War With No End

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View books by John Berger, Naomi Klein, Hanif Kureishi, Arundhati Roy, Ahdaf Soueif, Joe Sacco, Haifa Zangana.

Useful collection from the anti-war movement - Rated
This useful anthology gives some idea of the vast range and depth of the US and British anti-war movements. It explores the impact of the `war on terror' from Palestine to Iraq, and looks at the US and British states' attacks on civil liberties and on public opinion.

In her excellent contribution, Arundhati Roy claims that capitalism undermines not national sovereignty, but democracy: in fact it undermines both. She rightly links the `war on terror' to the economic system that drives it, and points out that capitalism's international bodies, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation are all undemocratic, anti-national and secretive.

The best-researched piece is by Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine. She calls our current system `disaster capitalism'. She observes that after 9/11, Israel increased its military spending by 10%, financed by social services cuts. This increase funded 350 new hi-tec firms specialising in security, surveillance and weapons: one firm is revealingly called `Instinctive Shooting International'. Israel now holds six counter-terrorism conferences a year, and Forbes Magazine calls it `the go-to country for anti-terrorism technologies'.

Similarly, in the USA the Spade Defense Index, for defence, security and aerospace stocks, has risen by 15% every year since 9/11. Firms profit from the destruction caused by the wars that their states begin, then they profit again from contracts for rebuilding, then profit again by not actually rebuilding anything. Klein has rediscovered Lenin's insight that "war is terrible - and terribly profitable."