Last November, although I didn’t know it at the time, was the last time I will make my annual visit to ward park, respectfully dressed with military medals gleaming to remember the fallen. Year on year I have listened to the message given by an appointed holy man that the deaths of young men and women in the Armed Forces are in some way righteous and noble. It is not and there is no glory in war.
Lest we forget, a phrase borrowed from a time before the First World War but used extensively after it, is by far the most over-used and least understood collection of words in our language. Since the First World War the British have had a hand in over 30 aggressive, military campaigns around the world. Yet annually we chant the mantra from our hymn sheets of ‘Lest we Forget’. It would appear that we forgot the horror and suffering the very second WW1 ended.
As our Government continually try to drag us into wars around the world, the drone-like public gleefully carry on with their programme of military worship. The Armed Forces are adorned with salutations of honour and festooned with glorious words like heroes, our boys and support our troops. We were all rightly disgusted by the ugly images that surrounded the death of Drummer Lee Rigby, yet we the British public, do not bat an eyelid at the millions of innocents that have been slaughtered in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Syria. Why is that? Are the millions of lives lost in foreign countries at the hands of our Military/Government any less important than the life of one of our own soldiers?
It is time to stop this Military worship that allows our Government to wantonly wage war around our planet. We the public need to be honest with ourselves and realise that our blind loyalty and support to the mechanics that deliver death and destruction to foreign countries is wrong. Our support and loyalty implicates everyone who blindly follows the Government’s mantra that the lives of brown people in their own countries are worth less than the citizens of our own country.
Kieran Devlin is a member of Veterans For Peace UK.
Veterans For Peace UK 
In the past I marched past the Cenotaph & other memorials on Armistice Day, until realising that, though the promoters of Poppy Day (& those who wear poppies) will claim otherwise, the ‘Memorial Services’ are really Glorification of Battles & of War.
Thanks to all for the kind commentary. The more we get to open their eyes, the more that will begin to think the same way as us and this is how we will affect change.
Well put and straight to the point. Excellent. I listened to an old broadcast last week, about the pacifists and objectors in WW2 and what they went through. I thought then that those guys were real heros. To stand up and say “I have no fight with them” and then take everything that was thrown at them. If more and more people stood up a said No, the country would still survive and grow.
Kieran, nice piece now check this out,
Ever wondered why, and how is it, that International laws, bodies, and public figures, that claim to maintain peaceful co-existence, keep silent whilst endorsing repeated NATO bombings? These acts have killed thousands of innocent men, women and children, and have destroyed public and private property in a show of supremacy and arrogance over the nations which they have targeted.
NATO war crimes extend from Yugoslavia, to Iraq, to Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria.
Why are international laws being manipulated to pressurize nations who are politically less powerful, yet bountiful in natural resources, or placed in influential economic routes?
This simply explains why nations are invaded in the present context and how NATO has become above the law.
Were there terrorists in power plants, electricity grids, water supply networks? were there terrorists amongst shops, universities and schools, stores, hospitals, farms and markets?
These have been key targets of NATO in its endless bombing campaigns which totally violate its own Charter and the UN Charter. So what is the use of the International Criminal Court at The Hague?
If the ICC is a tool, a manipulative organism that twists legal principles, it is time that the rest of the world knew about these duplicities, ambiguities and double standards and demand that it either stops the double standards, or these members vote for another alternative.
NATO in Yugoslavia
The International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia formed in 1993 was only a means to justify Western intervention in the Balkans. It has no links to the International Court of Justice based in The Hague.
The Tribunal is made up of US influenced appointees, so will NATO crimes in Kosovo be investigated? Mmm, I think not. Was it a surprise when the Tribunal branded President Milosevic a war criminal and the US is against the establishment of any international court that can charge US military and political personnel with war crimes? One rule of law for you, and the US/UK do what they want with no come back.
What NATO is accused of is violating the UN Charter– it is a violation to attack a sovereign nation that was innocent of any aggression.
NATO’s Charter Article 1 & 7 has also been violated – NATO is supposed to function as a “DEFENSIVE” organization, and only committed to force if ONE or MORE of its members are attacked! The US and British Governments along with the help of Mossad have used this Charter to justify their war on terror.
