What is the role of the West in the Middle East? Christopher Davidson interview
by Ian Sinclair
Open Democracy
18 January 2017
A Reader in Middle East Politics at Durham University, in 2012 Dr Christopher Davidson published the best-seller After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies.
It is no exaggeration to suggest that in the past century alone the UK has been at the forefront of the bloody industry that is modern war and has done everything possible to avoid and disrupt the peace. Barely a year has gone by since the end of the second world war when the British military were not fighting and killing in some far off country
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Unless there is a serious challenge, Britain is set to increasingly promote a failed model of international trade that will impoverish developing countries still further. It will also likely pursue an aid strategy that supports corporations, neo-liberal economic objectives and wider British foreign policy.
The post Britain’s Trade and Aid Policies After Brexit – Neo-liberalism Goes Mad appeared first on BSNEWS.
Britain is on course to ignore human rights in its foreign policy even more than in the recent past. And, if recent speeches by military leaders are anything to go by, it is even threatening to increasingly use its global military power to secure its financial and economic interests.
The post Britain’s Post-Brexit Foreign Policy Is Becoming Clearer – And It’s Not Pretty appeared first on BSNEWS.
Historian Mark Curtis cites some of the actions of successive British governments, barely mentioned by the corporate media, which go someway to understanding what makes Britain 'great'.
Supporting the bombing of Yemen.
Arming Israel.
Occupying the Chagos Islands.
Supporting US aggression.
Arming Colombia.
Maintaining the global network of tax havens.
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Outside of North Korea, speeches by political figures are rarely universally showered with adulation. So the mainstream media’s ravings in reaction to Hilary Benn’s speech to parliament on Syria are especially noticeable. Across the spectrum, the speech has been reported as ‘riveting’ (Guardian), ‘extraordinary’ (Mirror), ‘great’ (BBC News at 6, 3 December) and that of a ‘true leader’ (Telegraph). The […]
The more important story is that British governments, both Labour and Conservative, have, in pursuing the so-called national interest’ abroad, colluded for decades with radical Islamic forces, including terrorist organisations. They have connived with them, worked alongside them and sometimes trained and financed them, in order to promote specific foreign policy objectives.
Since Corbyn’s policies are generally popular, they are a direct threat to the elite consensus, and three stand out in foreign policy. First, the idea of holding Blair to account under international law for invading Iraq will strike terror into the minds of the Foreign Office and Ministry of Offence. These people reserve the right to bomb the gyppos every once in a while and they are not going to accept the idea of being held to account for this.
