Some new anti-war songs and poems, plus some from the lunatic fringe. David Rovics is one of the most prolific political song writers of our time. The Unpeople. A song about the majority of the world's population. Movement for the Abolition of War Songs with an attitude about War and Injustice. A list of recommended songs with discography compiled by Tony Kempster and Sue Gilmurray for use in education and campaigning from Movement for the Abolition of War. At The Arms Trade Disco by Bath singer/songwriter Dave ANGUS ffi: angus_david@yahoo.com
WAR ON TERROR Coporate profiteering from the politics of fear, by Soloman Hughes ISBN-13: 978 1 84467 123 6 Who is behind companies that reap the dividend of war? How close are they to our political decision-makers? Do they actually deliver what they are contracted to deliver, and at a cost-effective price? Hughes catalogues the appalling record of private contractors doing our governments’ dirtiest work, and asks how we can possibly justify delivering into the hands of market forces an area of public life which requires the very highest standards of scrupulousness and integrity.
BLACKWATER On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide. If you have the money they will supply the mercenaries. When the US and UK governments withdraw troops from Iraq these "private security personnel" step in. At the present time they outnumber the combined US & UK military personnel in Iraq.
MAKING ARMS, WASTING SKILLS Alternatives to militarism and arms production by Steven Schofield 2008 Download report as a pdf-756kb or order a printed copy from the CAAT office. Executive summary Arms production is now an international military-industrial network, dominated by US-based corporations the essential function of which is to support the United States in maintaining its military supremacy and its geo-strategic goal of continued access to energy supplies. BAE, which already had an effective monopoly position in UK arms manufacture, is now one of the largest suppliers to the Pentagon, generating more sales in the US than the UK. Various trends are clear, including the increasing use of foreign subsidiaries and the rationalisation of the traditional, domestic arms manufacturing bases in the USA and Europe, with significant job losses. For example, since the early 1980s, UK arms-related employment declined from 740,000 to 315,00 by 2006
ENDING THE WAR IN IRAQ. A Primer By Phyllis Bennis 2008. ISBN:9781566567176 Olive Branch Press 2008 Why did three separate US administrations all agree on maintaining crippling economic sanctions on Iraq? Was it really the UN that imposed those international sanctions? What was Operation Iraqi Freedom all about? What did oil have to do with it? Phyllis Bennis was one of the many Middle East and UN-watchers who anticipated disaster long before the first US troops crossed into Iraq. With the Bush administration and most Democratic presidential candidates for the 2008 elections agreeing that US troops will remain in Iraq indefinitely this handy guide is a must-read.
CND 50 YEARS ON Two short films celebrating CND campaigning over 50 years'Faslane365' & 'Aldermaston 50 years on'. These films were made by Maddmovies, a small group who are working on the ducumentary history of CND. They have also made a short film on The Media and the War conference.	Today's war mongering politics impact all of us, even though not enough people are still prone to get involved. Perhaps if people realised that if all of us take a little more of an interest then another world is possible; otherwise the current state of affairs is the legacy that we will leave behind for our children.
THE SKY IS ALWAYS THERE In April 1997, Camilla Carr and Jon James went to Chechnya to set up a rehabilitation centre for traumatised war-children. Three months later they were taken hostage by Chechnyan rebels and held for 14 months. This new book is their story.
THE FAÇADE OF ARMS CONTROL: How the UK's export licensing system facilitates the arms trade This 2008 publication, written by an academic at the University of Sussex, is the ideal publication for anyone who has struggled to reconcile the wide variety of government, campaign organisation and media pronouncements on the issue of arms control.
UNIVERSITIES INVOLVEMENT IN MILITARY CONTRACTS The fourth of the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Peacemaker Briefings, ‘Study War No More: Military Involvement in UK Universities’ is now available to download from the from the website at http://www.for.org.uk/PB04. Universities are publicly funded institutions and yet information on military funding of higher education is often not available within the public domain. Where resources do exist, the information is often partial and out of context. Read more to find out about the report and corresponding campaign. This also compliments the CAAT campaign to expose investment by British Universities in arms companies.
EXTRACTS FROM JONATHAN STEELE’S NEW BOOK ON THE WAR IN IRAQ 'Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq' ’Guys, I'm afraid we haven't got a clue’ ‘We had no idea we were not wanted' "The farce of sovereignty" The book is published by I.B. Tauris at £20 in the UK
BEFORE YOU SIGN UP Thinking of joining the armed forces? Know the facts by checking this link. It's not all it's cracked up to be. How many politicians children sign up?
BRIBING FOR BRITAIN. A new booklet written by the author and trade unionist Tim Webb has been published by CAAT. It pulls together the major events and players in the Serious Fraud Office-BAE-Saudi Arabia story, provides the necessary background and analysis, and presents it in one accessible, highly readable account.
Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses Curtis’ most recent book shows that Britain is complicit in the deaths of ten million people since 1945. These are Unpeople – those whose lives are seen as expendable in the pursuit of Britain’s economic and political goals. The book pieces together the Blair government’s “public deception campaign” on Iraq and reveals government plans to increase “information operations” directed towards the public and to embark on a new phase of global military intervention. He also reveals from the declassified British government documents the hidden history of unethical British policies, including support for the massacres in Iraq in 1963, the backing given to the rise of Uganda dictator Idi Amin and the extraordinary private support of the US in its aggression against Vietnam.
Indian helicopters for Myanmar: Making a mockery of embargoes? Summary In July, Saferworld launched a report highlighting how an EU arms embargo on Myanmar (Burma) is under threat. Written by European and international NGOs, including Amnesty International and Saferworld, the report reveals how variants of the ALH attack helicopter contain rocket launchers from Belgium; rockets, guns and engines from France; brake systems from Italy; fuel tanks and gearboxes from the UK and self-protection equipment from a Swedish company. German companies have been crucial to the design development of the ALH. The report calls on the EU to initiate immediate consultations with the Indian government to prevent this transfer from taking place. It also stresses the need for stricter EU arms controls to improve national and EU arms export practice.
The Good The Bad and The Ugly. As the world's second largest arms exporter , theUK's decisions concerning arms exports are of critical importance. This report looks at the Government's policy and practice in this area over the last ten years.
A Moral Response to Terrorism: Conscience in a Time of War This five unit study packet leads the reader through the soul searching moral and theological questions we are living with in the post-Sept. 11 world. How do we find light in this present darkness? Why do the terrorists hate America? Is Islam the enemy? What's the best way to fight terrorism? The guide contains study questions, action steps, and lists further resources. This is a 5-session, 48-page study guide--3-hole punched and binder-ready, making it easy to add possible future sections or your own supplements. A Moral Response to Terrorism is designed for use in classrooms, Sunday school sessions, small groups, and study circles.
In "The New Rulers of the World" the award-winning journalist John Pilger selects from his recent "Guardian" and "New Statesman" essays on power, its secrets and illusions. The title is from his television film about the mythology of globalization; in which he revealed how General Suharto's bloody seizure of power in Indonesia in the 1960s was part of a Western design that was the beginning of globalization in Asia. In this book, John Pilger discloses more of Indonesia's secret history, as well as describing the price paid by the people of Iraq for the West's decade-long embargo. The author also contemplates the September 11th terrorist attacks on America and the causes.
Rethinking War And Peace Is war ever a just way to resolve conflict? Diana Francis argues that it is not. With passion and eloquence, she mounts a head-on challenge to the belief that war as an institution is either necessary or effective for good. Refuting the notion that human nature condemns us to perpetual carnage, she argues that we can change the ways we think and the systems we live by. In a tightly reasoned discussion of the ethics of war and peace she asserts that war is a gross denial of the core values on which peace depends, and that Just War theory has failed and deceived us. About the Author Diana Francis is one of the world's most experienced practitioners of conflict resolution and has worked with local activists in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She is a former President of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and an active member of the Bath Stop the War Coalition.
People, Peace and Power: Conflict Transformation in Action Diana Francis Pluto Press, London. ISBN 0-7453-1835-5 'Millions of people around the world live in countries torn apart by war, where violence and suffering are part of everyday life. Yet in all those countries there are groups of people working for peace in the midst of war, standing up for human rights and decency. What difference can they make? What can be done to support them, and to help dialogue to happen in the midst of hostility and violence? This book examines these questions, focussing on the roles that ordinary people can play as peace builders in societies where violence and antagonism have become the norm, where inter-communal relationships are fractured or where institutions and the rule of law have collapsed. It examines the theory and practice of conflict transformation and its relevance for different cultures and contexts. Using extensive case studies taken from practical workshops - the most frequently used form of conflict intervention - in the Balkans and around the world, it shows both the power and the complexity of such encounters.'
Lessons from Kosovo: Alternatives to War   Diana Francis
"DESCENT INTO UNREASON - How Jack Straw Ruined my Book" by Donald Michie One of the Bletchley code-breakers during World War Two and expert on Artificial Intelligence exposes the irrational logic and outright lies behind the British government's position on Iraq. Michie concludes this 24-page pamphlet with the assessment that all Straw's bluster comes down to "America - right or wrong". He writes: "History is not kind to duplicitous toadies. What is the best, then, that Jack Straw's friends can now hope? Surely that history will draw a veil over this most inglorious of British foreign ministers." This pamphlet is packed full of arguments to be used in debate against the war. It is only available from the Stop the War Coalition. Individual copies are £2 each, including post and packing. Ten copies for £15, or multiples thereof.

