Iraq war

Challenging hate is not enough. We have to look at the collapse in trust Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 20 October 2021 The aftermath of the murder of David Amess has rightly seen a huge public reaction and revulsion to the politics of hatred and violence and a yearning for things to be different. Much of this has concentrated on social media abuse, anonymous trolls and the invective now commonplace in much public discourse. Yet this does not acknowledge, as Labour MP Chris Bryant has pointed, out the role of parts of the print press – newspapers such as the Daily

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The World Turned Upside Down: Life after 9/11 and the West’s War Machine Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 8 September 2021 Twenty years ago, the world changed dramatically on 11 September 2001 when al-Qaeda attacked the USA and overturned the post-Cold War assumptions of the West. Prior to this, in the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West believed in its in superiority with ‘the end of history’, ‘the clash of civilisations’, a belief in globalisation, progress and increasing prosperity. All were to be tested in the next two decades and found wanting. The aftermath of that dramatic

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Afghanistan, “forever wars” and the reality of Empire State Britain Gerry Hassan The National, 31 August 2021 The news of the past couple of weeks has been filled with the humiliation of US and UK forces in Afghanistan alongside the humanitarian tragedy unfolding before our eyes; an upsetting wake-up call to those who have become normalised to the permanent war machine of the West and the 20 years of “forever war” in Afghanistan. Rather than reset their assumptions, the war elite have looked on aghast at the decision of US President Joe Biden to withdraw from Afghanistan – abiding to

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Tony Blair and the Road from Baghdad to Boris Johnson’s Brexit Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, October 26th 2019 Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson and others from the New Labour era have of late been on our airwaves talking endlessly of the evils of Brexit and the need for a second referendum on Europe. But seldom if ever do they publicly reflect on their own disastrous role in fanning the flames which led to the current Brexit debacle. Blair and Campbell advocated and led the case for the Iraq war - an illegal war based on a campaign of disinformation,

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The anger about the Iraq Disaster isn’t just about Iraq and Blair Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, July 7th 2016 It is hard to envisage now but once upon a time Tony Blair was an eager to please, likeable, pragmatic politician. In 1997 he caught the mood of the times and led Labour to an election victory of historic proportions, and inflicted the worst ever defeat on the Conservatives, which they took more than a decade to recover from. At that year’s Labour conference Alastair Campbell, Blair’s Head of Communications, leaked a private poll which revealed that Blair had a 93%

Continue Reading The anger about the Iraq Disaster isn’t just about Iraq and Blair