The usual excuse is given as “humanitarian” intervention and that was what the Clinton administration used, incidentally Mussolini used it to invade Ethiopia to save them from slavery and Hitler used it to occupy Sudetenland to save Germans.
If the US used the Nuremberg principles to charge Germany for ‘starting an unprovoked war’ shouldn’t the US be charged on similar grounds? Oh, that’s right they run the council!
On 22 September, 2000 in the District Court of Belgrade, the President of the Court handed down guilty verdicts against government leaders of NATO countries for ‘war crimes’. These defendants were Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia between March 24 and June10, 1999.
Former US President Bill Clinton was sent a verdict on April 18th, 2001 sentencing him in absentia to 20 years in prison for ‘crimes against civilians’, but he just laughed it off.
The Commission of Inquiry of the International Action Coalition in 1999 charged Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and William Cohen for violating the Geneva Convention, the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles, Helsinki Accords and the US Constitution.
The 19 charges included starting a war and deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, thus violating and destroying the peacemaking role of the UN. One of the main arguments was that despite the Yugoslav parliament agreeing to NATOs demand for autonomy and allowing the armed UN peacekeepers into Kosovo, why was it still bombed?
Instead of the mass graves similar to the WMD in Iraq, ( do you see the pattern here?) there were perhaps just 200 dead persons – the 100,000 dead Albanians that NATO and US were promoting as grounds to, was just a lie.
NATOs air strikes in Serbia killed over 2000 civilians and wounded more than 7500. NATO has owned up to only 460 civilian deaths. The dead included farmers, city dwellers, reporters, diplomats, people travelling on public transport, patients in hospitals, the elderly & even children. That is the human factor – what about the enormous damages to the environment as a result of these NATO bombings –poisoning water supplies, loss of electricity that affects hospitals and other emergency requirements? There is evidence that some Spanish pilots refused to drop bombs on non-military targets.
Another accusation against NATO was the bombing of all bridges across the international waterway through Eastern Europe – the River Danube.
Some of these bridges were bombed while civilians were on them! All that NATO leaders said was that the incidents were ‘accidents’. This clearly violates the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12th August 1949 and the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1) – 8th June 1977.
NATO strategy was to destroy the whole infrastructure of Yugoslavia – that was why it targeted public services, rail and road networks, and waterways. The objective was always to detach Kosovo.
If you were to read the book (The White Book) published by the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NATO crimes in Yugoslavia, the book will reveal the damage caused by NATO bombings, and lists 400 civilian deaths and over 40 incidents involving civilian fatalities. If NATOs actions were illegal under its own treaty, in particular since aggressive military action was taken without a UN mandate, these killings were war crimes.
What is clear is that the US and UK Governments deliberately waged war against Yugoslavia by building a propaganda campaign that would be internationally welcomed and accepted by their countrymen.
NATO war crimes in Iraq
The Geneva Conventions are clear “Civilians shall not be the object of attack.”According to the UN Security Council resolution, military forces were tasked with expelling Iraqi forces that invaded Kuwait. ( The fact that Kuwait was side drilling and stealing the Iraqi oil is nothing to worry about.) That task involved 88,000 tons of bombs that killed civilians and killed more civilians through the destruction of power grids, food, water treatment, sewage systems. US soldiers used napalm to incinerate entrenched Iraqi soldiers. US soldiers dropped fuel-air explosives, cluster bombs that use razor-sharp fragments, to shred people.
Depleted uranium was used to penetrate tanks, causing long term health risks, and the economic embargoes have killed as many as 2 million Iraqis. Why did the US and its allies deliberately destroy Iraq’s water supply and not repair it? Why did these western nations repeatedly bomb infrastructures for flood control, municipal and industrial water storage, communication towers, irrigation and hydroelectric power? (8 multipurpose dams, 7 major pumping stations and 31 municipal water and sewage facilities were destroyed).
These had nothing to do with Saddam or his supporters – these were services needed for the people of Iraq. The bombings created waterborne diseases, which have killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. The bombs and the weapons used, have caused radiation poisoning, and as a result of depleted uranium shells, birth defects have been recorded. The earth has been poisoned, leaving the country ruined for future generations. They really liberated that country didn
t they? Of course the oil had nothing to do with it…t answer to anyone!!Article 54 of the Geneva Convention states it is prohibited to attack, destroy or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population –including foodstuff, livestock & drinking water supplies & irrigation works.
