Imagining
Other
Power and Protest (social movements) in the 20th Century:
(4)
The peace, anti-war and anti-nuclear movements:
Section 6: Updates (NB Section 4 overlaps
with this...)
Links:
Imagining Other Index Page
Links to other sections on the peace and anti-war movement:
Section 1 (anti-war movement)
Section 2 (anti-nuclear movement)
Section 3 (non-violence)
Section 5 (conclusion
and references)
Note:
these recent notes contain some topics that I believe are important aspects of
the peace movement, and some concerning the horrors of war and war’s
‘collateral’ effects. The notes are in alphabetical order of topic.
Topics:
Arms trade (and global
development) #arms trade
Blanket bombing #bombing
Climate change causing
war #Climate change
Colonialism #colonialism
Declaring war in
Defence costs #defence costs
Dow chemical, Bhopal,
Drones #drones
Famine and war #famine
The ‘Great Escape’ – a
myth #great escape
Human nature #human nature
International courts #international courts
Kosovo #Kosovo
Mercenaries #mercenaries
Natural environment
damaged by war #natural environment
New technology and war
#new technology
Nonviolent Revolt #nonviolent revolt
Nuclear proliferation #nuclear
Pacifism (and Second
World War) #pacifism (in World War II)
Palestinian Peacemaker
#Palestine
Peace memorials
(including poppies at the Tower) #peace
Poetry #poetry
Quakers #Quakers
Rape as a weapon of
war #rape - rape and sexual violence in US armed forces #US
Refugees #refugees
Religions and violence
#religions
Resource control and
war #resource control
Secrecy #secrecy
Soldiers’ training
makes killing more easy #soldiers
Torture #torture
UN Peacekeeping #UN
Websites #websites
World War I #world war I
World War II – the Zohn family #Zohn
World Wars and war
today #world wars
John Pilger quotes Fred Branfman
‘who exposed the “secret” destruction of tiny Laos by the US air forces in the
1960s and 1970s’ – Obama understands that he has to
expand ‘the most powerful institution in history of the world, one that has
killed, wounded or made homeless well over 20 million human beings, mostly
civilians, since 1962.’ (New Statesman 21 – 27 June 2013). Branfman
also says of Obama: ‘no president has done more to
create the infrastructure for a possible future police state.’
Some books by Branfman, from Wikipedia: The
Third Indochina War, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, ISBN
0-85124-048-8, ISBN
978-0-85124-048-0
The Old Man: A Biographical Account of a Lao
Villager.
Voices from The Plain
of Jars, Life Under an Air War, Harper & Row 1972.
Life under the bombs, Project Air War, Harper & Row, 1972, ISBN
0-06-090300-7, ISBN
978-0-06-090300-8
The Village of the Deep Pond, Ban Xa Phang Meuk,
Some links (same source):
Fred Branfman's
Internet presence
Fred Branfman: War
Crimes in Indochina and Our Troubled National Soul Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation, 1998
Fred Branfman: On
Torture and Being "Good Americans" The Huffington Post, 29. April
2007
Fred Branfman: Indochina:
The illusion of withdrawal May 1973
Fred Branfman: We Must All Be
Prepared to Torture, Antiwar.com, January 26, 2006
NB: Branfman is also concerned that ‘denial of
death’ is a serious problem today – see www.trulyalive.org
Arms Trade 31/5/08: Good to see that Reed Elsevier has finally agreed not to sponsor arms trade exhibitions any more (G today): it has sold DSEi, ITC, and LAAD defence exhibitions to Clarion Events (chief executive: Simon Kimble)Victory for CAAT, writers on The Lancet, and other well-known writers.
The UN is trying to get full agreement to an arms trade treaty - ATT –
and so far 150 countries have backed it with only
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/jul/02/rift-valley-pastoralists-arms-treaty?INTCMP=SRCH
(article on the importance of arms control to the developing world)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/arms-trade-treaty-un-talks-weapons?INTCMP=SRCH
(appeal for support from William Hague and others...).
Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy, shadow foreign and defence
secretaries, call for UK arms export licences to be
subject to more scrutiny – so we don’t sell to dictators http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/17/uk-progressive-arms-policy-arab-spring?INTCMP=SRCH
Given the recent ceremony to remember with a monument the 50,573 members
of RAF Bomber Command who died in action, there has been much discussion of the
morality of their raids. Richard Overy (professor of
history at the
Commanders knew that survival rates were poor, he says, ‘and that the
military-industrial targets were a mere front for a deliberate policy of
killing civilians. This was a policy shielded from the public and from the
crews, because it raised awkward questions.’ The RAF chief of staff, Charles
Portal, told Churchill, Roosevelt and the assembled chiefs at
‘It is surely time that the ethical subterfuge performed all through the
war, in pretending that city areas were militarily justifiable targets, was
confronted honestly.’ ‘Those who gave the permission [for the bombing] ... need
to be held to account.’
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/22/raf-bomber-command-remembered-with-honesty?INTCMP=SRCH
– and see Mary Midgley’s letter in response.
