Author Archives: Simon Reed

WordPress issues

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How thoroughly marvellous! Have a blog for 5 minutes and the issues start.

I re-began this just as a massive global botnet attack started on WordPress sites, using brute-force to try to break into admin accounts.

The last 5 days have been lost as I worked out why I couldn’t log in at all (the hosting company’s temporary security measure), then deleted the admin account (and created a new one with a different name) and downgraded myself from an administrator to have less powerful user rights. But now I’m back online and can post again. With login attempt tracking installed, captchas needed to do most anything and everything up-to-date software-wise.

What a tedious waste of time and energy, and an unnecessary distraction. Not just for me, but probably for millions of other WordPress site owners and users worldwide.

Proxy Wars

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(Originally written 05/11/2012.)

During the Cold War, because of fear of escalation between NATO and the Soviet Union, proxy wars were undertaken in third party locations.

Massive economies; substantial training and arming of civilians to produce armed militia from otherwise unarmed civilians; a legacy of weapons and gun-culture; little or no risk to the sponsors of damage; vast amounts of matériel could be deployed upon the citizens of the target country.

End-of-life or redundant weapons and date-expired ammunition and explosives can be disposed of en masse quickly and cheaply without the cost of safe disposal nor any fear of the consequences of their failure.

Consequently, huge amounts of damage are done to the victim country where the proxy war is played out.

Used as a way of striking at an opponent through a third party, at great cost in life and suffering to the third party.  The damage to the third party is far greater than to the opponent.

They also function as weapons testing grounds, thereby ensuring the newest, most unpleasant and yet-to-be-banned weapons can be tested on the people of the proxy country, without risk to the user or even the opponent.  Hence the effects can be far worse.

This is what providing arms and air support in the Arab Spring is all about.

Children of The Bomb

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(Originally written 19/10/2012.)

There was a common acceptance when I was at school that

“There’s not much point getting O Levels or A Levels.  We’ll be dead before we start work anyway”.

This was because we were growing up in the Cold War, after the Cuban Missile Crisis / October Crisis / Caribbean Crisis / Kарибский кризис had occurred, when it was clear the USA really would consider use of a first-strike with nuclear weapons, and knowing there were Mutually Assured Destruction policies in place on both sides.  That is, one small error or political crisis would result in the destruction of missile sites in the UK, and the death of most everyone in Europe and certainly us children before we’d had a chance to grow up.

This made it hard to find the motivation to plan for the future, as there was little point.  There were many of us who had poor grades as a consequence of this, including some who gave up althogether.

And we all knew how we were going to spend our last 7 minutes when the sirens went off.  We certainly talked about it often enough.

Growing up in such a climate cannot be healthy.  Off the top of my head, our cultural exposure included:

1979 – the Protect and Survive films like Casualties
1983 – 99 Red Balloons – Lena
1983 – WarGames
1984 – Two Tribes – Frankie Goes to Hollywood (“War!  What is it good for?” *)
1984 – Threads
1985 – The War Game
1986 – When the Wind Blows

All manner of cheerfulness: www.atomica.co.uk/culture.

Perhaps it is no surprise that my generation, born in the 1960s, have such a strong “think of the children” and “children must be allowed freedom” and “children must be protected from fear” mindset.

My mother, who lived through the second World War, said the Cold War was a huge improvement over the hot sort.

 

* Record sales, apparently.

Alternatives to war

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In Northern Ireland, communities and individuals have created community projects that bring together people from both sides of the sectarian divide.  And we never hear about the wives and mothers that won’t let their family members take part in marches to help stop the problem at grass-roots level.

As for peace and reconciliation, a Google search will tell you just how much research and work is being done.

Restorative Justice and truth commissions, such as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, allows those that have suffered to find a way to move on without revenge or escalation of violence.

The foundation of the European Union was forged from France and Germany and others ensuring they could not go to war again through close integration. Western Europe has been at peace with itself for 3 generations – when did it last – if ever – do that?