Why were these acts not treated as war crimes under the Geneva Convention, and does this not constitute genocide by the US and UK governments? That’s right, they don
NATO war crimes in Afghanistan
If NATO has committed war crimes in Iraq and Yugoslavia, should we be surprised to read of NATO war crimes in Afghanistan? No not really.
Indiscriminate bombings, and killing unarmed civilians, have only been answered with an ‘apology’ by NATO. The presence of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, was similar to that which took place in Yugoslavia – without any proof a country has been taken over.
Indiscriminate bombings mean rebuilding projects being handed over to profit-driven, private corporations (that don
t even do the work that they have been paid to do.) The irony is that the Afghan government are compromising the welfare of its own citizens, for its own financial benefits. This has caused a rise in Pashtun nationalism and indirect support for the Taliban. Thus, it has been easy to pass blame for NATO killings on the Taliban while civilian deaths keep piling up. Infrastructure continues to be bombed and anarchy prevails throughout Afghanistan.forces to shoot back… media response ‘They are killing their own people’….Text book ‘problem, reaction, solution’. Parliament and congress will never know….NATO in Libya
NATO’s Libya operation followed the UNSC Resolution, which NATO has violated through its presence on the ground and bombing of civilian structures. The greatest violation is by NATO is ‘taking sides’, which is illegal, together with the murder and attempted murder of government officials, with no formal declaration of war.
Put simply…. Let us, ‘NATO’, pay mercenaries to kill the people of Libya, and let us call them ‘rebels’… media response’ shush’…. Now, let’s wait for Gadaffis
NATO is using cluster bombs along with depleted uranium, both illegal.
NATOs violations in Libya are many, and what we would like to know is, why is the ICC silent? The ICC has no jurisdiction for Libya as it never ratified the Rome Treaty, nor has the US. However, under international laws, a Head of State has immunity.
So if the ICC does not question the US and its crimes against humanity, why should ICC question Libya, when the UN Security Council cannot refer to the ICC according to its Statute? ICC has been considering action against Georgia since 2008, against Guinea since 2009 and against Colombia since 2006, however took just 3 days to find Libya guilty. Again, did oil really have nothing to do with it?
The NATO countries participating in air strikes in Libya included France, UK, US, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and Italy. What excuse does NATO have for bombing a Down’s Syndrome School, the University of Tripoli, the man-made waterway irrigation system which supplies most Libyans with drinking water, a hospital, killing over 50 people, many of whom were children, bombing villages and killing civilian population. Is this not genocide, and can the ICC continue to watch whilst doing nothing?
The sinister campaign to take over Libya, was by first projecting to Gaddafi that the US “deeply valued the relationship between the United States and Libya”(2009). This was because British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Chevron, Conoco, Marathon Oil & industrial giants like Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Nonchemical & Fluor, signed investments and sales deals with Libya.
The US State Dept awarded a $1.5m grant to train Libyan civilian and government security forces in 2009. Many of these ‘trainees’, are now leading the NATO-backed ‘rebel forces’. The pretence by the US since 2009, of being a ‘friend’ to Gadaffi, was to get him to agree to allowing foreign presence in Libya.
NATO pounded Libya for months. Over 30,000 air and missile assaults, mostly on the civilian infrastructure, was expected, as was the ‘rebel uprising’, for they had already been trained to rise against Gaddaffi, and had the weapons supplied by NATO!
NATO also bombed Libyan airports, ships, energy depots, ports and highways, warehouses, hospitals, water plants and civilian homes. NATO was able to get diplomatic support, inclusive of the Arab League, (all bought and paid for by American Zionists). NATO removed services from hired mercenaries in Qatar. Libyan assets were frozen, amounting to billions of dollars. Economic sanctions were imposed by NATO, cutting off Libya’s income from oil sales. Is this what happens if you trade oil without the American blessing?
International media, also controlled by Western Imperialists ( Rothchild Zionists,) were relaying images that portrayed rebels waving rifles, and shouting against Gaddafi. These NATO funded rebels entered towns that had been devastated by NATO air attacks! They robbed homes, banks and destroyed public institutions, on the instructions of NATO.
