A Horror We Made 589

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We are directly responsible for the disasters in the Mediterranean. The bombing of Libya into failed state status is now coming back to haunt us. The ludicrous idea, propounded by Blair, Robert Cooper and the Henry Jackson Society, that you could improve dictatorial states by massive bombing campaigns that targeted their basic infrastructure, is now a total bust. Sadly so are Iraq and Libya, to the permanent detriment of many millions of people. We caused both the Islamic State and the Mediterranean boat disasters, and we caused them with bombs.

But the lack of any effective policing is only part of the problem. What makes people so desperate that they are prepared to give all of the small amount they own, to ruthless gangs, in exchange for a dreadful sea crossing with a one in ten chance of drowning? Most of the refugees are sub-Saharan African. We only see the European end of the saga, not the terrible conditions on the cross Saharan journeys that they start with.

There will be no security anywhere if the world does not address the terrible scourge of African poverty and under-development. That is a huge subject on which I have written extensively and worked much of my life, and I do not wish to open it here. But what it does show is the utter stupidity – inhumanity yes, but also stupidity – of UKIP in thinking that cutting development aid will increase the economic security of the UK.

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589 thoughts on “A Horror We Made”

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  • lysias

    Caesar’s conquest of Gaul was not exactly a glorious enterprise worthy of imitation:

    As many as a million people (probably 1 in 5 of the Gauls) died, another million were enslaved, 300 clans were subjugated and 800 cities were destroyed during the Gallic Wars.[citation needed] The entire population of the city of Avaricum (Bourges) (40,000 in all)[citation needed] were slaughtered.[13] During Julius Caesar’s campaign against the Helvetii (present-day Switzerland) approximately 60% of that nation was destroyed, and another 20% was taken into slavery.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    That is perhaps because there was no intention to conquer (in the Roman sense).

  • lysias

    “Vinco” means “to conquer” in the sense of “to be victorious”. It can be transitive, which it perhaps is in the Caesar quote, although without an expressed object. It then means “to be victorious over”, “to conquer” in that sense.

    We get our word “victory” from Latin “victoria”, with the same meaning, which itself is an abstract noun derived from “vinco”.

  • RobG

    @ Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)
    20 Apr, 2015 – 6:50 pm

    Your posts are strongly reminiscent of the crude propaganda blurb that came from Radio Moscow during the days of the Cold War.

    Unfortunately, then, as now, too many people fall for the propaganda.

    I notice that you have bowed out of the previous thread, about our glorious paedo Lord Janner, because you’ve been hit on the head too many times with the truth.

    Just keep running from thread to thread, little troll, and hope that readers don’t notice what pond life is.

  • Monteverdi

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/20/lampedusa-refugee-fleeing-libya-boats-italy

    Well here’ one refugee’s story which seems to confirm that the western-helped destruction of Gaddafi’s Libya drove them to make the perilous journey across the Med .

    ” I’m originally from Nigeria and I had been living in Libya for five years when the war broke out . I had a good life and was working as a tailor and I earned enough to send back to loved ones . But after the fighting started Black people—became very vulnerable etc ”

  • Geoffrey

    Well summarised,Craig,I am surprised more people aren’t making the same obvious links.
    It wasn’t “racist” UKIP that bombed Iraq,Libya,Afghanistan or wanted to attack Syria or want to attack Iran or in fact any Muslim country that stands up to us. I thought it was that nice cuddly Tony Blair supported by those well known racist neo-con Tories.
    I can’t see how increasing overseas aid is here no there what needs to change is that the “advanced” economies should pay a proper fair price for African commodities and raw materials so there is no need for mass emigration.
    This,of course means that we in the west have to accept a lower material standard of living-because we will have to pay more for raw materials.

  • RobG

    But with regard to Craig’s post, the ‘Arab Spring’ began in Tunisia and was prompted by very high food prices.

    Throughout the early part of 2011 the revolution spread across the Arab world.

    It was all stamped on by the West, because of course we can’t have the Arabs asking for things like democracy and freedom, because it might prompt the plebs in the West to ask for similar things.

    Chaos and disorder were deliberately sown.

    The psychos in Washington didn’t give a shit about how many people were slaughtered in all this. They continued to fund any number of lunatic groups with arms.

    2011 was a monumentous year: the Arab Spring, Fukushima, and then on New Year’s Eve Obama signed the NDAA 2012 into law.

    2011 was the year that the world died.

  • YouKnowMyName

    Has Frontex, based in Warsaw, taken any decision yet on technical means to mitigate the humanitarian disasters along the EU blue-borders?