There is
even the likelihood that climate change
is provoking conflict: in
Tthe
legacy of colonialism is still being
played out in wars in Africa and Asia: in the Congo the aftermath of the rapid
withdrawal by the Belgians is still being felt; in other countries a minority
that was favoured by the colonizers is still in
conflict with others who feel they were excluded from power (Hutus and Tutsis
for instance); and elsewhere the question of control over resources which
originated in colonial days is still the source of conflict.. See notes: The anti-colonial
movement (in preparation). However, it has been argued that more
Africans have died of AIDS than of war in the 20th century…
- Book: The
History Thieves: Secrets, Lies and the shaping of a modern nation, Ian Cobain,
Portobello 2016. Reviewed by Ian Jack, Guardian Sat Oct 8th
2016. How the
- Book:
Ghosts of Empire:
- Book:
And a
fascinating short piece by Drayton on the neo-cons’ ‘Hobbesian’
vision of American power in the world – the aim is not just to conquer but to
destroy so that the victim needs an authority figure to ‘put things right’: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/dec/28/usa.iraq
*Declaring
war in
The government is
discussing a war powers act, like that in the
(i) Guthrie and Kevin Tebbitt, former permanent secretary at the MoD, were
interviewed by Peter Hennessy, (Prof. at Queen Mary, UoL)
on Radio 4’s Today programme. He opposes the proposal that some want included
in the act, that parliament should decide when
There is a question about the meaning of “going to war” – especially since the last time Britain formally declared war was in 1942 against Siam (now Thailand) – “What we do [now] is slide into war, you cannot avoid that.”
The military, and British ministers, are frustrated by other European countries which have a greater parliamentary say in troop deployment, says Norton-Taylor.
Tebbitt says that our PM cannot deploy forces without a parliamentary majority, and so he/she is already accountable. (Eh?!)
(ii) Guthrie said that with such an act intelligence would have to be shared with MPs (Oh?!) – Tebbitt suggests a select committee could see the intelligence in private. Monbiot refers to the UN Charter:
- states must first try to resolve differences by peaceful means (art. 33)
- if these fail, they should refer the matter to the Security Council (art. 37)
- S.C. should then decide what action should be taken.
Launching a surprise war (not a battle…) is therefore against international law. See also the Nuremberg Tribunal: “to initiate a war of aggression.. is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime.”
Monbiot also reminds us that Tebbitt was the one who prevented the Fraud Squad from investigating allegations of corruption against BAE, and that he tipped off the BAE Chairman about a confidential letter from the SFO, and he failed to tell his minister about the SFO’s warnings! During the Hutton enquiry he at first said that the decision to name Kelly was made in a “meeting chaired by the PM” – a crucial piece of evidence that he later retracted!!
George Monbiot,
G 230609, gives some staggering figures:
- MoD
budget is £38 bn, more than any other department except
health and education, and equivalent of 12% of state spending
- service
charges on the MoD’s private finance initiative
funding: £1.3 bn – more than the entire budget of the
department of energy and climate change
- MoD’s
budget for capital charges and depreciation: £9.6 bn
– twice the budget of the department for international development
- property
management: £1.5 bn
- consultants
and lawyers: £470 m
- let alone ‘bullets bombs and the
like’: £650 m.
I agree with George: we could cut
the defence budget by 90% and suffer no loss to our national security. After
all, in 2003 the MoD said: ‘there are currently no
major conventional military threats to the
By comparison, though, the cost of
the ‘credit crunch’ so far is:
- to rescue
RBS and Lloyds: £1.5 tn
- national
(net state) debt now over £700 bn and likely to reach
150% of
Meredith Alexander resigned from the
Olympics Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 when Dow was given the job of
providing the ‘wrap around’ – Dow claims not to have any responsibility for
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/06/eyes-sky-legal-and-philosophical-implications-drone-warfare Book review by David Patrikarakos author
of book on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Includes
reference to ‘just war theory’ – drones do not fit. Cannot discern exactly who
the target is...
‘Regardless of its critics, drone
warfare is here to stay. It’s too easy, too cheap (in terms of American
casualties) and too established in US security and political apparatuses to be
discarded now. These books remind us that, contrary to some received
wisdom, using drones is not necessarily a more ethical form of warfare.
And, although they may fly overhead, they do not provide governments with what
they always crave in war: the moral high ground.’
The
Estimated the
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/02/drone-age-obama-pakistan?intcmp=239
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/04/15-dead-drone-pakistan
March 2013 –
islanders vote to stay under British rule. Seamas
Milne (13th March, The Guardian) says despite this it is time for a
negotiated settlement. The poll was a foregone conclusion and misses the point
of the dispute: the seizure 180 years ago by one of Lord Palmerston’s
gunboats, who then expelled the Argentinian administration.
By giving the colonists a veto,
Are the islanders really a viable
group, capable of self-determination? The UN says not – and so the dispute is
over who the island belongs to.
More than 900 people died in the
1982 war.
Options for the island include:
joint sovereignty, co-administration and leaseback.
[Notes written up
March 2012
sees 30th anniversary: articles in New Statesman (02.04.12) make
good points:
Anthony Barnett - author of Iron
Britannia (1982, revised with new overview of 30 years of militarism) Faber
Finds Imprint (£11). There are myths, especially on the left:
- the war
was an accident
-
- the war was nothing to do with the
left (even though Labour supported it, and 15 years
later fought in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq...).
Barnett: it grew out of ‘Churchillism’ (from the impact of 1940) – i.e. bellicosity
but minus its humanity. Victory was close – Argentine bombs were not correctly
fused, the landing areas could have been mined but weren’t, and if the conflict
had been delayed until the bad weather, we would have lost.
