It's been nearly ten years since the 'September 11th' attacks on the 'World Trade Center', the Pentagon and the, as yet, unkown target in Washington D.C, and since that fateful day Osama Bin Laden has been running and hiding from american forces all over the far east. Well, American forces finally caught up with him this week, in a compound, in Abottabad, in Pakistan and rather than all that tedious mucking about with a trial that would undoubtably cost the American tax-payers an absolute fortune, like Saddam Hussain's, they decided that it would proberbly be better for all concerned if they just shot him in the head! Fair enough...... I suppose.
Seems to me though that America really doesn't learn from any of the conflicts that they managed to get themselves embroiled into during the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries, so how could their war on terror end any differently. Korea and Vietnam were both un-winnable conflicts, mostly due to the fact that the enemy's combatants weren't civil enough to wear a uniform declaring their hostile intent. Their use of civilians and children to blow shit up was also a contributing factor in why the U.S personnel on the ground, didn't know who the hell needed shooting, causing countless G.Is to question why they were even there.They were there because of the Cold War, they were there because J.Edgar Hoover and his buddies at the F.B.I had managed to get the whole of the American public absolutley paranoid about the spread of 'Communism'. The mere fact the governments of these supposedly 'Communist' states threatening to spread themselves over south east asia, were more dictatorial regiemes than they were communists states. Seems that every 15 seconds or so there some sort policing campaign, or liberation of a down troden society or out and out conflict and it always seems to have the U.S.A in the driving seat.
Korean War 1950-1953
Vietnam War 1963-1975
Operation Urgent Fury-Grenada 1983
Operation Just Cause-Panama 1989
Operaton Desert Storm-Iraq 1991
Operation Restore Hope-Somalia 1993
Operations in Europe-Bosnia 1990's
Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan 2001-present
Operation Iraqi Freedom-Iraq 2003-present.
Laberian Civil War 2003
The Second Gulf War 2003-2010
The Haitian Rebellion 2004
The Afganistan Conflict 2001-present
Lybian Civil War (operation Odessey Dawn) 2011-present
This is just the edited highlights of the conflicts that the U.S has been involved in since the end of World War 2, for the full, unabridged and staggeringly lengthy list of American Foriegn Policy go to :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States
I have discussed before why the Americans feel the need to be constantly going around dictating how other governments should behave so I won't re-itterate it here, what I will say is that they don't like being given a bloody nose by anyone let alone a terrorist organisation, and all of their technological warfare advancements, that has burned through a mind melting amount of money in the last fifty years, didn't seem to help their forces on the ground. Policing campaigns are dangerous places to be and there are three of them going on right now. The remnants of the 2nd Iraq War, The Afganistan Occupation and the Lybian Civil War, all of which are involving a supposed multi-national taskforce, all of which show no signs of abaiting and all of which are costing a staggering amount of money to run. And yet, initially, all three of these campaigns seemed simple, so why has it taken so long to sort out the Iraqi and Afganistani situations when America has the largest, most advanced weapons arsenal on the face of planet earth?
This question, I would greatly appreciate someone answering for me because I have am at a loss quite frankly . Why, also, did it take 10 years to find Osama Bin Laden when the U.S also has the most advanced technological surveillience and intelligence systems the world has ever seen? Again I would appreciate an answer because it baffles me. Maybe it's a case of international resentment, from various states, against America and their foriegn policies? Possible and more than a little understandable, after all there is a financial incentive in everything the American government takes on. They do have a tendancey to do what is good for their country and Sod everyone else! Their refusal to sign the 'Kyoto Accord' for example.
Bush's concept of a blanket 'War on Terror' was at the very least, mis-guided and quite possibly farcicle, after all, how does anyone fight an enemy when they don't know, who he is, where he is and what he looks like. I hasten to add that it's only terrorists with America in their sights that are the targets for this campaign, after all, there don't seem to be many american service personnel in spain helping seek out members of the Bask Seperatist movement, or in Ireland searching for members of the Real I.R.A who have taken a step backwards by starting to blow stuff up again. No America only cares when America's financial interests are somehow impeached.