    Seemingly, a Polish MP has been today informing the Polish press about actions taken to ensure chaos lead to a pro-western independent but weak Ukraine.

    chaos… in Lybia and elsewhere… is that really the best plan?

  • Clark

    Habbabkuk, these “jihadi” extremists are effectively “our (ie. the “western”) side”, aren’t they? They’re the sort that were in Benghazi, where “Western intervention” was claimed to be urgently needed to prevent a massacre. They’re the sort that suddenly leapt out of the shadows in Syria at the same time as the civil protests there, and formed a large part of the “Rebels” against Assad’s government, and now constitute “ISIS”. For decades, their ideology has descended directly and predictably in reaction to the Saudi monarchy which we arm, support and ally with, Osama bin Laden being the most famous example. Factions of them are often funded and armed through our allies Qatar and Bahrain.

    This can’t be dismissed as a mistake because it has happened over and over again for decades. The only sensible description of it, surely, is policy.

  • fedup

    Note that she didn’t say — as the Caesar parallel suggested — “We conquered.”

    The notion of conquering entails taking on the responsibility of running a vanquished nation’s affairs and administrating the governance of the said nation. Given that we don’t do “nation building” and care not one hoot about the vanquished nation’s nationals, the parasitic empire of the city only is good at the first phase of the conquering; start a war and destroy the target nation’s infrastructure paving the way for the subsequent destruction of the nationals of the target nation.

    This will achieve the same end as the spiders web, leave the assets of the vanquished nation in a holding pattern until it is called upon. The war for OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation) the original effort in coming up with a name for the invasion was taking place in the face of a barrel of oil at $17 ~ $19 rising to $24 during the invasion (today it is $56.38), however the subsequent destruction of the oil infrastructure in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen has kept the supply in check and let the printing machines in US to get on printing Dollars and the hike in prices to absorb the glut of the fiat dollars poured onto the world. An exercise in sequestrating the wealth of the world and channelling it into the US and its bastard the zionistan.

    In parasitic empire of the city there is no reason for conquering and the headaches thereof, destruction and holding in status of the assets is the better alternative; keeps the fungibility index current without the headaches of administration, planning, and god forbid letting the natives to have a bite of the apple too!

    Oil Prices Rise as Oversupply Concerns Ease

  • John Goss

    We created all the problems in Libya. Under Gaddafi everything was, if not fine, very good. But there was oil. And that nice man Tony Buckingham, who makes big donations to the Tory Party, moved into Benghazi with his dirty millions. Some time back he sold much of his holdings there to a Saudi prince. This people are despicable.

    And now another NATO-involved war, this time in Europe, has been taking place in Ukraine. Currently the US is about to train up the AZOV Nazis. It has taken a Polish nationalist to see what is wrong with this proxy war. How come nationalists like Le Penne and Farage and Korwin-mikke can see where the problems lie, and why these proxy wars are no good to anyone, when the mainstream politicians cannot?

    http://fortruss.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/korwin-mikke-maidan-snipers-were.html

  • lysias

    OT, FT: SNP says it will work to benefit all UK:

    “For as long as Scotland remains part of the Westminster system we have a shared interest in making that system work for the many not the few,” she [Sturgeon] said, making clear that the SNP would back Labour on higher taxes on the wealthy. “It’s right that those with the broadest shoulders pay a little more.”

    This means the SNP would not “make any deals that would put the Tories in power”, she added to loud cheers.

  • John Goss

    Bert at 11.07. Thank you. Everybody knows it is true even those who have tried to describe him as a pariah.

    Here is an American who has realised where the faults lie. A veteran of Iraq he is a gift for any interviewer. Ken O’Keefe explains at a rapid pace (someone described his delivery as being like a Gatling gun) the reason for all the problems in the world. Needless to say he has renounced his US citizenship.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM2Fi1rhYqc

  • lysias

    Also OT, I generally look through my weekly issue of the Navy Times on Sunday morning, so I did it yesterday. And sure enough, the carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which was radioactively contaminated off Fukushima, remains docked in California (as it has been for many months now, for years, if you don’t count a few weeks it spent out at sea in the Pacific last year).

    Speaking of nukes, here’s what Ms. Sturgeon had to say about them, according to the FT article:

    The SNP would also vote against any measure to renew the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons programme, she said, but tacitly acknowledging that this would not be immediately achievable with the SNP committing to “seek to build an alliance” in the House of Commons against nuclear weapons.