‘The victory gave birth to the
double-headed monster of militarism and market fundamentalism signaled in
Thatcher’s
David Cameron at
The UN Charter says we must protect
the ‘interests’ of the islanders, not their ‘wishes’. We should recognise the
oil being sought round the island is
Guardian 22.07.11 John Vidal – famine in
In
addition, governments in the region have declared war on pastoralists – to ‘modernise’ them… yet “major international studies” have
shown that “pastoralists produce more and better quality meat and generate more
cash per hectare than ‘modern’ Australian and
What is
needed, finally, is long-term assistance with development, not emergency aid
that only arrives in a crisis (which always arrives late anyway because of the
time it takes to set it in motion.’
*The great escape: a war myth *
Guy Walters: The Real Great Escape
(Bantam) argues that the ‘hero’ Sqdn Ldr Roger Bushell was a driven
character, who ignored warnings about the danger of trying to escape from Stalag Luft III, the escape
attempt led to the deaths by shooting of 50 of the 76 who took part (and only 3
got to Britain – none of them British). Walters finds Bushell
culpable for his own murder and those of his comrades. The escape attempts
(though elaborate and involving three tunnels and documents for 200 escapees)
were partly planned so as to occupy German resources hunting the men and slow
the German war effort. It did nothing of the sort. (Review by Nigel Jones,
Saturday Guardian 26.05.12)
10.10.11:
Two pieces
in today’s Guardian (both in G2) which deal with ‘the violence in human nature’
- as Maddy Costa puts it in the first piece: a review
of a revival of Edward Bond’s play Saved (in which, notoriously, a baby in a
pram is stoned to death). She says that what Bond does is expose ‘our capacity
to deny the violence in human nature.’
And yet, the play involves characters whose lives are ‘empty’ – and the
actor Dennis Waterman explains that ‘the baby is saved from a nonexistent life’
[as a baby born into the impoverished working class]. Bored, neglected kids
throw stones at squirrels, he says, and it takes ‘only one little leap of the
imagination’ to envisage them killing a baby.
Secondly
Sam Wollaston describes soldiers who appeared in the television programme Fighting on the Frontline, who declare that the
feeling they get from being in a gunfight in Afghanistan is better than sex –
‘It’s probably the best feeling ever’ says one, and ‘I’ll take a good scrap
over getting laid any time’ says another. Again, it seems important to me to
underline the context: young men who have joined the army (why? Perhaps their
lives were as ‘empty’ as those portrayed in Saved), trained to kill, and faced
with an enemy whose capacity for surprise (IEDs, suicide attacks) is enormous.
On reading
these pieces my first reaction was to question my belief in the human potential
for non-violence. But in the end,
because of what I believe to be the powerful conditioning that these violent
young men have undergone, I still maintain that a peaceful world is possible!
1. Agree to a large extent with Simon Jenkins (G, 300508): we used to think of UN etc with a sense of respect (especially for people such as Dag Hammerskold and Albert Schweitzer) – but now the people involved seem to expect a luxurious life-style, expenses, and impunity from punishment for committing crimes such as exploiting the victims of tragedies (atrocities against women and children committed by “blue-berets” in Africa). Examples: European Broadcasting Union (runs e.g. Eurovision Song Contest) has 400 staff in Switzerland, with no oversight; IOC and costs of running Olympic Games; FIFA; even Kofi Annan’s 2000 “poverty summit” – with lobsters and champagne…
But he goes on to say if you want something done get a nation to do it, not an inter-nation – witness the relative success of the Americans in Iraq [what?!], against the chaos of “some 30 nations” that intervened in Afghanistan.
Organisations such as International Court in the Hague need accountability, but to whom?
has
recently started trial of Thomas Lubanga (G 260109, Chris
McGreal) the Congolese militia leader. Charged with conscripting child soldiers. “ICC’s credibility
also damaged by the first indictment handed down – against the Ugandan rebel
leader Joseph Kony and the international dispute over
the charging of Sudan’s leaders for killings in Darfur”… [not
sure why either of these was damaging to ICC – but see notes in SM Ch 4 Section
4 re international courts]. Human rights groups have criticised
prosecutors for limiting charges to child soldier recruitment when there were
mass killings, torture, rape etc in the Ituri region
of north-east
2. John Laughland, author of “Travesty: the Trial of Slobodan
Milosevic and the Corruption of International Justice, wrote (G280208):
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has
ruled that
This is
crucial he says, because the west has tried to blame Milosevic for atrocities
in
The Kosovo war was fought because
the west felt it had not intervened
strongly enough against
Laughland
points out that it is crucial to distinguish between:
- the ICJ – set up on the basis of the UN
Charter, after
- the International Criminal Court, on the other hand, and the bodies
set up to deal with specific conflicts: ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia) and the court for Rwanda, were set up to promote
western interests, and are based on the doctrine of interventionism.
Consequences: ICC is not investigating any of the following:
- after the 1991
- NATO
bombed the Bosnian Serbs in 1995, and
– though it is investigating local wars in
New Statesman 27 May 2016. John Simpson reviews
‘Not the Chilcot Report’ by Peter Oborne.
The report
is due in July... Simpson notes that Oborne quotes Lord Butler’s speech in the House of Lords in
2007:
“The
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/14/iraq-pain-2003-civil-war?INTCMP=SRCH
After 35
years of Saddamist dictatorship, 13 years of sanctions,
and ten years on from the 2003 war – the country is staring into the abyss.