After Bin Laden's assasination, President Obama has re-assured the world that the 'War on Terror is not a War on Islam, it is a war on extremism not on the Muslim community. That's all very well but if America's foriegn policy continues to service just American global interests then it is highly likely that their war on terror will never end. There will always be a new group ready to take up the sword to fight the political boheimouth that the U.S.A has become. As long as there are countries and populations that are run over by American foriegn policy, then there will always be people ready to become the next Bin Laden, to fight the good fight regardless of how many innocents get caught in the crossfire. Nothing breeds terrorists like political indifference, when people feel maginalised by governments, ignored by politicians, stamped on by corperations and ripped off by all of the above, how else can they get political attention?
Tuesday 3 May 2011
Tuesday 29 March 2011
What, War Drums.......AGAIN!!!!!!
It would seem that the good ole U.SofA, under the leadership of Nobel Peace Prize 'Winner' Barrack Obama, has decided that the whole worlds just far too quiet these days and what we really need is the distant sound of cruise missile explosions to liven the place up a bit. And, seeing as we have a bunch of chinless Oxford wonders governing the U.K at the moment, we'll be dragged down another warmongers road that will undoubtably end with another financial recession caused by the collosal amount of money that these sort of policing campaigns, flush down the damn toilet. The truth is that, yet again, this is all about oil or the lack of on the world market. Negotiations between Coronel Gadaffi (didn't think coronel was that high a rank in the armed forces, surley Marshall would be better) France and Britain about the sale of Lybian oil to the world market broke down about two months ago and America has made up a load of old pony about the infringement of human rights going on in Lybia as a justification to remove Gadaffi from rule.
Now look, the whole world and his wife knows that Gadaffi is an arsehole, the whole world and his wife knows about the lybian connection with the bombing of the Pan-Am flight that went down over scotland, and the world and his wife knows damn well that Lybia is not the kind of place that wins a five star rating from Amnesty International over the treatment of political prisoners.This stuff has been known about the place for eons so why in the name of all that's holy are we all of a sudden rattling sabres? Oil is a powerful motivator in international politics these days. It's running out all over the world and the western governments need horrendous amounts of it to keep thier economies moving. Unbelievable amounts of the stuff actually and Opec won't produce enough of it. They're not stupid, they know that the less they produce, the more the price of a barrel of the stuff goes up. As a by-product of this thinking, also the less they produce, the longer thier reserves last and the more money they make.
So what does that mean for us? Well, we, the everyday joe in the street end up paying through the nose to put any kind of fuel in any kind of motor vehicle. Truth is, Britains oil production is painfully insignificant next to say, Saudi Arabia's and the oil that keeps our country trundelling along has to come from somewhere. So, yet again the governments of the west call the shots, fire the artillery and it's the tax payers who end up footing the bill, and what a grossley exaggerated bill it is. The way that arms are produced in the U.S.A is hardly now, nor has it ever been, cost efficient. As way of an example, most motor companies need thousends of individual componants for the vehicles they manufacture. Say Vauxhall need a headlamp switch for their new saloon car, they invite tenders from componant manufacturers from all over the world. ( actually they will have a list of the componant manufacturers that General Motors will allow them to commision parts from, but we will come to that later ) These companies design or redesign an existing componant that satisfies the technical requirements of the switch needed and give a cost per unit of manufacture back to Vauxhall, and , because Vauxhall is run by accountants not engineers, they will almost exclusively pick the lowest quote.
The American arms manufacturers run a slightly different ship so to speak. Yes, they too need componants for the weapons systems that they produce but the lowest bidder rarely gets a look in. They will tender out to manufacturers worldwide but the companies chosen to actually make the part in question, will almost cirtainly be affiliated to say, a Congressman who wants technical manufacturing done in his particular constituency or a Senator who just happens to be on the board of 'Switches R Us' or a Vice President who is favouring one tender over another purely for political reasons. Add to these shannanigans, America's secret funding for black operations, secret organisations, or top secret weapons developement all coming out of legitimate costing from arms manufacturing and all of a sudden the price of said switch goes through the fucking roof. This is just a switch remember, put two thousend of these parts together as a missile system and all of a sudden you have a invoice that would make Bill Gates swear. These weapon systems are being used on Lybia as I type this out and Britain is paying for a very large chunk of the bill.
