imperialism
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Back to the future: “Chaos and instability Washington’s official policy line” By William Bowles
The West, led by the US and the UK have inflamed the situation by sending an armada into the Black Sea, promised to re-arm Georgia, broken off any meaningful dialog with Russia, and re-invented the Cold War. And in so doing, backed Russia into a corner by refusing to recognize its legitimate rights. Continue reading
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Meeting on GEORGIA, NATO & THE SPREAD OF WAR
Stop the War Coalition T: 020 7278 6694 www.stopwar.org.uk Friends Meeting House (Small Hall) 6.30 pm, Thursday 14 August, 2008 with MARK ALMOND, lecturer in History, Oxford University and expert on the Caucasus KATE HUDSON, Chair of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament BORIS KAGARLITSKI, former director Institute of Globalisation Studies, Moscow and author of, ‘Empire of Continue reading
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Meeting on GEORGIA, NATO & THE SPREAD OF WAR
Stop the War Coalition T: 020 7278 6694 www.stopwar.org.uk Friends Meeting House (Small Hall) 6.30 pm, Thursday 14 August, 2008 with MARK ALMOND, lecturer in History, Oxford University and expert on the Caucasus KATE HUDSON, Chair of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament BORIS KAGARLITSKI, former director Institute of Globalisation Studies, Moscow and author of, ‘Empire of Continue reading
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Been there – done that, so it’s time to do it all over again By William Bowles
If Queen Victoria was on the throne today I’m sure she would find the current situation comfortingly familiar and no doubt would be issuing proclamations about ‘our brave boys over there’ and the usual crop of medals would be flying out of her very royal hands along with all the usual platitudes about defending ‘civilisation’… Continue reading
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Israel: Blackmailing the world By William Bowles
3 August 2006 Israel’s deliberate and continued destruction of Lebanon is intended to force the Western powers to occupy the country on US/Israel’s behalf I’ve spent the last couple of days doing (almost) nothing but reading, trying to get a handle on events. Firstly, it’s obvious to anyone who knows anything about Lebanon and the Continue reading
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Creature Comforts By William Bowles
Growing up in the ‘mother of empires’, it’s difficult to comprehend how most of the world perceives us, even if, like me, you’ve lived in other cultures, it’s still difficult to ‘break the chains that bind’ us to a view of the world defined by privilege, a world of assumptions reinforced by an unrelenting barrage… Continue reading
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(Don’t) Mention the J** word By William Bowles
26 August 2005 Speaking at a memorial for the victims of a Palestinian attack that took place 26 years ago, [Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ze’ev] Boim said: “What is it about Islam as a whole and the Palestinians in particular? Is it some form of cultural deprivation? Is it some genetic defect? There is something Continue reading
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The Law of the Jungle – New Labour’s Version by William Bowles
There could be no clearer example of the return to the age of imperialism than Cooper’s statement above, taken from an essay published in April 2002. Cooper, a former Foreign Office official was, and no doubt still is, one of Blair’s chief ideological advisors (Cooper was based in Afghanistan, then Iraq and then back in… Continue reading
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Who are these guys anyway (and other ‘neo-con’ nonsense)? By William Bowles
For the past couple of years a goodly section of the ‘left’ has obsessed over the ‘neo-con’ guys as if they suddenly crawled out from under a rock but as I have observed in many past essays, these guys, far from crawling out from under a rock are the long-time managers of imperialism. Their ‘pedigree’,… Continue reading
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Book Review: The New Imperialism By William Bowles
For most, mention the word economics and eyes glaze over and turn elsewhere, but without some basic understanding of economics, making sense of our world is all but impossible. The corporate media rarely, if ever, mentions economics as intrinsic to politics in its coverage of events unless it’s about interest rates, taxes or employment. Delving… Continue reading
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Back in the USSR By William Bowles
The ‘evil empire’ is no more. The end of an era and the start of a new one? Not exactly, as the events of the past decade or more testify, for whatever one’s views of the Soviet Union and the various socialist ‘flavours’, it can hardly be said that the world is either a better… Continue reading
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The Media’s Double Standard By William Bowles
I’ve often referred to the strategy that is the core of the ‘new’ imperialist agenda, the so-called ‘double standard’ articulated by Robert Cooper, now Blair’s pro-consul in Afghanistan. And although cloaked in ‘post-modernist’ phraseology, effectively, it’s a rollback to an earlier, imperialist epoch, a time when the Western world went unchallenged, aside from the occasional… Continue reading
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Neo-con or just plain ol’ imperialism unleashed? By William Bowles
What is a neo-con and what are the objectives of the so-called neo-conservative agenda? Most importantly, do their policies represent a radical departure from previous US strategy and if so, how and why? Continue reading
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Let the reader be aware By William Bowles
Oh what an irony that the ‘responsible’ press is so prone to quoting Goebbels’ famous line as if by saying it somehow cancels out the lies they tell us. It’s as if they’re telling us, ‘If, by some chance you should be on to us, this is our caveat emptor that lets us off the… Continue reading
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Mission Impossible By William Bowles
Never has the meaning of the global village struck home in quite the way as in the present circumstances. Past empires have been able to hide behind distance and disinformation, but the current imperial project is, in spite of all the efforts to hide it, being built inside a goldfish bowl, where every move, every… Continue reading
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Duck and Drakes By William Bowles
This week’s lead article in the Economist entitled “Manifest Destiny Warmed Up?” reveals the disquiet being felt by at least some sections of the European ruling elite over the US’s assumed role as the ‘new imperialist empire’ and whether or not, they’re going about it in the right way. Continue reading
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Book Review: UK-the real outlaw state By William Bowles
The central planks of New Labour’s foreign policy have, we are told, been based on human rights, international development, just treatment for the poor of this planet including access to Western markets and the removal of debt, the rule of law and the maintenance of international order. In short, they have professed a progressive policy… Continue reading
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Under siege? By William Bowles
Look, I know that the revolution is not around the corner, but it is true to say that the ‘New Imperium,’ barely a dozen years old, is already under siege, and experiencing a serious crisis in credibility and its subsequent ability to carry out its mission of re-colonising the planet. Continue reading
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Mind your language! Part Three By William Bowles
Isn’t it amazing. All this time, since the ‘sexed up’ story first appeared, Gilligan, we were told, was the sole source of the story, hence his ‘unreliability’. Then, yesterday, the press carried reports about at least thee other UK journalists who had also been contacted by Dr Kelly and now, it seems there’s even a… 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
The New Dark Age 