Over a million died since 1991. 4 million became refugees, and a million have
still to return. There are 1 million internal refugees. Explosions and
shootings kill on a daily basis. Depleted uranium was used, and the
1. intervention requires legitimacy – this was disputed from
the outset, and can only be understood against the backdrop of 9/11
2. interventions need limited, clear and realistic goals – the
rationale shifted (
3. the collapse of the state leads to communal violence [a
point anarchists need to answer] – the coalition occupied without enough
forces, disbanded the Iraqi security forces, de-Ba’athified
comprehensively, rather than only remove those who had committed crimes against
the people
4. an inclusive elite agreement is critical – but Shias were allowed to dominate, supported by Kurdish
nationalists, and Iraqis in exile
5. elections do not necessarily bestow legitimacy – the new
elites were more focused on capturing power than serving the people
6. interventions have unintended consequences – civil war and
over 100,000 Iraqis killed
Note 21.12.08 from incomplete cutting from Guardian:
A brief note on the legality of the
February 2008: A nine-judge panel of law lords is being asked
to order a public inquiry into the deaths of soldiers in
Court of
Appeal ruled in 2006 that the government is not obliged to order an
independent/public inquiry.
The mothers
argue that Blair did not take sufficient steps to ensure the invasion of
The lords
(Bingham as senior law lord, with Hoffman, Hope, Scott, Rodger, Carswell, Brown, Mance, Lady Hale – 9 rather than the usual 5 because of the
constitutional issues involved) will probably take six weeks to come to a
decision.
Note: whilst admiring and supporting the mothers,
and agreeing with them that there should be an inquiry, I am at a loss to
follow the logic of this case: (i) the purpose of soldiering
is to put lives at risk – even though those running wars may say they hope that
no-one will be killed, this outcome is extremely unlikely!!! (ii) whether a war is legal or not is surely irrelevant: is the
risk of being killed higher or lower in a legal than in an illegal war? On the other hand (as Jill my wife has just
argued) if the argument is that the war should not have happened at all (= what
is meant by saying it was illegal), then the logic clearly is that their lives would not have been put at risk. True, but once
the (illegal) war has started obviously this can no longer apply. And again, I
cannot see that embarking on an illegal war is more risky than embarking on a
legal one. I guess my pacifism and my cynicism are getting in the way: it would
be nice to hope that we can put a stop to illegal wars… but then I have
difficulty with the very notion of a legal war, since for me the right to life
is paramount…
Others have
argued that the war was not legal: Burns Weston, Director of University of Iowa
Center for Human Rights, Richard Perle, Kofi Annan
and the UN, the International Commission of International Law Jurists – who
wrote to Bush and Blair to this effect. More recently Admiral Sir Alan West,
previously First Sea Lord
Costs of
Since 2003,
bill for both wars adds up to £10 bn. (G 110308). 2007 – 8 estimates are:
Other observations on the wars:
See Dahr Jamail’s book The Will to
resist, on soldiers who refuse to fight in
The
At the end of
May 2007 the
Seale
quotes Jimmy Carter as saying “there are people in Washington… who never intend
to withdraw military forces from Iraq…the reason we went into Iraq was to
establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region.” The war is costing the
US $1bn a year, and shortly after the invasion the
David Strahan (Guardian
Exxon Mobil chief
executive Rex Tillerson said he was looking forward
“to the day when we can partner with
Even Alan
Greenspan, former head of the US Federal Reserve concedes that the
See: The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the
Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man, by David Strahan.
Also: www.lastoilshock.com
1. Serb and pro-Serb demonstrators opposed to
Kosovo gaining independence claim that “Kosovo is
See above #international courts.
2. Summary
from Guardian weekend
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/20/kosovan-albanians-name-children-tony-blair-tonibler
That hot June day in 1999,
British troops were festooned with flowers, kissed and hugged along the road
from the Macedonian border to Pristina. But less than
100 yards from the long line of Warrior armoured cars
baking in the sun were reminders of why they had come. Scattered among the
villages were hundreds of freshly
dug graves for victims of atrocities committed by Serbian paramilitaries.
More than 10,000 people were killed. Milosevic had ordered many of the bodies
to be dug up and taken away by the departing Serbs in a clumsy attempt at a
cover-up of his crimes. The bones are still being unearthed in
In retrospect, that bright
shining day in June, with Kosovan children thronging
around smiling, sunburned squaddies, was the
On closer scrutiny, the
Kosovo mission itself was far from clearcut. Western
leaders, including Blair, made their plans on the mistaken assumption that a
few days of aerial bombardment would convince Milosevic to call off his plan to
drive both the KLA and the Kosovans out of the
province. But there was much more at stake. Serbs saw Kosovo as the cradle of
the nation. Few of them wanted actually to live there, among the despised
Albanians, but they were prepared to fight bitterly not to lose it.
When Nato bombed, Milosevic stepped up his operation.
Three-quarters of the prewar population of 1.8 million Kosovans
were driven from their homes in 1999. Half a million found shelter inside
Kosovo's borders, hiding in the woods or in abandoned homes; 800,000 ended up
in refugee camps in
With no plan B, Nato dithered. The bombing
campaign was expanded to the rest of
In the face of these
incidents, Tony Blair flew to
Salvation had come at the
darkest hour, but it would be hard to describe the ensuing 15 years as a
happy-ever-after. Those who can remember the Milosevic era are grateful simply
to be living in peace in their home villages and towns, but even for them the
discontents of freedom are beginning to weigh heavier. With every passing year,
life seems less like a miracle and more like a challenge. The varied
childhoods of the Toniblers and Blers
tell the story of Kosovo in all its joys and disappointments. But for their
generation, just being alive and free will no longer be enough.
