In These New Times

Cailean Bochanan

22nd September, 2011

NATO have been bombing Libya relentlessly for six months and have now announced a 90 day extension to their bombing campaign. On whose authority you may ask? NATO don’t ask for authority, they bomb their way to it. Anyway, having declared victory, they have pledged to continue the war. If you are happy with the logic of that, you won’t be interested in joining our anti-NATO protest. If NATO step up the bombiing when they have won, what will they do when they’re losing. The truth, of course, is that they haven’t won and must continue the campaign until all resistance to the puppet government, which they haven’t yet been able to install, is crushed. That is probably impossible since the Libyan people and the Libyan army are maintaining fierce resistance under the leadership of the dictator they are supposed to hate so much. At this moment, there is no functioning government in Libya and there isn’t likely to be until NATO and its “rebel’ allies enter into negotiations with Gaddafi or are definitively chased out of Libya.

The cost of this war is paid , above all, in blood- the blood mainly of Libyans, many of whom are non-combatants, women and children, estimated at around 50,000. But what cost do we pay? A number of special forces have been killed or captured. We pay with the infamy which falls on us for these disgraceful crimes. But we also pay the inordinate cost of continual war for a nation which is already the most bankrupt on the planet. A likely new phase of quantitative easing has been announced on the same day as the extension of the bombing. This money will serve two goals: to  bailout the banks once again and to help to cover the costs of government spending, a large and unaccounted portion of which covers the cost of the wars. For the British people there will be a massive inflationary surge as the pound falls and eventually the coup de grace: a massive hike in interest and mortgage rates.

In order to survive we must actively oppose the wars and the bailouts. There is no alternative!

Join our protests! Stop the Bombing of Libya. Disband NATO!

Thursdays , 5-6pm, Donald Dewar Statue, top of Buchanan Street, Glasgow

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