to. We know that terror serves the greater interests of the state, props up the flagging careers of inept politicians, savages civil liberties, incites violence against minorities, divides society into hostile political encampments and vindicates the war agenda. We also know that Blair’s fear mongering on the attacks has enhanced his standing with the British people and increased his ability to manipulate public opinion.
Peter Symonds - If one deleted the names and dates from a description of the Dujail massacre, it could just as easily be the description of an untold number of US military operations in Iraq. A convoy comes under attack, helicopter gunships strafe the neighbouring village or suburb, squads of heavily armed troops kill or detain hundreds of suspected “terrorists”, and the arrested are held in detention centres without trial and tortured. The scale of atrocities in Dujail pales in comparison to the US military’s levelling of Fallujah, but the last thing that the Bush administration wants is to have to defend all of the lies that it used to justify its act of aggression. By insisting that the trial take place in Baghdad, the White House has ensured that the US invasion will never become a courtroom issue.
Ramzy Baroud - Sharon has once more demonstrated that he is anything but a changed man. His words and actions are the single required testimony. In fact, one might argue that his commitment to the illegal settlements project is approaching the apex: Caging in Palestinians in the whole occupied territories, effectively annexing 58 per cent of the West Bank, expanding the borders of “Greater Jerusalem”, dispatching thousands of Jewish settlers from Gaza to the West Bank, incarcerating tens of thousands of Palestinians behind walls, fences, trenches and locked gates. This is what the Israeli Prime Minister has to offer Palestinians in response to their one sided ceasefire and to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose foremost priority seems to be proving to Washington and Tel Aviv, that he, unlike Arafat, is a worthy and “relevant” peace partner.
Iman Al-Saadun - I am sending this letter to the British people and, in particular, to the residents of London. For a period of hours, you lived through moments of anxiety and horror. In those hours you lost a member of your family or a friend, and we wish to tell you, in total honesty, that we, too, grieve when human lives are lost. You don’t know our martyrs, but we know them. You don’t remember them or cry over them, but we do. Have you heard the name of the little girl Hannan Salih Matrud? Or of the boy Ahmad Jabir Karim? Or Sa`id Shabram? Yes, our dead have names too. They have faces and stories and memories. There was a time when they were among us, laughing and playing. They had dreams, just as you have. They had a tomorrow awaiting them. But today they sleep among us with no tomorrow on which to wake.
Guest Editorial from MediaLens - Terrible ironies attend the use of violence for political ends. Despite their ostensible opposition, two warring factions are often united in their fundamental view of the world. Both insist that continued violence is the only realistic option. Both insist the enemy is the incarnation of mindless evil, completely beyond reason. Both reject as treasonous rational analyses indicating their own responsibility for promoting violence and rejecting non-violent alternatives. In other words, patriotic clichés and rousing rhetoric come at a high price. To the extent that rational thought and compassion for suffering are drowned out, the forces of violence are empowered.
Francis Wheen - A penniless asylum seeker in London was vilified across two pages of the Daily Mail last week. No surprises there, perhaps - except that the villain in question has been dead since 1883. ‘Marx the Monster’ was the Mail’s furious reaction to the news that thousands of Radio 4 listeners had chosen Karl Marx as their favourite thinker. ‘His genocidal disciples include Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot - and even Mugabe. So why has Karl Marx just been voted the greatest philosopher ever?’ The puzzlement is understandable. Fifteen years ago, after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, there appeared to be a general assumption that Marx was now [to quote Monty Python] an ex-parrot. He had kicked the bucket, shuffled off his mortal coil and been buried forever under the rubble of the Berlin Wall.
Jerry Mazza - Is the “Rapture” of Evangelical Christianity really a rupture from biblical truth? For thousands of years certain Christians have been predicting the end times. Armageddon and the Second Coming were just around the corner - but not before the rise of the Antichrist and seven years of battle. These Christians also believe the “Rapture” the Bible supposedly spoke of would allow certain true believers to be swept up to heaven to watch the end times, like the War in Iraq from their living room TVs. Yet scholars say the word “"Rapture"” is not anywhere in the Bible. So the first rupture is from the reality of the good book. The “Rapture” ruptures itself from law in the name of absolute religious truth, which is neither absolute, really religious nor the truth, but a belief system designed for and by a certain sect of people to gain specific ends.
Yamin Zakaria - Almost everyday I get email responses to my essays, usually containing lots of two word expletives, almost all from within the USA. Since stereotyping is wrong, I did ask myself the question, are those Americans, exceptional or typical. Anyway, I began to think about those two word responses, and thought of the possibility of my being both, wrong and a “sand nigger”. Thereafter, I renounced all my previous writings, written whilst I was clearly misguided and brainwashed by the Arabs and Muslim terrorists. Listed below is my new view of history and the world. So, let us proceed with the issues, fasten your seat belts, sit tight and I will show you the world according to the neo-cons, Zionists, right-wing Republicans, fundamentalist Christians and the KKK.
 |
 |
Get free membership of the World Crisis Web, entitling you to post your own views on the articles published here, and to receive email summaries of the best articles on the site, as well as analysis and comment from other key sites.
Your privacy will always be fully respected. No-one's details will ever be given, sold, or otherwise traded to anyone else.
The World Crisis Web gives you automatically updated RSS news feeds for desktop newsreaders, or to add to your web site.
A Shameful War: Israel in the Dock
Somalia: Bad Policies of Strange Bedfellows
The End of Hypocrisy: Crime's Gleeful Abandon in Gaza
Speak of the Real Authors of the War
Contact the editor without having to bother with e-mail.