The presence of so many peace organisations shows there is plenty of desire for peace worldwide. There are more of them than there are those campaigning for war!

Countless research institutes explore possibilities for creating and maintaining peace. (This must be far more rewarding than researching hand grenade fragment blast radius and kill co-efficient.)

Some random links:

No New Wars – but what does that mean?

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No New Wars 11 11 2018.  Meaning, “let’s ensure No New Wars start as from 11th November 2018“.

How?  By making it clear we expect our leaders to use other means to achieve change.  It will have been a hundred years since the Armistice, a hundred years in which we have learned an awful lot not just people’s ability to harm other, innocent, people, but also about communication, reconciliation, change management, energy creation, environmental management, understanding, and sharing.

In our name, and with our financial support through taxes, people are dropping air-bombs, firing guided missiles, shooting long-range heavy-calibre machine-gun fire, remotely-controlling armed drones … to kill people including civilians.  And is a person who picks up a gun to defend their home a soldier or an armed civilian?  Much of the 20th century involved the deaths of tens of millions of civilians; the 21st century so far has comprised the deaths of 100,000s of civilians, and if you include civilians carrying guns, it is already in the millions.  And the media is glorying in the “Arab Spring” ignoring that it is the worst kind of war: a civil war.  A civil war that is being armed, funded, supported and maintained by external forces who benefit financially or politically from the suffering and deaths of those involved.

Wars are the principle cause of this suffering, and it is time they stopped.  They are not necessary for peace. There are other means, and not just financial sanctions which are only a feeble exercise in trying to show the futility of peaceful solutions. Governments and politicians are just not trying to end war; it neither adds to their power nor is it financially attractive for their sponsors.

Wars are started by politicians being manipulated and promoted by the media.  If politicians can be made to see that war-mongering is no longer going to create votes, they will become peace-makers.  And if the media are hit financially by not getting readers and web page hits, they will lose advertising revenue and so will cease that behaviour.

The trite cliché “War is the continuation of politics by other means” is not only facile, but also two hundred years out of date and inappropriate in a nuclear-energy, internet connected, post-empire world.

I am not so naïve as to think existing wars can be just stopped.  But we can do out bit to create a world where it is not necessary or politically wise to start any new wars.

  • We – that means you – can tell politicians they will lose their jobs if they start down the path of war.
  • We – that means you – can tell the media they will lose advertising revenue and sales if they promote war.

I am not saying we should not support our troops nor have a defence facility.  I am not saying the campaign to stop population growth is wrong.  But I am saying we must actively prevent our leaders from starting down paths that lead to the deaths of thousands of civilians just because that is easier and more attractive to them than any alternatives.

We must make peace more attractive.

Time to Plan – an Initial Timeline

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Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

My intention for the No New Wars organisation, and the 11/11/2018 campaign is:

  • Register NoNewWars.* sites.
  • Register 11112018.* sites.
  • Create a blog, a wiki and a forum.
  • Upload the content I have already written.
  • Order some double-sided business cards promoting No New Wars on one side and Eleven Eleven Twenty-Eighteen on the other.
  • Check out the opinion of friends, family and colleagues to see what they think / take feedback / see if my morale is tougher than their criticism.
  • Come up with suitable catchy expressions for the No New Wars organisation and the 11112018 campaign.
  • Aim to do this before 11/11/2012 (giving me about 6 weeks).  (originally written about the start of Oct 2012)
  • Put together a more detailed plan for publicity by 31/12/2012.
  • Aim to have achieved national radio and newspaper coverage before 11/11/2013, so that politicians can have 5 years’ warning of what is coming.
  • By the end of 2015 have a high UK profile.
  • By the summer of 2016, have every major UK political party discuss adding the No New Wars commitment at their summer conference.
  • By the end of 2016 have a profile in Western Europe and the USA.
  • By the end of 2017 have a definite lobbying ability aggressively pushing the 11/11/2018 message at all UK MPs and prospective candidates.  Also, able to target local councillors of major political parties.
  • By 31/12/2017 have every major UK political party include a “No New Wars” commitment in its party manifesto.
  • By 11/11/2018 have every major UK political party include a “No New Wars ever” commitment in its party rules.
  • By 11/11/2018 have a majority of UK MPs aware their career will be over if they vote for a new war.
  • By 11/11/2018 to have a functional, international, No New Wars organisation in place and actively lobbying Western Europe and the USA as a minimum.