Marwan Bishara, author of ‘The Invisible Arab’ (Nation Books)
argues that before western intervention in
*Mercenaries – privatisation of war*
Article by Emin Saner: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/06/the-return-of-the-dogs-of-war-whats-it-like-to-be-a-soldier-for-hire
Globally,
it has been estimated that £44.5 billion is paid every year to private military
companies. They operate in some 50 countries.
In the
In
Especially
of note is Blackwater
USA: four of their workers were ambushed in their vehicles in Fallujah
in 2004; they were killed, and their bodies burned, hacked up, trampled on, and
then displayed on a bridge. The company is secretive, and based in
Blackwater’s management has deep ties to the Republican Party, and it provided
personal security for Paul Bremer, the American “proconsul” in
In
More on Blackwater: founded in 1997 by two former navy Seals, its
mission is “to support security and peace, and freedom and democracy
everywhere.” It has trained more than 40,000 people at its base in
It is being
investigated by the FBI (Guardian). It has had “diplomatic security” contracts
with the State Department, since 2004, worth $750m.
Also
operating in Iraq are: Aegis Defence
Services, which is run by a former Scots Guard called Tim Spicer
(implicated in the Arms to Africa scandal of the late 1990s – weapons were
shipped to Sierra Leone during an embargo), and chaired by Field Marshal Lord Inge, former chief of the defence staff (!) – they were
awarded a $300m in 2004 to co-ordinate security for Iraq’s construction
projects, and $475m over two years in 2007 – the biggest single deal in Iraq,
and their turnover in 2004 was £62 m; ArmorGroup International is London-based, and Sir
Malcolm Rifkind, former Tory defence secretary, is a
Director - it protects a third of all non-military convoys in Iraq, and has
contracts in Basra. The private security industry in
In
According
to Ben Quinn (NS 180208) the amount of taxpayers’ money that goes on Private
Military Security Companies has reached £200 million, and will increase to £250
m this year. Foreign Office spent £50 m last year on PMSCs, e.g. £24 m to Control
Risks, £19 m to ArmorGroup (non-exec chairman since
2004 Malcolm Rifkind). Liberal Democrats point out
that by comparison government spent £125 m on UNHCR work in
Care
International UK has also expressed concern. Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine
talks of outsourcing leading to “the hollow army”, much as multinationals are
“hollow companies” outsourcing the dirty work to poorly-paid contractors. (Not that mercenaries seem to be poorly-paid!).
*War damages the natural environment:*
The most
striking examples are “agent orange” (defoliant, that causes deformed births,
used in Vietnam), and the burning oil wells in Kuwait; but so does the arms trade:
the processing of heavy metals at arms factories pollutes the soil and
groundwater; some 30,000 tons of chemical weapons have to be destroyed in the
US as part of an international treaty – but incinerating them is dangerous to
the environment. However, in the
*New technology and
war*
Some would
say that technology has made war
“smarter” - e.g. cruise missiles that are guided to their target. However a lot
of myths have been perpetrated about how smart this weaponry is. Nevertheless,
some of the new weaponry has more
devastating effects than ever, on civilians or ground troops:
napalm (a sticky substance that
burns into the flesh),
cluster bombs: these release hundreds of “bomblets”
with an explosive range of 10 metres, some of which
(up to 25%) fail to explode, leaving danger for anyone who picks them up; they
are especially attractive to children… They have been used in
The
Des Brown the Defence Secretary announced early
in 2007 that the British armed forces would be banned from using “dumb” cluster
bombs, and would only deploy ones with a self-destruct mechanism. Last year the
MoD described the CRV-7 rocket system as a cluster
weapon. However, more recently, Margaret Beckett, then foreign secretary, said
that it was not “dumb” because virtually all the bomblets
explode on impact, and in July Bob Ainsworth, the armed forces minister, told
MPs that it did not fall within the government’s understanding of a cluster munition. The argument goes that it has “too few submunitions” and a “direct fire capability” (since it is
fired from a helicopter?). But others say that the weapon has 19 rockets in a
pod and therefore 171 submunitions, and the MoD have admitted it has
a 6% failure rate. A Commons foreign affairs committee report estimated that
the M85 cluster bomblets, which are supposed to
self-destruct, have a 10% failure rate. Groups opposed to cluster bombs say
However, May 2008 an agreement has been reached
banning cluster bombs…
landmines also are to be found
scattered over territory after a war has finished, maiming and killing anyone
who comes across them. They were still being laid in 2003 in
“aerial” bombs can be exploded above troops (as in the
first gulf war), - they burn above an area and suck out the oxygen, suffocating
those underneath
- and some new technological developments raise ethical
issues:
robots: hundreds of research
projects are underway at American universities and defence companies (New
Statesman 22.06.06). So much is being invested, it is
being called the “new Manhatten Project.” Project
Alpha is developing robots for the
spy systems: some are talking of developing spy
systems and sensors that would “map a city and the activities in it, including
inside buildings, to sort adversaries and their equipment from civilians and
their equipment, including in crowds, and to spot snipers, suicide bombers or
IEDs” (improvised explosive devices)… (Tony Tether, director of Darpa, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the
Book by Mark Engler: This Is An Uprising: How
Nonviolent Revolt is Shaping the Twenty-first Century – to be released early
2016. see also www.DemocracyUprising.com
- it is
clear that now (2007) we live in a very different world with regard to nuclear
weapons: there are a growing number of
nuclear powers (see nuclear stockpiles above),
and even “minor” powers such as Iran and North Korea are getting close to
having nuclear weapons. We can also see - from the situation with regard to
Pacifism:
World War II: why did we fight it? (Apr 2008) – see sm4...