So what do we conclude from this political mess? Seems America stands to make an awful lot of money from deposing Gadaffi, also from the armourment used during the campaign, the bill to put Lybia back together again afterwards and of course the oil that they will have access to thanks to the America friendly eagit that they put into power afterwards, we get to pay through the nose for the armourments used and the fuel to drip into our audis, hey presto everyone's a winner. Not quite. You have to ask yourself, 'Is this anyway for the most powerful nation on earth to behave'? America behaves as the police to the world but who police's the police, cirtainly not the U.N. America never takes any notice of them at all, they didn't in Iraq why should they now. Truth is America is only interested in America's interests, sod everyone else and I for one am getting more than a bit sick of being part of a nation that is considered 'America's Special Friend'. Britain needs a government with backbone enough to tell the white house to 'SOD OFF WE CAN'T AFFORD IT'. With this kind of foriegn policy, the U.S.A is going to find itself with no friends at all. As Jimmy Carr once said "in the future, the world will only have two flags, America's and a flag for everyone else, and the 'everyone else' flag will be identicle to America's, except it will be on fire.
Now look, the whole world and his wife knows that Gadaffi is an arsehole, the whole world and his wife knows about the lybian connection with the bombing of the Pan-Am flight that went down over scotland, and the world and his wife knows damn well that Lybia is not the kind of place that wins a five star rating from Amnesty International over the treatment of political prisoners.This stuff has been known about the place for eons so why in the name of all that's holy are we all of a sudden rattling sabres? Oil is a powerful motivator in international politics these days. It's running out all over the world and the western governments need horrendous amounts of it to keep thier economies moving. Unbelievable amounts of the stuff actually and Opec won't produce enough of it. They're not stupid, they know that the less they produce, the more the price of a barrel of the stuff goes up. As a by-product of this thinking, also the less they produce, the longer thier reserves last and the more money they make.
So what does that mean for us? Well, we, the everyday joe in the street end up paying through the nose to put any kind of fuel in any kind of motor vehicle. Truth is, Britains oil production is painfully insignificant next to say, Saudi Arabia's and the oil that keeps our country trundelling along has to come from somewhere. So, yet again the governments of the west call the shots, fire the artillery and it's the tax payers who end up footing the bill, and what a grossley exaggerated bill it is. The way that arms are produced in the U.S.A is hardly now, nor has it ever been, cost efficient. As way of an example, most motor companies need thousends of individual componants for the vehicles they manufacture. Say Vauxhall need a headlamp switch for their new saloon car, they invite tenders from componant manufacturers from all over the world. ( actually they will have a list of the componant manufacturers that General Motors will allow them to commision parts from, but we will come to that later ) These companies design or redesign an existing componant that satisfies the technical requirements of the switch needed and give a cost per unit of manufacture back to Vauxhall, and , because Vauxhall is run by accountants not engineers, they will almost exclusively pick the lowest quote.
The American arms manufacturers run a slightly different ship so to speak. Yes, they too need componants for the weapons systems that they produce but the lowest bidder rarely gets a look in. They will tender out to manufacturers worldwide but the companies chosen to actually make the part in question, will almost cirtainly be affiliated to say, a Congressman who wants technical manufacturing done in his particular constituency or a Senator who just happens to be on the board of 'Switches R Us' or a Vice President who is favouring one tender over another purely for political reasons. Add to these shannanigans, America's secret funding for black operations, secret organisations, or top secret weapons developement all coming out of legitimate costing from arms manufacturing and all of a sudden the price of said switch goes through the fucking roof. This is just a switch remember, put two thousend of these parts together as a missile system and all of a sudden you have a invoice that would make Bill Gates swear. These weapon systems are being used on Lybia as I type this out and Britain is paying for a very large chunk of the bill.
So what do we conclude from this political mess? Seems America stands to make an awful lot of money from deposing Gadaffi, also from the armourment used during the campaign, the bill to put Lybia back together again afterwards and of course the oil that they will have access to thanks to the America friendly eagit that they put into power afterwards, we get to pay through the nose for the armourments used and the fuel to drip into our audis, hey presto everyone's a winner. Not quite. You have to ask yourself, 'Is this anyway for the most powerful nation on earth to behave'? America behaves as the police to the world but who police's the police, cirtainly not the U.N. America never takes any notice of them at all, they didn't in Iraq why should they now. Truth is America is only interested in America's interests, sod everyone else and I for one am getting more than a bit sick of being part of a nation that is considered 'America's Special Friend'. Britain needs a government with backbone enough to tell the white house to 'SOD OFF WE CAN'T AFFORD IT'. With this kind of foriegn policy, the U.S.A is going to find itself with no friends at all. As Jimmy Carr once said "in the future, the world will only have two flags, America's and a flag for everyone else, and the 'everyone else' flag will be identicle to America's, except it will be on fire.
Thursday 27 January 2011
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