The US is going to spend £189m on converting the US air force (USAF) base at Croughton, near Milton Keynes, ‘into one of its largest intelligence hubs outside the mainland United States’, the Independent on Sunday reports.
Croughton is one of a number of bases in Britain involved in drone warfare, including RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire (from where Britain’s own drones are piloted) and RAF Marham near King’s Lynn, which receives and feeds information and intelligence gathered by US…
This year’s NATO summit will take place at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport on 4th-5th September. Earlier this year, local campaigns met to start planning events to coincide with the summit, using the occasion as a platform to publicise alternatives to endless war and austerity through mass meetings and protest.
Events will be organised under the banner of No NATO Newport, the coalition initiated by activists from Cardiff Stop the War Coalition, CND Cymru, Newport People’s Assembly…
PN interviews a nine-year-old with a little experience of warfare-based games, after visiting the exhibition War Games at the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood.
What did you like about the exhibition? It was interactive and you can say what you think of war games and it’s quite interesting to see games from the past, not just on a computer.
What do you…
There is a long tradition of official war art where artists are commissioned to draw in war zones. My work reverses this tradition. Instead of drawing war zones to commission, I draw the arms trade uninvited. My drawings are made undercover in arms fairs, arms company dinners, and AGMs. I draw in A6 concertina sketchbooks - they are small enough to hide, but can be opened out to work on a larger scale.
War and repression are big business. Arms companies expanded into…
The First World War centenary (2014-2018) was accompanied by a tidal wave of events, exhibitions, TV series, books and commemorations. However, one key aspect of the War’s history received little attention: the history and stories of the people and organisations that opposed the conflict.
Moreover, this history – of police raids and clandestine printing presses, disobedient soldiers and feminist peace initiatives, Maori princesses and striking German munitions workers – appears to be…
In his 2011 book To End All Wars – the only recent account of the first world war to foreground the anti-war movement – Adam Hochschild asks: "If we were allowed to magically roll back history to the start of the 20th century and undo one – and only one – event, is there any doubt…
The received image of the British public’s reaction to the outbreak of the First World War is usually that of jubilant, flag-waving crowds, assembling in front of Buckingham palace to cheer the royals and sing the national anthem. On 5 August 1914, an editorial in The Times described the previous evening, saying that: ‘the streets were packed with cheering masses.… Flags were waved from cabs, omnibuses and private cars.’
Less-well-recorded is the fact that just two days earlier, an…
This is one segment of the outstanding 24-foot-long drawing by Joe Sacco of the first day of the battle of the Somme from his concertina book The Great War: July 1, 1916 (an illustrated panorama with an essay by Adam Hochschild. Jonathan Cape, 2013, 56pp, £20). At first, the mass of figures shuffling through trenches appear to be Where’s Wallys, then peering closer you see that they are all…
The white poppy is a symbol of grief for all people of all nationalities, armed forces and civilians alike, who are victims of war.
A silent vigil for peace by Aberystwyth Women in Black preceded the ceremony which combined songs, poems and words of peace and reconciliation. In addition to David Roberts’ poem, ‘There will be peace’, Harry Rogers read his own powerful and moving ‘White Poppies’ and ‘Son’, the latter written in response to the loss of a friend’s…
Veterans for Peace marching in Whitehall on Remembrance Sunday.
Photo: Guy Smallman
As a child I was captivated by the sombre parades of Remembrance Sunday. The soldiers in their greatcoats, the veterans wearing their medals, and ‘The Last Post’, all played a part in recruiting me into the army.
Since I left the army, the weeks leading up to Remembrance Sunday have become hard for me to endure. The public relations campaign waged each year by the Royal British Legion…
On 19 October, around 70 academics, activists, campaigners, and others concerned about recent militarisation in everyday life in the UK came together in London for an information-sharing and networking conference, organised by ForcesWatch. The aim was to allow academics and activists to share their work and ideas, through a series of presentations and discussions and discussions, and to develop ideas for to raising public debate and encouraging critical thinking on the issue.
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Lately I have been thinking – once again – about desertion from the military. This time, I’ve been prompted by reading a review (not the book) of Deserter: The Last Untold Story of the Second World War by Charles Glass (HarperPress, 2013, £25). The review reveals that ‘as many as 100,000 British and 50,000 US Servicemen are believed to have deserted at some point’. I hope to return to this book about ‘the final taboo’ in a future PN.
But taboo? Well, that’s as maybe but…
Chemical bombing of Halabja, 1988, pencil (30 x 42cm).
Osman Ahmed
As the US and Britain threaten to attack Syria on the basis of an alleged chemical weapons attack on the Ghouta suburb of Damascus, confirmation has emerged of US government complicity in Iraqi chemical weapons attacks during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war.
As PN went to press, UN…