Going against Gaddafi, does not equate to ruining the country’s infrastructure, and destroying property, that is used by your own people! NATO wanted Libya to be destroyed, just like they destroyed Yugoslavia & Iraq. NATO wanted to ensure that Libya had to be ‘reconstructed’, because all these contracts would eventually go to profit-making, Western companies, that, just like Iraq, would take the money, and not lift a finger to rebuild anything, except the oil production of course?
Incidentally, Libya was a country that had boasted the highest per capita income and standard of living in Africa. What took place in Libya is a message from the Rothschild’s and Rockefeller’s for other nations in North Africa, Asia & Latin America.
US-NATO is already engaged in colonial wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen & Somalia. What about the fall of Mubarak of Egypt, and Ben Ali in Tunisia, while uprisings in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco, and Algeria were all associated with movements demanding end to EU-US & Israeli domination of the region, and would have caught their intelligence by surprise.
NATO provided the money to silence the ‘people’s march to democracy’, and the situation in Egypt is far worse than during Mubarak’s reign! In Bahrain, the West called for ‘reform’, while continuing to arm the Bahraini Royal Family, as seen in the NATO backed Saudi invasion of Bahrain, to support the Royal Dictatorship. In Yemen, the West continued to support the Ali Saleh regime.
What did Libya do to anger the West? Did the West not like its pursuance of pro-African agenda, which had funded an Independent Regional Bank, trading in gold, and a communications system designed to bypass IMF & World Bank control?
Nevertheless, NATO is now providing support to Islamic fundamentalists (paid so called rebels), in an attempt to overthrow Bashar Al-Assad. Have they got to stick to the ‘agenda’? Syria followed by Iran? Any excuse will do….Chemical weapons? That’s a good one, no one will question that.
Just like in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is likely to be an abominating US-NATO presence that is looking towards a military offensive in Syria, to run into Iran.
Sub-Saharan Africa may like to remember Gaddafi’s generous aid, grants and loans that helped these nations from the IMF, World Bank. Who will remember Gaddafi’s development programs and construction projects that offered many jobs to sub-Saharan African immigrant workers? Despite all these things, NATO came in and bombed the country!
NATO hit the Libyan water supply pipeline. Days later, NATO hit the pipeline factory producing the pipes to repair it. Could both incidents have been just accidents? NATO went on to target the civilian water supply network which supplied water to 70% of Libyan population. Nevertheless, the truth will emerge, just like Libya is now revealing it funded French President Sarkozy’s election campaign, and the numerous secret meetings that Tony Blair held with Gaddafi. Could there be more in the ‘Pandora’s box’? Did the West bump off Gaddafi as they did to Saddam, all previous friends of the West, just like Osama?
It is certainly time for UN Member States to stand up against aggression by Western neo-imperialism. Member states must demand a probe into all the atrocities by NATO, and demand that these nations steering NATO, be charged with war crimes.
Russia and China need to champion this cause. With only 28 nations making up the NATO Alliance, the UN has 53 African Member Nations, 48 Middle-East and Asian Nations together with 12 Nations in South America.
It is vital for these Non-NATO members to make a voice within the UN, and demand that NATO be investigated for all of its war crimes, and be charged for every crime committed.
We can now see the true colours of our nations obsession with money, oil and global control. Together, we can stop this madness before it’s too late, and we all become ‘slaves’ to this global cabal. Please wake up, WW3 is coming, it’s up to us to stop it.
Please watch this video “Road to World War 3” http://youtu.be/HP7L8bw5QF4
If you really believe 7-7 happened as the media purported, then please watch this video. 7-7 Ripple Effect 2 http://youtu.be/kwyzpzEgUWE
Peace and Love brothers and sisters,
Kenny veterans for peace
Thanks for this Kenny, very much appreciated.
This got people to pay attention and snap out of the matrix breach of the peace for promoting peace this really is an upside down world we live in. Sometimes enough is enough
http://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/10799200.Lone_protestor_disrupts_act_of_remembrance/
peace and love
Kenny VFP member
Agreed with everything said on this thread and whilst we are at it we may ask yet again about the military covenant that supposed to give us untold benefits ,but most, if not all know this is total BOLLOCKS(army speak ).So far not one of my 374 army comrades who died in the Cyprus campaign(National Service men, like me) and the survivors from the 1950’s have receives sweet FA from any poxed up government.
