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At the Party conference in October 2001, Tony Blair very clearly put forward his vision for an international dimension ('Let us reorder this world', Guardian, Oct 5th). But given his orthodox economic policies, not to mention his readiness for privatisation, is Blair staking out Britain's part in 21st Century neo-colonialism? Tony Blair's foreign policy guru Robert Cooper believes that a 'new colonialism' can save the world. (Observer, April 7) The page firstly provides STOP PRESS then various sources of information and discussion of these issues and also provides its own more amateurish survey of the materials.

STOP PRESS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ War on Iraq - Conceived In Israel by Stephen J. Sniegoski in Current Concerns Robert Fisk: The case against war: A conflict driven by the self-interest of America, 15 February 2003 in Independent Captive State by George Monbiot "Say what you want, but this war is illegal" by Michael Mandel (Centre for Research on Globalisation) Click here for Ongoing Reports Iraq (Iraq Journal/STOP PRESS) Reordering this world WTC News trawler

Ongoing Reports Sources Guardian Guardian Special Report on Iraq Guardian Special Report on Terror crisis Guardian Special Report on Globalisation (other reports) Independent Middle East i.e non-China? (search for articles by Robert Fisk ... plus a website "mainly dedicated to articles by Robert Fisk" ) Mirror (News) Columnists Note also link for John Pilger, Former Mirror chief foreign correspondent (Pilger on Iraq) 1st Headlines Iraq NPR US's "National Public Radio" (about NPR, Iraq Reading List ) Eurasia Net All Eurasia Insight Articles (All Afghanistan Articles, Turkey) Yahoo News Iraq, Afghanistan (Top stories) FT Special reports (World) this is London Evening Standard breaking news NSA National Security Archive CEIP Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Links re Sept 11th) RAWA Reports from Afghanistan Website of RAWA, organisation of Afghan women Richard Kimber Political Science Resources web page: page on International Relations "...Because of the changing nature both of politics and of the web, these pages are in a state of permanent revolution. They attempt to offer a gateway to most significant resources relevant to political science." (Home page * Page on Terrorism) MacroScan An Alternative Economics WebCentre "MacroScan is a website managed by professional economists seeking to provide an alternative to conservative and mainstream positions in economics. It undertakes and disseminates analyses of the Indian and global economy ..." (World Trade: Who Needs a New Round * The social pathology of vengeance) 9-11peace.org Petition to Bush
Iraq A lot of people say 'for overthrowing threats to the region read oil'. In fact among many Arabs there is a perception that the US provoked Iraq into the 1990/91 Gulf War for such ends. For example, John Stockwell deals with this point in his lecture "How the United States and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia lured Saddam Hussein and Iraq into this war" (first part of lecture) This background should be borne in mind when we nowadays focus more on the WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction). These links will focus mainly on the underlying motivation for the war, and the US's success and failure in achieving these objectives. Links are shown below latest-first, but the following early links may be mentioned here... The case against war: A conflict driven by the self-interest of America, Robert Fisk, 15 February 2003 in Independent Rumsfeld et al to Clinton, January 26, 1998 (about PNAC) 2005 March 21st www.zmag.org Britain & Africa Mark Curtis: A major feature of the invasion of Iraq was media commentators falling for obvious government propaganda. Without such complicity, the invasion would have been politically impossible. Yet this willful self-deception is now being repeated in another area, where government propaganda is approaching. 2003 Dec 30th www1.iraqwar.ru Daughter of slain Iraqi opposition leader says US helped Saddam in 1993 to quash coup attempt The daughter of a prominent Iraqi opposition leader, who was assassinated in Beirut by Saddam Hussein's secret service in 1994 said she would sue the ousted Iraqi president before three international courts, charging that the U.S. was a virtual accomplice in her father's murder. July 30th The Guardian Blair's lack of courage If Britain had held out for UN control of Iraq, we wouldn't be bogged down in a bloody occupation, writes Clare Short Feb 2nd The Observer War 'would mean biggest oil shock ever' Faisal Islam, economics correspondent writes "The world will suffer a bigger oil crisis than that during the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1973 if the US declares war on Iraq, according to leading US investment bank Goldman Sachs. "'The combined effect of Venezuelan and Iraqi disruptions has the potential to be the biggest shock in oil market history, even allowing for offsetting supply increases by other players,' says Goldman's respected analyst Jim O'Neill." Exiled Turkmen lay claim to oil riches Jonny Dymond writes from Istanbul "Turkey has always spoken up for the Turkmen community in Iraq, a group most number at about 500,000 in northern Iraq but which Turkey says is three million strong. But in recent months Turkish pulses have been racing at the prospect of a change in control of the areas that the Turkmen say they dominate." Jan 29th Daily Mirror BLOODY COWARDS John Pilger on "LEADERS WHO WANT WAR YET KNOW LITTLE OF IT"... "WILLIAM Russell, the great correspondent who reported the carnage of imperial wars, may have first used the expression, "blood on his hands", to describe impeccable politicians who, at a safe distance, order the mass killing of ordinary people." Jan 27th Guardian An engineered crisis Brian Whitaker writes "The desire for hegemony over the Middle East - not Iraq's weaponry or even its oil - is America's real motivation for war" 1920 August 22nd Sunday Times A Report on Mesopotamia by T.E. Lawrence The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster.