Peter Wilby comments on “Human Smoke” by Nicholson Baker, which
“puts the pacifist case against the second world war”.
Moreover, once we went to war we put ourselves on the same
moral plane as the Germans: we were the first to bomb at night; Churchill did
not allow food relief to occupied
A letter in reply from Geoffrey Goodman, ex-RAF (G 290408)
says he cannot believe Wilby is serious: he should
read Richard Evans: “The Third Reich in
Power”, rather than Taylor or Baker. The Nazis had built 70 concentration
camps within a few months of taking power in 1933 – well before Kristallnacht and the
But the concentration camps didn’t at first involve genocide, and it is my belief that the “final solution” dates from later – especially from the Wannsee conference of January 1942. My view is, however, that pacifists and others who oppose discrimination and war need to be aware of the earliest signs of discrimination and persecution – since these can lead incrementally by escalation to enormous horrors. By incrementally I mean that the changes are so slight that most people don’t realise where the situation might be leading. Until it is too late.
This may be the weakness with Baker’s book: pacifism needs to stress what should be done before armed conflict breaks out...
Of course, Wilby is also making the point that we didn’t go to war with Saddam Hussein because he was an evil dictator, (which is the current justification now that we all know there were no WMDs...) The aim of the war was (as with World War II) to maintain a certain balance of power – and, I would add, this would be done by keeping control over oil.
Guardian
16.08.10 article: Dr Izzeldin
Abulaish from Gaza, 3 of whose daughters were
killed in an Israeli raid in 2008 - 9, and another seriously injured, doesn’t
seek vengeance and is against violence – has written a book ‘I Shall Not Hate’
to published in Canada in April, to be published in UK January. Translated into
13 languages… Charity: Daughters for Life. Gave a broadcast on Channel 10 in
Abulaish
has now gone to
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/15/palestinian-doctor-izzeldin-abuelaish-gaza-war
Poppies... Jonathan Jones has caused a stir with his piece that is critical of the poppies around the Tower.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/31/world-war-one-poppies-memorial-cameron
Public Mourning by
Will Self (New Statesman, 14 - 20 Nov 2014):
The 888,246 poppies at the
‘...what matters with these very public acts of “remembrance” is precisely that they be public: to be seen to be mourning the fallen is the loyalty oath of the contemporary British state, and if you take it you’re helping to ensure that no matter what your personal cavil may be about this or that “illegal” war, overall you’re still prepared to back our government’s use of lethal force in the prosecution of its foreign policy.’
And is it just a coincidence that in the same week as
Remembrance Day, the government decided to send troops to
The poppies will be ‘flogged off to raise money for ex-servicemen and women’s charities, but what sort of a state is it that doesn’t make adequate provision for those wounded, or the dependents of those killed in its service, out of the public purse?’
Finally, how ironic that there is now more heroin than ever before coming out of Afghanistan – a drug made from poppies, so called because it made its users feel ‘heroic’!!
Woodford Green ‘protest against war in the
air,’ and to
commemorate failed 1932 conference at Geneva to ban bombing by planes,
instigated by Sylvia Pankhurst, ‘All the love in all the mothers’ hearts cannot
prevail against the stern economics of Capital’ said Pankhurst. (Letters, G,
170710, in response to proposed memorial to bomber command in
War: Richard Drayton, G 140610 – re the gun battles
in Kingston Jamaica: they are linked to the security establishments in the US,
Britain and Canada; drones are being used... and ‘passes’… blanket surveillance
of electronic communications... all tactics recommended in US manuals on
counterinsurgency. For two years the Canadian Special Operations Regiment has
trained Jamaican forces; joint US-Canada intelligence op being mounted from
- in 1972
Michael Manley of People’s National Party elected as PM; he increased taxes
paid by US and Canadian mining companies, opened relations with Cuba and
defended Cuba sending troops to Angola when US and S Afr
were arming anti-govt rebels; large CIA station in
Kingsland; weapons flowed in , arson and bombings; trans-shipment of cocaine
from S America began in late ‘70s; gangs at the centre of the unrest, including
Lester Coke (Dudu’s father) – these criminals were
enforcers for the Jamaican Labour Party and gave help
to the allies of the Nicaraguan Contras… Drayton is Rhodes Prof of imperial
history at King’s
The Silent One
Who dies on the wires, and hung there, one of
two –
Who for hours of life had chattered through
Infinite lovely chatter of Bucks accent;
Yet faced unbroken wires; stepped over, and
went,
A noble fool, faithful to his stripes – and
ended.
But I weak, hungry, and willing only for the
chance
Of line – to fight in the line, lay down under
unbroken
Wires, and saw the flashes, and kept unshaken.
Till the politest voice – a finicking
accent, said:
“Do you think you might crawl through there:
there’s a hole?” In the afraid
Darkness, shot at: I smiled, as politely
replied –
“I’m afraid not, Sir.” There was no hole no way to be seen.
Nothing but chance of death, after
tearing of clothes.
