The Canary bracht vorige week woensdag
een artikel van Fréa Lockley, waarin zij een artikel in the Daily Maverick, geschreven door de journalisten Mark Curtis and Matt Kennard, aanhaalt en waarin te lezen is dat Groot-Brittannië minstens 7 oorlogen voert, oorlogen waarop geen parlementaire controle is en die de reguliere media in GB voor het grootste deel verzwijgen…….
GB voert oorlog in: Afghanistan, Irak, Libië, Pakistan, Syrië, Somalië en Jemen……. (waar in het laatste land met hulp van o.a. GB een genocide wordt uitgevoerd….) Deze oorlogen worden in feite gevoerd zonder dat daar zoals gezegd parlementaire controle op is, zo melden Curtis en Kennard……. Wat betreft Libië nog een opvallend nieuwtje (althans voor mij): het blijkt dat GB al onder Khadaffi bezig was om onrust te zaaien in dat land….. Kortom het was niet ‘de Arabische Lente’ die een groep mensen in opstand bracht, maar het zoveelste geval van opstand organiseren door de VS (CIA) en GB in een soeverein land……. (een land dat van het rijkste land van Afrika, waar bijna alles gratis was voor de bevolking, na de bemoeienissen van het westen, veranderde in het bijna armste land van Afrika….. Een land volledig in chaos en nog steeds in oorlog gedompeld…..)
Over Jemen: opvallend en ook al niet bekend bij mij is het
feit dat speciale Britse troepen naast militaire training ook meedoen aan geheime militaire missies in Jemen, waar de Saoedische terreurcoalitie zoals gezegd een genocide
uitvoert…. (dat feit kan niet vaak genoeg benadrukt worden, zeker daar de reguliere westerse media dit woord mijden ‘als de pest…..’) Overigens ook speciale troepen uit de VS zijn af en aan op
Jemenitische bodem….
Wel was bekend dat GB militaire training geeft aan Saoedische
militairen in Saoedi-Arabië en dat GB de ene grote levering van oorlogstuig na de
andere levert aan de reli-fascistische dictatuur Saoedi-Arabië, dan gaat het niet alleen om wapens en munitie, maar ook om vliegend, varend en rollend oorlogstuig…… Het voorgaande ondanks een stop op wapenexport naar S-A, dat gaf zelfs conservatief politicus Liz Truss toe…… Wapenleveringen waarmee in feite de wet werd overtreden…..
Niet alleen aan de genocide in Jemen
verdient GB geld, maar ook aan de andere oorlogen waar haar leger aan
meewerkt (oorlog voeren voor het bedrijfsleven….)……
Here’s
evidence of the ‘seven covert wars’ the UK’s fighting right now
Fréa
Lockley
18th
September 2019
Many
people in Britain live under the illusion that war happens ‘out
there’ and only involves other countries across the globe. But as
new evidence from journalists Mark Curtis and Matt Kennard
demonstrates, this isn’t true. The UK’s currently engaged in
“seven covert wars”. And our government also continues to profit
from these wars.
“Zero
parliamentary or public oversight”
Curtis
and Kennard’s article in
the Daily
Maverick reveals
that UK special forces (UKSF)
are currently engaged in conflict in: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya,
Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Yet the nature of UKSF
operations means that
our “political system enables ministers to conduct secret wars in
our name with zero parliamentary or public oversight”.
As
the authors explain:
“The
British government states that its policy on the covert wars it
fights is “not to comment, and to dissuade others from commenting
or speculating, about the operational activities of special forces
because of the security implications”.
Added
to this, the UK’s Freedom of Information Act gives “absolute
exemption” to UKSF activities. So this makes it
virtually impossible for
anyone to question or “scrutinise policy”. And if any information
is leaked to the establishment media, there’s another layer of
control in place.
The
Ministry of Defence (MoD) DSMA* committee works:
to
prevent material deemed damaging to the national security interest
from being published in the media.
So
any leaks that do emerge, must first be “approved” and
“sanctioned” by the DSMA committee. As the article also shows,
these covert wars often take place “alongside MI6”:
Both are taxpayer funded. @markcurtis30 and me reporthttps://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-17-britains-seven-covert-wars-an-explainer/ …
But
another crucial factor is that in most of the seven countries named,
the UK government also profits from selling arms to parties leading
those same wars. Since 2008,
UK arms export licences totalled £44bn.
Yemen
Saudi
Arabia has
been leading an assault on Yemen since 2015.
The situation’s now
the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”. According to
Curtis and Kennard:
British
special forces have been secretly working in Yemen since at least
2016, while the UK’s Ministry of Defence has been covertly
supporting the Saudi air campaign in the country.
In
2016, the government stated:
There
are no UK Armed Forces personnel based in Yemen.
But
as this article demonstrates that simply isn’t true. It notes that
a 2016 report from Vice
News:
based
on interviews with UK officials revealed that British special forces
were in Yemen. They were, in fact, seconded to MI6, which was
training Yemeni troops fighting Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Curtis
and Kennard detail all the evidence of further involvement of UK
forces in Yemen. But UK arms exports also prop up this same war. Arms
exports to Saudi Arabia are currently on hold. Yet
Liz Truss has since admitted the
government broke the law. It shipped £261,450 worth of equipment to
Saudi Arabia despite this ruling.
And
the UK government recently invited delegates
from state-owned Saudi
Arabian Military Industries (SAMI)
to the world’s largest arms fair – Defence
Security and Equipment International (DSEI).
Afghanistan
In
July, a UN report found that:
more
civilians were killed by Afghan and international coalition forces in
Afghanistan in the first half of this year than by the Taliban and
other militants
As
the article shows,
UKSF play a role in this:
By
2018, the SAS was reportedly fighting
almost every day in Afghanistan, usually in support of Afghan
commandos leading the battle against the Taliban.
It
states that by mid-2019 there were still about 1,000 UK
troops in Afghanistan. And, yet again, there’s further profit here
for the UK government. Since 2016, UK arms exports to Afghanistan
totalled over £42m.
Money,
money, money
Curtis
and Kennard paint a harrowing picture of the true extent of UK
involvement in so many global conflicts. And in too many of these,
it’s impossible to ignore the UK’s integral role in the current
crises.
For
example. chaos followed the NATO bombing campaign of Libya in 2011.
David Cameron was instrumental in
a military assault that left the country both splintered and a
perfect playground for terrorists. But not only did the UK play a
leading role in the bombing campaign, it also facilitated unrest in
the country while Muammar
Gaddafi was
in power.
Similarly,
the illegal invasion of Iraq caused
huge devastation. It
also helped unleash a wave
of terror around
the world that we still
see today.
As
Curtis noted, taxpayers pay for UKSF:
232 people are talking about this
And
yet our government still profits from death.
As
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) notes, since 2016, UK arms
deals totalled:
Curtis
and Kennard’s research is meticulous. The UK is involved
in covert wars. Our government doesn’t want us to know this.
Neither does it want us to know how much it rakes in from global arms
deals. We can’t ignore these facts.
Featured
image via Flickr
– ResoluteSupportMedia
* DSMA: Defence and Security Media Advisory
