As Peace News goes to press, Britain is once again bombing a Middle Eastern dictatorship that it previously helped to arm.
On the day that the UN security council passed a no-fly zone resolution, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi threatened rebels: “We will come house by house, room by room.... We will have no mercy and no pity.”
In the areas under his control, Gaddafi’s programme of hunting down his political opponents house by house has been aided by £4.1m worth of military…
How quickly wars happen. One month, we see grassroots nonviolence toppling dictators. The next month, we see a civil war. The month after that, we see cruise missiles and war planes in the air. Former Respect MP George Galloway pointed out on 4 March that no one proposed a no-fly zone over Gaza during Israel’s assault in 2009, when 1,400 Palestinians were killed.
If British, French and US governments genuinely based their foreign policy on humanitarian need, these countries might have…
Britain’s participation in the US-led war on Libya, which began on 19 March, followed the passing of United Nations security council resolution 1973, which calls for an end to attacks on civilians in Libya and authorizes member states to “take all necessary measures” to protect civilians and end the “gross and systematic violation of human rights” perpetrated by colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
The resolution also calls for the implementation of a no-fly zone except for humanitarian…
