Agitation is the self-affirmation of our political will in such a way that it forces those who impose the contradiction to show themselves fully. There is no shortage of examples, but let us focus on one: The Faslane nuclear-submarine base. Our event is of course the union which compels us to be the dumping ground of these diabolical weapons of mass destruction and murder. The contradiction is that this is foisted upon us – a people who are a peaceful people and a people who have time and again said in no uncertain terms that we do not want this nightmare in our country.
On the Eve of War
Leadership in the west is in crisis. Post-Brexit the European Union will be faced with the necessity of further political integration and the internal resistance this will inevitably provoke. It may be decades before the EU is in a position again to move from consolidation to expansion. Brexit has put a significant dent in British soft power. The increasing isolation of London will push it closer to the point of becoming a US satellite, making it ever more likely to follow US hard power policies.
Answering Gerry Hassan’s Independence Question
Gerry Hassan demands, following an editorial trend in much of Scotland’s supposedly pro-independence new media, that independence must be the answer to an as yet unknown question. This is not an episode of Jeopardy! The progress of a nation through time need answer no questions. It moves by its own accord, under the steam of its own initiative, following the complex calculus written out by the thousands of expressed and unexpressed desires of its people.
Woe to You, O Moab!
Good Friday began with the news that the United States had deployed its largest non-nuclear ordinance against tribal insurgents in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarha. According to US sources the decision to drop “MOAB” – the GBU-43/B, known affectionately in American military circles as the “mother of all bombs”
Trident is an Affront to Scotland
What we learn from this fiasco is that we weren’t actually meant to know about it, and this is even less reassuring. If a mishap ever does happen at Faslane we can be absolutely certain that we’ll be the last to know about it.
So What Happens Now?
This titanomachic conflict in Syria already amounts to what is a world war in miniature, the product of which is the single largest displacement of refugees in human history.
Edging Closer to Nuclear War
What this amounts to, as a policy, is a declaration of war against Russia – an escalation of what is at present a regional or proxy war into a wider global conflict.
What Renewing Trident Will Really Cost
On top of the repugnancy of spending so much on weapons of war, and the real and significant risk these weapons pose to Scotland, we can’t avoid the fact that they are weapons of a by-gone age.
