Libya
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Impotence in the face of impunity? By William Bowles
A fellow writer tells me that she feels overwhelmed by events and I feel the same way. An awful sense of deja vu that we have as much chance of stopping the march to total war as they had in the 1930s. Except that this time it will not be us citizens of Empire who… Continue reading
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Are we living in a fool’s paradise? By William Bowles
We are now literally, passive observers of our own funerals in a world of total media saturation and control. A world of endless tragedy but at a distance, mediated by an unseen hand and fed to us pretty much like an out-of-control soap opera, where events break and at first reporting is chaotic and normally… Continue reading
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The BBC: NATO’s media partner-in-crime By William Bowles
Well they’ve finally silenced Muammar Gaddafi, the man the BBC calls “an oddball until the end”. The manner of his capture and death seems not to bother the BBC but then who cares about ‘oddballs’? Continue reading
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What is going on in Libya? By William Bowles
The BBC is reporting the ‘fall of Tripoli/Gaddafi’ except for ‘mopping up’ “pockets” of resistance. On the other hand, here is a report, including audio that says the opposite Continue reading
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Welcome to the world of terrorist television By William Bowles
I venture to say that the timing of the attempt to silence Libya’s electronic media is in part a response to the rebels assassination of its own military leader Younes and the excellent PR it gave the Libyan state. Continue reading
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The Left has lost its way over Libya By William Bowles
I think it’s time to take a look at the timeline of the latest barbarian attack on the defenceless of the world. I think it reveals far more about how the left in the West operates, what are its motivations, than it does about the aims of the Empire (which should surely by now be… Continue reading
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Russia Today: A new kind of media? By William Bowles
A global, digital media cuts both ways or as they say ‘what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander’. The arrival of The Real News Network, Democracy Now! and grtv for example demonstrates what can be done, even on a shoestring budget. But to get onto the global media circuit still requires… Continue reading
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Syria/Libya versus Bahrain: A BBC factoid By William Bowles
The BBC which makes much of its ‘objective’ and ‘balanced’ news coverage, when challenged by the facts of its biased coverage of events in the Middle East and elsewhere, cites examples of where it has given voice to all sides of the issue. This is debatable, but let’s assume that the BBC does present all… Continue reading
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William Hague: Following in Churchill’s footsteps By William Bowles
Now let me get this straight: In order to save civilian lives (the infamous ‘Right to Protect’), the Empire, through its Rottweiller NATO, not only deindustrializes Libya but it also causes a mass exodus of refugees hundreds of whom drowned and many thousands more were left stranded, attacked and abused. Continue reading
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Empire Games – but who writes the rules? By William Bowles
The Western left’s abdication, nay abandonment of principles that go to the heart of the socialist liberation project has been long in the making, centuries even and made all the more obvious by the left’s take on events in Libya and now Syria. Critiques of the ‘humanitarian, socialist interventionists’ came thick and thin but for… Continue reading
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The truth about ‘civilized transitions’ By William Bowles
This is what it comes down to: A TV ‘news’ presenter reveals in all its starkness, how the Empire corrupts totally. Here we have an apparently intelligent and educated person dismissing the leader of a country as if he’s just another expendable piece of the Empire’s junk. ‘Yeah, why you don’t just get rid of… Continue reading
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Libya: Some ruminations on current events By William Bowles
I know I keep hammering on about this but it still hasn’t sunk in with those who profess to be on the left, bemused, or perhaps it’s bewitched, as they are by the concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’. Continue reading
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Libya: The Empire conducts a war fest (or business as usual) By William Bowles
A gaggle of the world’s most powerful, militarized states led by the US, UK, France and Canada are busy pulverizing countries around the planet, with the Ivory Coast being the latest addition to the orgy of destruction being carried out in the name of ‘humanitarian intervention’. This is ‘gunboat diplomacy’ in the era of the… Continue reading
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Libya: Distractions and diversions By William Bowles
One thing should surely be clear and that is the pivotal role played by the corporate/state media in selling the Libyan ‘no-fly zone’ and the subsequent invasion by the Empire, albeit by first ‘softening up the enemy’ and then as illegal arms supplier. Continue reading
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Libya: A sheep in wolf’s clothing? By William Bowles
I think those who have led the left in the post-WWII period are just too damn comfortable, small fish in even smaller ponds who have traded in their revolutionary inheritance for a monopoly on thought. Thus it continually fragments as they seek the ‘true path to enlightenment’, with the competing ‘isms’ endlessly fighting it out… Continue reading
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Libya is Kosovo revisited (kind of) By William Bowles
Right from the very beginning of ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn’ something just didn’t smell right about the Libyan ‘revolution’. From the outset this was no peaceful, civilian insurrection such as those taking place elsewhere in the region. In other words it started life as a civil war heavily disguised—with Western help—as a ‘peoples’ revolution’, but one… Continue reading
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Libya: Keeping up appearances By William Bowles
And to make the entire sordid and illegal affair more palatable to a world quite used to being ‘liberated’ by US ‘largesse’ in its distribution of democracy, do it all through an Anglo-French front (they have the most to lose along with Italians in Libya through their oil concessions) but with the US pulling all… Continue reading
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Libya: Bewitched, bothered and bewildered By William Bowles
So why did Chavez and Castro (as well as Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua) offer public support to Ghadafi? Well, as things have turned out, it is clear that this is not about Ghadafi but all about imperial ambitions and I hazard the guess that they both knew more about the machinations of the Empire than… Continue reading
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Libya: I smell a rat By William Bowles
From the very beginning of the Libyan uprising/coup, call it what you will, something didn’t strike me as ‘right’, events unfolded in a vacuum as if overnight, chaos took over. Continue reading
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Libya: The Empire strikes back By William Bowles
Let’s be clear, this is not about Khadafi whatever you think of the ‘Green Revolution’, it’s about the attempt by the US/EU to intercede directly and militarily into the situation in the Middle East / North Africa, most probably through the use of NATO. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 