Every blog has to start somewhere

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It’s been 2 or 3 weeks since the epiphany (that was first written in September 2012): plenty of time to go off the boil, forget what I thought, or just give up.  But I haven’t.  So here goes.

A plan has been put together, initial domain names are registered, and the installation of the blog, forum and wiki begun.  I have a number of articles sitting in text files ready to be uploaded.

Hosting is by HostPost, the same provider as is used by the Blue Lamp Foundation, so that’s a good start.

Now I just need to get on and fill in the details, then start the marketing of the two ideas.

  1. No New Wars.  We do not need to start wars to solve the world’s problems any more. There are better alternatives to resolving problems than using our tax money to kill people including innocent civilians.  Let’s explore those options and ensure our politicians, civil servants and media are aware of them, and make sure these alternatives are used instead.
  2. Eleven-Eleven-Twenty-Eighteen.  The Great War, the “War to end all Wars” finished on 11th November 1918.  In just a few years we will have had 100 years’ experience to learn from that horror.  Long enough to know better.  So let’s get a commitment from the politicians in our own country that we will not let them start any new wars as from 11/11/2018.  We do this as individuals by telling our own elected and hopeful candidates, and the media, that this is a number one priority for for us and that if their party approves starting a war, or they personally vote for war, we will NEVER vote for them nor their party ever again.  That is, if they individually or jointly try to start a war, it will cost them their political career for life.

What is this blog?

Featured

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The purpose of this blog is to allow me to record my journey, the formation of the No New Wars organisation (whatever form that may take), the Eleven Eleven Twenty-Eighteen campaign and the supporting resources and networks of people and organisations.

This idea crystallised for me in 2012 when I decided it was not enough to be angry about wars being started in my name (that is, by my government) that I could not prevent.  Instead I would do something.  Not march with a banner, or send a letter to my MP, or write to the embassy of the enemy state, but instead stop the war in the first place.

I realised that I could not stop foreign countries starting wars.  But I can do something to influence my own government.  I could start a movement that makes it clear to our politicians that we do not want war, and that we will make them pay if they start one.

In a democracy we have only one tool available: our vote.  If enough of us pledge to remove our vote from any politician promoting an unjust, illegal or unnecessary war and to instead give that vote to an opponent, then we can make the politicians and major political parties too frightened to want to start a war.

It does not even need many of us to sign up to this.  In many constituencies it would only take about half of the MP’s majority to take the pledge to make the MP realise their next election might be their last.  And if people who do not vote – which is most of us – sign this pledge saying we will turn up and make a protest vote, it will make the political parties sit up and think about the consequences of the actions of a few war mongers.

I haven’t done the sums in detail, but if this campaign had been in place by 2003 when the 2nd Gulf War started, and if just 1% of the electorate had signed this pledge, then 170,00 non-voters voting against Labour plus 1% of Labour voters voting for either of the other major parties, would have resulted in Labour losing the 2005 General Election.

Between 750,000 (Police figures) and 2,000,000 (organisers’ figures) people marched in London alone to protest against the 2nd Gulf War.  Just 400,000 registered voters making a pledge would have more effect.

We actually can stop wars from starting by targeting the real cause: politicians who want to start a war.  By telling them we as voters will end their political career and wreck their party’s future prospects of power at the same time.

Would you consider war prevention a big enough cause to change your vote, or to make you go out and vote?