war on terror
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Mantra politics By William Bowles
Once the state acquires such draconian powers it is unlikely to give them up voluntarily. We need only look at countries that have adopted comparable laws whether it be Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, through to the various Latin American dictatorships and how they were removed, not that removing them necessarily guarantees removal of the… Continue reading
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Virtual Fascism or the State of Terror By William Bowles
10 July 2005 A letter from a reader: For a good period of time I had gone along, starting my practice in neuropsychology (I worked in hospitals for a long time and the venture into private practice consumed me) and paying little attention to the neocon threat. I hated Bush et. al. but had little Continue reading
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‘If Osama bin Laden didn’t exist it would be necessary to invent him’ By William Bowles
I am reminded of a statement made some time back that ‘if Osama bin Laden didn’t exist it would have been necessary to invent him’ for if, as I contend that to justify the ‘war on terror’ it was necessary to invent the terrorist threat first, then come hell or high water, acts such as… Continue reading
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The Case of Kamel Bourgass: The sound of one hand clapping or a conspiracy of one by William Bowles
Kamel BourgassPerhaps the most difficult thing for your ‘average’ citizen to take in is the idea that your government would deliberately lie and deceive you over a thing like terrorism. After all, the state is meant to protect its citizens, isn’t that why we have a raft of laws and an incredibly expensive enforcement system… Continue reading
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Media Lens: No Politics – Only Elections
Issues like the environment, foreign policy, poverty and defence were “all but invisible”. (Golding, email to Media Lens, June 10, 2001) Defence, for example, comprised 0.6 percent of reporting. There was no mention of New Labour’s “ethical foreign policy” deception, of the non-existent “genocide” used as a pretext for Blair’s bombing of Serbia, of his… Continue reading
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Blair’s ‘Morality’ gone mad By William Bowles
One of the arguments used by the government in its attempt to justify preventive detention is that the sources cannot be revealed for fear of ‘compromising’ them. The truth however, is a lot grimmer as Straw’s defence of torture reveals. For what Straw’s comment exposes is a totally morally bankrupt ruling elite, getting more desperate… Continue reading
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Update on the terror ‘Debate’ – the BBC version By William Bowles
The fundamental idea namely that the state can imprison people for what they might do (or think) has conveniently vanished. Convenient because tackling the issue of preventive detention – because that’s what the law is all about – is entirely missing from the debate. Continue reading
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Re “Terrorist Related Activity” By William Bowles
What is amazing about the Zarqawi saga is how, over time, Western governments (with the able assistance of the media) have managed to keep the pot boiling regarding a man whose existence is far from actually being established as fact (although of late, he, along with Osama seems to have fallen off the front page,… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Every Bloodbath Has A Silver Lining – Part 1
9 March 2005 — Media Lens The Sting – You’re Next In a remarkable article in last week’s Guardian entitled, “The war’s silver lining”, Jonathan Freedland wrote: Continue reading
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The BBC: premier propagandist for the imperium By William Bowles
So whilst all 299 BBC stories (over 300,000 words in total) that mention Zarqawi hold not a single piece of evidence as to his real as opposed to alleged role in Iraq (or anywhere else for that matter), the overall impression created by the BBC’s coverage forms an integral part of an intensive state-led propaganda… Continue reading
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Flirting with Terror By William Bowles
7 August 2004 Hi There Suckers! If you enter the keywords “terror” into Google, you’ll get over 6.5 million hits. Enter the word “terrorism” and you’ll get almost 5.5 million and “terror” will return almost 5 million. “Terrorist” will get you 4.3 million and the “war on terror” returns a little over a 500,000. A Continue reading
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The world – one year later By William Bowles
Like a runaway train, the ‘war on terror’ that must have seemed such a good idea at the time, has taken on a life all its own that now threatens to crash into the imperial terminus. Continue reading
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‘K’ Metamorphoses into ‘G’ By William Bowles
Just think about Blunkett’s secret court and how it operates behind closed doors, with the accused allowed to see neither the ‘evidence’, the charges nor to cross examine their accusers and all of it under the pretext that revealing the sources or their accusers might reveal information damaging to the state. It’s a no-win situation,… Continue reading
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“And when they came for me…” By William Bowles
Can people be so blinkered as to sign away their own rights? It seems so if one looks at the almost total lack of coverage of the “Civil Contingencies Bill” in the UK or “Patriot II” in the US, that although miles away, is intimately linked to the Blah policies simply because both governments are… Continue reading
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Manufacturing Panic & Paranoia By William Bowles
7 January 2004 What’s wrong with the Independent’s lead story on 6/1/04 that opened with the assertion? “Air travel turmoil as terror threat grows” Terror threat grows? Three loaded words for which there is not a shred of evidence that supports either the existence of terror or that there is a ‘threat’ or that it’s ‘growing’. Continue reading
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2004: The year of the police state – the year of hypocrisy By William Bowles
The media’s unquestioning acceptance of these reports is, to put it mildly, scandalous. Any journalist worth his or her salt would immediately question the basis of the so-called intelligence being used if only because it actually exposes just how bad the preventive measures really are. A cynic might be forgiven for thinking that the US… Continue reading
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De ja vu? By William Bowles
“Terror in the sky: the net tightens”. So went the headline in the Independent (3/1/04). “Heathrow terror puzzle” was the Guardian’s headline on the same day. But what exactly, is the net tightening around except the throats of innocent passengers and why is it a puzzle? The Guardian linked it to a 1997 UN resolution… Continue reading
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The war on everything By William Bowles
There is a direct correlation between imperialism’s increasingly desperate economic state and its urge to go to war, only now it’s declared war on the entire planet, a sure indication of capitalism’s inability to deal with its inbuilt and rapidly escalating contradictions. Consider the wars it has declared over the past 100 years: the ‘war… Continue reading
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Intel – al-Qu’eda – The War on Terror: Destroying the Myths By William Bowles
24 November 2003 Several related issues on my mind on this grey, London morning as I contemplate the latest ‘news’, scan the headlines and peruse my (overflowing) mailbox and all are, in some way, related (except the weather). Continue reading
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The Police State is Here By William Bowles
As predicted here, the government is introducing its own version of the Patriot Act. Innocuously entitled the “Civil Contingencies Bill” if passed it abolishes civil rights of all kinds under the cover of the ‘war on terror’ and an “emergency”. And was Cooper’s ‘innocent’ remark made in the light of the fact that he knew… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 