Kept flat, and watched the darkness, hearing
bullets whizzing –
And thought of music – and swore deep heart’s
deep oaths.
(Polite to God) – and
retreated and came on again.
Again retreated – and a second time faced the
screen.
From Collected Poems by Ivor Gurney, Fyfield Press.
(See also
‘Poetry I Like’ file: link)
Anne Karpf wrote sympathetically about the
Society of Friends in September 2011 during Quaker Week:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/28/quakers-religion-dawkins-sign-up
She makes the point that they ‘would sooner not believe in God than in
pacifism’. Some do not believe in God...
Note the blog-site: http://www.quakerweb.org.uk/blog/about/
where Friends discuss issues of sustainability, a just economy etc.
1.
There is a legacy of violence in
2. Rape of men also occurs, and in some ways the consequences for the
victims are worse – men are often unable to admit what happened, for fear of
being shamed and seen as ‘women’, when the do tell
their wives their wives often leave them. Horrific descriptions in article by
Will Storr, Obs. Mag. 17.07.11:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/17/the-rape-of-men
The extent
of this is not yet known, largely because of the shame experienced – Storr visits the Refugee Law project in
Journal of
the American Medical Association, in 2010 published result of a survey: 22% of
men and 30% of women in
G2 22.07.11
– Eleanor O’Hagan reports on failed accusation of gang rape by US service woman
against colleagues in military contracting firm KBR. Adds that according to military reporter Adam
Weinstein a
* Rape and sexual violence in the
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/09/rape-us-military?INTCMP=SRCH
- horrifying article, especially in the accounts of how victims are
vilified or at least not taken seriously (for example the woman who, having
just been raped by a fellow soldier, went into an officer’s office to complain
without remembering to give the customary three knocks – he then made her do so
many press-ups [“get down!”] that she was unable to say anything. Or the male
soldier who was reporting to a doctor when the doctor received a phone-call as
a result of which he said ‘there’s nothing wrong with you’ – despite the fact
he had been beaten up and had blood everywhere.
New Statesman 18 – 31 March 2016 (Second Life, by Sophie McBain) has disturbing statistics: In 2015 the number of people
fleeing war or persecution reached 60 Million. Of these 19.5 million are
registered with the UN (which gives them the right to protection in the country
from which they have made their asylum claim). More than 50 countries have not
signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, and don’t recognise any obligations. The
parts of the qworld that can best support refugees (
\The
See the New Statesman,
More
conflict occurs now over control of
resources, and less as a result of ideology (hopefully, fascism was a passing
phase, and the end of the Cold War means that differences between “communism”
and “capitalism” are no longer likely to explode into direct armed conflict).
Resource control, I would argue, lies at the heart of much conflict, even if it
is overlaid with religious or ideological difference.
Guardian 150611, Daniel Ellsberg regrets that he didn’t reveal more
of the papers he had at the time of the Vietnam War. The Pentagon Papers were
released in 1971. He had other secret papers that showed that claims of an
unprovoked attack on US destroyers in the
Note the
parallels with the
*Soldiers are trained to kill – Giles Fraser*
See the Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/12/afghanistan-men-without-safety-catch?INTCMP=SRCH
for one reaction to the killing by a
It’s not natural for us to kill each other, so methods have to be found
e.g. psychological distancing (de-humanising), but
troops need special methods. Brig Gen SLA Marshall wrote Men Against Fire in
1947 arguing that many soldiers actually couldn’t fire at the enemy, and the
army etc have learned from this: targets are now made to look like people,
video and computer games help make violence seem ordinary, a kind of
‘psychological warfare against our own troops’. War involves a process of
systematic dehumanization says Fraser.
*
Oct 2016: Boris
Johnson, now Foreign Secretary (!) has suggested there should be demonstrations outside the Russian
Embassy to protest against their support for President Assad. They are accused
of war crimes, as hospitals have been hit, and many civilians killed. Responses
in letter to the Guardian include one from the coordinator of the PPU, Symon Hill. He says Boris Johnson is wrong to ask where are
the demonstrations against
Alastair
Crooke, director of Conflicts Forum and a former security advisor to the EU,
warns (Guardian 17th June) how wrong it would be to supply more arms
to the Syrian opposition. ‘
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/16/red-lines-syria-have-not-been-crossed
When will
we ever learn?
May 29th. Simon Jenkins on the
An excellent piece – showing how ludicrous our foreign policy is. When will we learn that our enemies’
enemies are not necessarily our
friends? When will we stop intervening with arms in a misguided attempt to
solve other countries’ problems? (And I often disagree with Jenkins – but not
this time!!)
Seamus Milne has a good piece in Guardian 06.06.12
– against western intervention.
Massacres have occurred, and most agree they are the work of shabiha, i.e.
pro-government sectarian militias – but the regime blames them on the
opposition (Free Syria Army). This is similar to the situation in Kosovo 13
years ago, when contested killings led to western/NATO bombings (outside UN).
However, intervention in
Milne claims the intervention in
See
Philippe Sands’ book Torture Team (Penguin). Several reports (3 in 3 years)
indicate that there has been “force drift” i.e. where interrogators come to
believe that some force/violence is good, then more will be even better – an
observation made a long time ago by Sartre in his preface to Henri Alleg’s book (La Question) on torture in Algeria… Sleep
deprivation whilst hooded and cuffed, stress positions etc. Court Martials found soldiers not guilty because the senior
officer Col. Jorge Mendonca argued these techniques
had been cleared by the chain of command. But in 2006 Supreme
Court ruled that Geneva conventions still applied to the detainees at
Guantanamo. One judge even said: violations of Common Article Three,
part of the law of war and treaty ratified by the US, are considered ‘war
crimes’ punishable as federal offences.