  • Rehmat

    “We have a copy of an agreement between the would-be-rebels and the Mossad. The agreement states that Israel will provide arms and training to the rebels until they take-over the country and in return for that Israel will get to put a military base in the Green Mountain of Libya,” said Jo Anne and her husband James Moriarty, the whistle-blowers, who worked in Libya during 2007-2011.

    In November 2011, French Jewish “philosopher” and a close friend of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Bernard-Henri Levy, admitted at the first conference of the French Jewish Lobby CRIF that Qaddafi had to be removed because he became a threat to Israel.

    “What I have done all these months, I did as a Jew. And like all the Jews of the world, I was worried. Despite legitimate anxiety is an uprising to be welcomed with favor, we were dealing with one of the worst enemy of Israel,” said Levy.

    http://rehmat1.com/2014/11/06/libya-a-muslim-nation-destroyed-for-israel-and-greed/

  • Libyo delenda est

    But but but Qaddafy had to die. Libya had to be destroyed. The Libyan state committed the one unforgivable offense: they stopped US aggression with rule of law.

    In 1992, the US threatened use of force, advanced on Libya, and turned down Libya’s offer to submit to arbitration. Libya went to court to enforce the relevant authority: The Montreal Convention of 1971, an anti-terror pact with dispute resolution provisions.

    The World Court took the case (Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. United States of America)).

    Libya asked the court to enforce the UN Charter by enjoining US aggression. Afraid to face legal judgment, the Sixth Fleet turned tail.

  • giyane

    David Cameron was foolish enough yesterday to blame this crisis on people traffickers. His voice is already so stilted by Eton that I suppose putting his foot in his mouth would make no difference.

    Habbabkuk incriminated himself well over his eyeballs yesterday over raping children. Today he will be delighted by the report on Radio 4’s Today this morning that doctors do not believe that babies feel pain.

    Could the medical profession be sponsored by the political classes to write another report stating that Muslims do not experience pain, I wonder?

  • giyane

    Clark:
    “these jihadi extremists”

    Back to this article:

    http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/cancer-modern-capitalism-1323585268

    “This is why the Western component of IS, though much smaller than the number of fighters joining from neighbouring countries, remains largely impervious to meaningful theological debate. They are not driven by theology, but by the insecurity of a fractured identity and psychology.

    It is here, in the meticulously calibrated recruitment methods used by IS and its supporting networks in the West, that we can see the role of psychological indoctrination processes fine-tuned through years of training under Western intelligence agencies. These agencies have always been intimately involved in the crafting of violent Islamist indoctrination tools.

    In most cases, recruitment into IS is achieved by being exposed to carefully crafted propaganda videos, developed using advanced production methods, the most effective of which are replete with real images of bloodshed inflicted on Iraqi, Afghan and Palestinian civilians by Western firepower, or on Syrian civilians by Assad.

    The constant exposure to such horrifying scenes of Western and Syrian atrocities can often have an effect similar to what might happen if these scenes had been experienced directly: that is, a form of psychological trauma that can even result in post-traumatic stress.

    Such cult-like propaganda techniques help to invoke overwhelming emotions of shock and anger, which in turn serve to shut down reason and dehumanise the “Other”. The dehumanisation process is brought to fruition using twisted Islamist theology. What matters with this theology is not its authenticity, but its simplicity. This can work wonders on a psyche traumatised by visions of mass death, whose capacity for reason is immobilised with rage.”

  • giyane

    Hannankuk:”“Gaddafi was sodomized with a bayonet before being shot in the head.”
    _____________________

    Perhaps a crude if understandable pay back for what went on in Ghadaffi’s torture chambers.

    You shameless imbecile!”

    I think you’ll find that’s Jack Straw’s torture chambers.
    Anyway by your argument, you’re next.

  • Anon1

    May I be the first on behalf of the blog to congratulate Her Majesty the Queen on her 89th birthday. Long may her good health and outstanding public service continue.

  • nevermind

    When the Schengen agreement was coined in 1985, the Greens warned exactly against this move to cut off those displaced by war and chaos.
    That it would be off our own making was expected. So could we call this a plan or inevitable policy by our appointed commissioners then?

    Should Europe protect people and not borders?

    Should a reform of the Schengen agreement just join the list of other failed policies to be reformed such as the CAP?

    We can all talk a good crisis, but wat readers/posters here suggest as a replacement? After all we have burned bridges and countries, rather than talking and investing in these countries.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/opinion-europe-should-protect-people-not-borders-a-1029594.html

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