Reordering this world 2005 April 15th The Guardian Blair has delivered on some of the left's historic demands Old Labour sympathisers can re-elect the government with enthusiasm Robin Cook: "Earlier this week I addressed an audience in Sheffield of impeccable Labour credentials. ... What was revealing though was her [one questioner's] evident surprise that it was possible to make a persuasive old Labour case for this government. ... "They would also have been impressed by its internationalist commitment to give the same priority to social justice in tackling global poverty. The manifesto section on development contains a robust passage on ending the conditionality that poor countries must embrace trade liberalisation and privatisation before getting aid. This guarantees a confrontation with the likely policies of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, which the left should applaud as a welcome break with the Bush agenda." Guarantee? What guarantee? March 21st www.zmag.org The Guardian The New Imperialism Eric Hobsbawm June 26, 2005 The Guardian Three continuities link the global US of the cold war era with the attempt to assert world supremacy since 2001. The first is its position of international domination, outside the sphere of influence of communist regimes during the cold war, globally since the collapse of the USSR. ... The second element of continuity is the peculiar house-style of US empire, which has always preferred satellite states or protectorates to formal colonies. ... The third thread of continuity links the neo-conservatives of George Bush with the Puritan colonists' certainty of being God's instrument on earth and with the American Revolution ... March 21st www.zmag.org The Guardian The New Imperialism Eric Hobsbawm June 26, 2005 The Guardian Three continuities link the global US of the cold war era with the attempt to assert world supremacy since 2001. The first is its position of international domination, outside the sphere of influence of communist regimes during the cold war, globally since the collapse of the USSR. ... The second element of continuity is the peculiar house-style of US empire, which has always preferred satellite states or protectorates to formal colonies. ... The third thread of continuity links the neo-conservatives of George Bush with the Puritan colonists' certainty of being God's instrument on earth and with the American Revolution ... 2004 January 13th The Guardian Pope calls for a new world order UN's failure to halt US war on Iraq leads to new initiative. January 6th The Guardian On the edge of lunacy British foreign aid is now targeted at countries willing to sell off their assets to big business, writes George Monbiot. "Spare a thought this bleak new year for all those who rely on charity. Open your hearts, for example, to a group of people who, though they live in London, are in such desperate need of handouts that last year they received £7.6m in foreign aid. The Adam Smith Institute, the ultra-rightwing lobby group, now receives more money from Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) than Liberia or Somalia, two of the most desperate nations on Earth." 2003 November 22nd www. gregpalast.com A debunking of the "Chilean Miracle" thesis Apparently, the Chicago Boys recipe for Chile ended in 1983 with a depression. Then Pinochet abandoned voodoo economics and went Keynesian, writes Greg Palast.com August 19th The Guardian Poisoned chalice Wherever it is prescribed, a dose of IMF medicine only compounds economic crisis, writes George Monbiot 2002 April 7 The Observer Why we still need empires "Tony Blair's foreign policy guru Robert Cooper believes that a new colonialism can save the world. This is the article that caused the storm." With a friend like this... "America divides to control. It's a policy that could make even Bush's best friend Blair an antagonist", writes Nick Cohen, " ... America sustains fundamentalist monarchs because it wants their oil. American policy is neo-colonialism to the left-wingers, and what any great power must do to protect an essential resource to conservative realists." February 26 The Guardian George Monbiot C4 News BBC Business They're all dammed (Guardian, Monbiot's page) "Britain is again trying to fund a Turkish project to flood thousands of Kurdish homes", writes George Monbiot, "Events in isolation do not establish that a government is corrupt. ... To suggest that a government is corrupt, you must first detect a pattern of behaviour. ... [and now after the collapse of one dam project in the face of opposition...] It is now preparing to start again, with another dam [at Yusufeli], another company and another ethnic cleansing operation." (BBC report) also... Channel 4: Mark Thomas and Yusufeli dam (MTCP: unofficial site on above) (search) Mark Thomas campaigning over dam 2001 Nov 20th Guardian Tinkering with poverty "The WTO will not deliver for poor countries. We need to revive Keynes's original plan" , writes George Monbiot (his dotcom) Nov 7th Guardian Nicaragua's election showed the US still won't allow a free vote "the state department and many American politicians and officials ... found time over the last few weeks to use money, free food and propaganda to try to influence the vote in Nicaragua", writes Duncan Campbell Nov 6th Guardian Trade piracy unmasked "Leaked British documents show how we will stitch up the developing world at the WTO", writes George Monbiot (his dotcom) Oct 3rd Origin of the slogan... Guardian 'Let us reorder this world' Tony Blair yesterday turned his battle against the terrorists who ravaged New York into a far wider struggle for a new world order that would uphold human dignity and social justice "from the slums of Gaza to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan", writes Michael White, political editor
WTC Afghanistan is the matter of immediate interest: in particular many Arabs/Muslims who deplore Sept 11th nevertheless (i) bitterly oppose the way that the US seems to be throwing its weight around - not to mention the illegality of it, (ii) believe that other more 'legal' forms of redress can and should be pursued, (iii) feel that because its efforts will cause such antagonism, the US's efforts will only make things worse. Links on this topic may be found on our archive page. 2001 Sept 27th Christian Science Monitor 'Why do they hate us?' (asked President Bush in his speech to Congress last Thursday night.) by Peter Ford, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Sept 24th Guardian Arab states face stark choices "Supporting the United States is a risky business in the Middle East because there are costs as well as benefits", writes Brian Whitaker

PC UK World Policeman?