See
Wikipedia web page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_all_UN_peacekeeping_missions
Guidelines
for UN: http://pbpu.unlb.org/pbps/Library/Capstone_Doctrine_ENG.pdf
NB wiki
notes on page defining peacekeeping perhaps need amending to use UN distinction
between peacemaking and peace enforcement?
*War On Want*
War on Want
says that ‘conflict is a major source of poverty’: Iraq gains 95% of its
revenue from oil, but international oil companies are being given control (see
below) when such resources should be under the control of the people of Iraq.
See www.waronwant.org/iraq. The
pressure-group is also campaigning to have mercenaries controlled…
* ‘websites and other resources’ – additions *
Coming up
to 1914, discussion is taking place on how to commemorate it...
Oldest items
first:
Interesting
piece by Matthias Strohn, senior lecturer in war
studies at
Other
articles: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/22/national-archives-kew-appeals-middlesex-tribunal
on conscientious objectors...
Review of
Frank Furedi: First World War: Still no end in sight
(
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/26/furedi-first-world-war-still-no-end-review
- comments are interesting!
Adam Tooze: The Great War and the Re-making of Global Order 1916
– 1931 (
*World War II - The Zohn
family*
May 2008: Have
been checking the stories of the Zohn family, helped
by my parents to flee
See: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E2DB133EF931A25755C0A9679C8B63# - for Harry Zohn’s Obituary – mentions that Elsa is still alive.
See also worldcat.
All this also derived from largely hostile reviews of the book by Nicholson Baker mentioned above (though Peter Wilby’s review is favourable). It would be good if I could assemble examples of what can be done before war breaks out… preventing war is the first thing; pacifism should be seen as a final stance taken in the event of failure (rather like the ideal position on abortion described by Nuala O’Faolain: we should be pro-life and pro-choice, and do all we can to prevent unwanted pregnancies first…). [The death of Nuala O’Faolain, the Irish writer, also produced observations on feminism – see notes on feminism (not written yet)].
The death of Irena Sendler, who worked to get Jewish children out of the
Warsaw Ghetto (Obituary G 140508) set me thinking: how
little attention is paid to these real heroes of the war, and to what was done
in the build-up to war to prevent the persecution of the Jews. (See below on
“liberal interventionism”). I need to find out more about what my parents were
involved in, since I always thought their awareness of the danger to the Jews
came before others outside Germany/Austria. I
have begun to do some research: I know that Fritzi Zohn was always grateful to my parents for their assistance
in getting her (and her sisters and brother) out of
Irena Sendler’s obituary includes
her statement, when praised for rescuing children: “Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful
messengers is the justification for my existence on this earth, rather than a
claim for honour.”
If only I had some “justification for my existence…” Perhaps doing a bit to rescue the memory of my parents and their stance against the war might help.
*The Two World Wars and war today*
Geoffrey Wheatcroft (Independent on Sunday, Comment, 11.11.07)
rightly, in my opinion, points out that our attitude to war has changed
dramatically. In the two World Wars there was an incredible loss of life –
today’s wars produce comparatively few casualties. Thus the death toll of
Americans in the
There are
also many more civilian casualties: we do not know exactly how many Iraqis have
died, but it is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands. During the Kosovo
war, a French General asked if we now only kill civilians in war. And maybe our
soldiers are ready to kill but not to die…
With regard
to the political class, the contrast is also striking: None of our present
government has any experience of military action. In the First WW, 22 sitting
MPs were killed in action., and every PM from 1940 –
1963 had previously served as an infantry officer in that war. 85 sons of MPs
were killed: does any MP now have a son serving?
Of the men
who went to
As Kipling himself put it:
“If any question why we died,
Tell them because our fathers lied.”
Wheatcroft
says perhaps this should now read “rulers”.
Good book
on how
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/30/to-hell-and-back-ian-kershaw-review
Susan Pedersen’s review makes some interesting points too: Kershaw’s book
misses out the ‘imperial dimension’. That is, Europe was too busy thinking
about its empires, and thinking in an imperial frame of reference, to realise
what was developing in Europe viz. the ‘neo-mercantilist assumption that one state’s
advantage could only come at another state’s cost’ – coupled with the growth of
nationalism, and the effects of rapid technological change, economic
uncertainty, the rise of discourses of planning, population and ‘racial
hygiene’... that affected most European states. Thus there were not only half a
billion people in Europe, but hundreds of millions more in empires subject to
Europe: 400 million in the British Empire alone (!!). The descendants of these
countries want to understand not just ‘why Nazism’ but ‘why empire’ – also ‘how
central was racism to the imperial project’? More people were killed in
Belgium’s Congo (10 million) than soldiers in the first world
war... Maybe e.g. Italian
aggression against Ethiopia meant that they didn’t turn their aggression on
Europe. Maybe the British missed the significance of the growing Nazi threat in
the mid ‘30s because they were working on the Government of India Act. The
militarization of the Rhineland was the last chance to stop Hitler, and it was
missed. It was foolish to think Hitler could be appeased with ‘extra-European
territorial swaps’ – but that had worked (kept the peace) for Europeans for
centuries.
END