A British Officers email from Iraq June 6 2007
There is a widespread, and well-sourced, belief based on both experience and evidence, in both the British military and academia, that the US is not "just in Iraq to keep the peace, regardless of what the troops on the ground believe. It is in Iraq to establish a client state amenable to the requirements of US realpolitik in a key, oil-rich region. To doubt this is to be ignorant of the motives that have guided US foreign policy in the post-war period and a mountain of evidence since 2003."

Ten Years of New Labour’s Arms Exports By Mark Curtis 21 May 2007. Mark has reviewed British arms exports for the ten-year period under New Labour. The figures, and the links between the arms traders and UK government, speak for themselves.

Chronology of US - Iran events from 1953 to the present from the BBC

Is The U.S. Planning a Horrific Global Nuclear War? By Michel Chossudovsky Jan 17 2007 from "Information Clearing House"

"Doomsday Clock" Moves Two Minutes Closer To Midnight. Jan 17 2007 from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists "Deteriorating Global Situation" Cited on Nuclear Weapons and New Factor: Climate Change.

An interview with John Pilger by Graeme Greene Sept 5 2006

"There’s the small, rather dislocated terrorism that is always associated with al-Qaeda. That has undoubtedly been strengthened by the invasion of Iraq and everything Bush has done. Then there’s state terrorism, which is almost never talked about. We’ve just seen it in Lebanon. That was a terror war where they deliberately bombed civilians. That’s the terrorism that should be worrying us. It’s impossible for the world’s greatest terrorist organisation - the United States - to conduct a war on terror. It’s absurd. Since 1946, they’ve overthrown some 50 governments, many of them by terrorist means - that’s terrorism".

You met Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. What’s he like? "Very interesting. I’d never spoken to a politician before who actually answers your questions - that was quite a new experience".

Empire – A Tribe on Steroids excerpts from an essay By Manuel Valenzuela.

There now emerges a vitally important decision to be made: do we continue our ways, which based on technology and human nature means certain extermination, or do we find common ground, understand who and what we are and deviate away from a path that continues to bring us closer to the brink of self-destruction? Something much greater than humankind’s primitive fascination with the tribe or Empire must surely exist.

The Pax Americana is as Empires have always been, growing internally at first thanks to comparative advantages in technology, population, philosophy or resources, flourishing regionally thanks to increased power and wealth, until that time that her belly overflows her waistline and the greed of man becomes the pursuit of imperial hegemony. To appease the growing hunger of her leaders for power and of her people for increased living standards expansion of her borders becomes state policy. Thus, Manifest Destiny is birthed and the hand of god is proclaimed to be the guiding force empowering the quest for expansion onward, thereby granting forgiveness, and an excuse, to the litany of crimes against humanity that is logically to follow.

Of course the torture, dehumanization, rape, pillage, brutal occupation, murder, humiliation, disappearances, decimation of human rights, false imprisonment, tyranny and utter contempt for human life prevalent in America’s disasters in Iraq or Afghanistan are not exclusive to the last few years. Rather, it has been methodical and systematic, an unending product of expanding Empire and of maintaining control over her vast fiefdoms throughout the globe, lasting over decades of time, past, present and future, afflicting millions from almost every land, of every religion, of every ethnic origin. It is the nature of Empires, and thus of humankind, from those in Mesopotamia, Asia and Africa and Mesoamerica, from Sumer to Babylon, from Egypt to Greece to Rome, from the Mayas to the Inca to the Aztec, from the Ottomans to the Persians, from the English to the Spanish.

Unwilling to alter a standard of living that has reached unsustainable proportions, with its population expanding instead of curtailing its outrageous demands for ever-increasing standards of living, its greed of material wealth and love of consumerism outstripping all semblance of control, the population inside the Empire are complicit in the crimes furthered by America. In its locust-like appetite for materialism and consumerism the citizenry of the Empire has condemned billions of their fellow human beings to a life in utter indigence, their abilities and talents used not for the betterment of themselves or their families, but for the greed of the plague hemorrhaging the planet towards its ultimate limit

The Empire declares itself the land of the free, yet its population works the most of any developed nation, almost becoming automatons in need of no rest or relaxation. It becomes sacrilegious to take time off work and cherish one’s family; it is heresy to take time off in order to take care of personal duties. Americans either become addicts to work and slaves to their bosses or one becomes an unwanted pariah. The pressure to conform and remain complacent while the system shackles one’s life is omnipotent; its effects on stress and life become extreme burdens on one’s psychology. Every year hails the arrival of more police powers, more autocratic rule, less democracy and civil rights and liberties. Every year sees the government of, by and for the People transformed into one of, by and for the Corporate World.

Lesson Learned or History Repeated?

For Empire today is global, no longer is it the regional power of yesteryear. As a result, the playing field has shrunk, the powerful competitors are closer and the chances for conflict have intensified. With dwindling resources, especially those of water and oil, with a booming human population, with the existence of nuclear weaponry, with global warming soon to unleash its dastardly consequences upon our fragile civilization, with human nature being what it is and with the primitive love of tribe and theology embedded in our psychology, the danger of self-extermination has grown exponentially, threatening to destroy all life on the planet.

With a future based on more conflict, not less, with old Empires and new rivals ready to wage battle over territory and resources and power and control, there now emerges a vitally important decision to be made: do we continue our ways, which based on technology and human nature means certain extermination, or do we find common ground, understand who and what we are and deviate away from a path that continues to bring us closer to the brink of self-destruction? Unfortunately, momentum is with the former, just as it has always been. Dare we change it, and the course of human destiny as well?

Something much greater than humankind’s primitive fascination with the tribe or Empire must surely exist, waiting to be incorporated into human civilization, waiting to shed its enlightenment upon all of humanity.