William Bowles – Essays
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Exaggeration By William Bowles
The farce of an ‘investigation’ into the ‘rush to war’ continues in the UK as does the media’s complicity in presenting the reasons entirely divorced from the context and history of the trajectory of Western imperialism. The main argument being advanced by ‘critics’ of the war in Parliament, is that the government ‘exaggerated’ the threat… Continue reading
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Through a glass objectively By William Bowles
The idea that there is some kind of ‘objective’ ground from which to view events, particularly of the political variety, is a long-held fantasy, especially of British journalism. It’s still taught in British universities would you believe, that out there, somewhere, there’s a space that the journalist can occupy, which sits perfectly in the middle,… Continue reading
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Palestine: US plays the shell game By William Bowles
Statements by secretary of state Colin Powell would seem to represent a change of heart on the part of the US over the Israeli position on the future of a Palestinian state. But does a call for the establishment of a Palestinian state and the removal of a few shacks (some not even occupied) erected… Continue reading
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May the force be with you? By William Bowles
Messianism seems to be the thing with the Bush government. A God-given mission to cleanse the world of evil, or ‘creative destruction’ as Michael Ledeen puts it. There are those who are making dark comparisons with the Third Reich but perhaps because of my background, upbringing or whatever you want to call one’s past, I… Continue reading
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Iran: First it was ‘October Surprise’ – now it’s No Surprise By William Bowles
It’s a complicated story that requires an understanding of broader US and Israeli strategic objectives, as well as a recognition that many people, especially Americans, may find it difficult to swallow the fact that the leaders of the US were and are, quite prepared to sacrifice the lives of their own citizens, subvert the Constitution,… Continue reading
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Instant Replay By William Bowles
As the war drums beat with ever greater insistence in Washington DC, once more we see the UN being used as a pawn in the USUK’s grand imperialist strategies to commandeer the key resources of the planet and to crush any and all opposition to its rule. We cannot allow an ‘instant replay’ of Iraq… Continue reading
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Book Review: Consenting Adults? By William Bowles
Capital which is global in scope, is able to move across national borders without let or hindrance, but that ‘democracy’ (where it exists) stops at national borders. And in an age of global capital, the nation state is incapable of dealing with issues that affect the entire planet. And nation states, driven by parochial interests,… Continue reading
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Iranies of Iran William Bowles
The role of the ‘secret team’ headed by ‘Ollie’ North and the involvement of guns for drugs; guns for the Nicaraguan Contras, the drugs for the youth of US cities, also involved a failed Saving and Loans bank used for money laundering, CIA ‘proprietaries’, assassinations and bombings, Ronald Reagan, the head of the CIA and… Continue reading
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While the US crows, Iraq resists By William Bowles
As with all the other US military adventures across the world over the past decades, the US operates on the premise that people fight US invasions because they’re forced to. Yet time and again, this view has proved to be self-delusionary and follows from the imperialist elite confusing their own largely domestically targeted propaganda with… Continue reading
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Spooking the Spooks By William Bowles
Having spooked the entire population with tales of terror as part of its programme to win over the population to its policies, the Bush administration is faced with the reality of being hoisted by its own petard as the saying goes. As more and more information comes out about the real nature of the repressive… Continue reading
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Banking on Terror – The NCS Pearson Story By William Bowles
You’ve probably not heard of NCS Pearson Inc. (now called Pearson Government Solutions), and neither had I until a former employee of one of the previously privately owned companies that used to do the work of screening passengers and baggage in the nation’s 429 commercial airports, wrote and asked me if I would do a… Continue reading
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Before it moves, nuke it By William Bowles
If anything should make people wake up and smell the coffee, it’s the US ‘posture’ on nuclear weapons. In a new round of accelerated development of so-called battlefield nuclear weapons, the US have signaled to the world that the use of nuclear weapons is a prerogative that they reserve entirely for themselves and that their… Continue reading
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The un-United Nations and the world as ‘victim’ By William Bowles
Every day, a dozen or so un-UN press releases pile up in my inbox which I scan for some nugget of news, some insight that might be of use to me, but it’s largely self-serving stuff. Hans Blix’s last report on Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’ is as vague and non-committal as all the others… Continue reading
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We know what they knew and we know when they knew it By William Bowles
What will it take for the media and the politicos to face the fact, that invading Iraq was always on the cards, regardless of ‘evidence’, resolutions, facts or fiction. It was a done deal and probably decided on years ago regardless of Saddam’s compliance with this or that demand or otherwise. Continue reading
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Go for the Jugular! By William Bowles
Except of course, they won’t (the media that is). We’ll be lucky if they name and shame a pinky. On both sides of the Atlantic, the frantic search for scapegoats continues apace, one of the latest being Ahmed Chalabi of the INC (favourite of the Wolfie clan) on whose ‘intelligence’ both the Pentagon and the… Continue reading
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NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) William Bowles
3 June 2003 “We read a lot about how corrupt the decision makers and the corporations are. We read very little about the responsibility that we all share to the state of this world. Aren’t we the ones who don’t want to change our lifestyles and who would go absolutely ballistic if petrol (or access… Continue reading
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Unglued, unstuck, pear-shaped, wobbly…and sick By William Bowles
The more Blair’s government rolls out one mouth after the other, to utter the words, ‘just you wait, have patience’, ‘we’ve got the evidence’, ‘you’ll see, we didn’t actually say that’, ‘read what we really said’, the more the media and critically, the public, look on in disbelief and increasingly, disgust. Continue reading
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Haiti – Regime Change By William Bowles
Whilst the US tells the world of its desire to see freedom and democracy in Iraq, it’s busy starving Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere into submission by enforcing a complete embargo on economic aid through its control of the IMF, World Bank and the International Development Fund, unless the Aristide government bows… Continue reading
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The Great Pretender By William Bowles
As per usual, the corporate press are up to their old tricks of divorcing ‘facts’ from causes. So now, failing ‘smoking guns’, bland dismissals that the ‘it’s all about oil’ arguments as ‘nonsense’, imperialist strategies, possibly, et al, we arrive at the final ‘destination’ of the corporate media whereby, through some process known only to… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 