Thank you Kieran for finding the words for which I have been searching for long enough.
This orchestrated adulation of those who are trained to kill is very nasty propaganda. Most of the gullible young men (& women) who join the forces do so because they have been conned into believing they are ‘Fighting for Freedom’ etc. etc. etc.
It was that gullibility which caused me to volunteer for the Royal Navy as soon as I was old enough in 1943.
Within a fortnight of joining the training ‘ship’ HMS Collingwood (a shore base), I was to see war at its worst – recovering the maimed, dead & dying bodies of my young shipmates, after a loan German bomber, unheralded by sirens, had dropped bombs on either side of the hut opposite mine. A messmate alongside me said, “This was not fair: These were only youngsters.”. Grimly but silently, I had to disagree: It WAS fair – by the standards of the times! We were indeed youngsters, but we were training to kill the foe, & the foe at that time were the Germans!
JUST SIX MONTHS LATER I WAS INVOLVED IN GRIM RETRIBUTION:
Serving on the Arctic Russian Convoys aboard HMS Matchless, I played a very small part in the Battle of North Cape, killing 1,867 very brave German sailors. They were the crew of the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst, who I have described as ‘The finest, bravest, most successful, most feared & most beautiful fighting ship of ANY navy’, After her sinking, we picked up 6 survivors (there were 36 all told), then, having received an order frim the C in C, “Join HMS Duke of York & escort her to Murmansk”, we switched off the searchlight, pulled up scrambling nets & steamed away, still hearing voices calling for help from the winter Arctic night, leaving the owners of those voices to certain death in the icy waters. I grieve for those men every day of my life, as I grieve for my own young shipmates who gave their lives, BELIEVING, as we did, that we were fighting in a worthy – even a noble – cause (it took me till the age of 70 to learn differently!)
On New Year’s Day 1944 we, with the other 13 Royal Navy ships it had taken to find, trap & sink the Scharnhorst, steamed into Scapa Flow harbour to a Hero’s Welcome. .
NOW TO CUT A VERY LONG STORY VERY SHORT:
My reward – after fighting for my country in WW2, & a lifetime’s honest hard work thereafter – at the age of 86 I was sent to prison – SUPPOSEDLY for ‘Contempt of Court’. Eighteen months later, at the age of 87, no less a person than Lord Chief Justice Lord Igor Judge, imposed TWO MORE prison sentences on me!
Fortunately, knowing what the Quislings who now rule Britain had in store for me, I had had the good sense to flee the land of my birth, & seek safety in the Republic of Ireland, able to watch from afar the antics in that amusingly named place, the Royal Courts of ‘Justice’. Amusing yes, but the state of ‘Justice’ in today’s Britain is far from funny.
For more, go to Youtube & type my name. Also see http://www.normanscarth.blogspot.com
(A technical glitch means the quite diabolical events since July 2012 are not recorded there).
Norman Scarth
These are very moving words. Your anger is palpable, as is your frustration that ‘Lest we forget’ is a devalued and almost meaningless phrase, when the horror and suffering of WW1 was as good as forgotten as soon as that war ended – it certainly didn’t help to prevent any of the conflicts that came after it.
Perhaps we can use the Centenary as an ideal opportunity to highlight the essence of the message ‘Never Again’….and that the best way to honour the sacrifice of those who suffered in that war , and continue to suffer to this day, is to move beyond just ‘remembering’, and instead put our efforts and energy into finding alternatives to armed conflict.
We know very well that a government which enthusiastically promotes the Arms Trade is unlikely to allow a hint of ‘Never Again’ in its commemorations.
It is up to us to do it for them, and this is particularly effective coming from thoughtful independent minded Veterans like yourself.
Thank you for this, and Good Luck!
Heather Speight (member of the Movement for the Abolition of War)
This is a very good idea Heather and one that is visually, very easy to implement. Thank you alsoi for your kind words.
As a combat veteran of the Vietnam War I wholeheartedly support this message. As long as military propaganda continues to glorify war the people will be more likely to sacrifice their sons and daughters to its insanity.
Well said. This is a universal message that veterans everywhere need to express.