FELLOW-TRAVELLERS

Keith Durham

Keith Durham and his wife Brenda are long-term motorhomers, travelling in a Hobby 650. Self-retired from work in further education teaching and management training, Keith combines his travels with a deep concern for personal freedom and social justice, both of which can be subjugated by economic and political decisions. He expresses this concern  in a series of Broadsides, which he describes as 'some unspun facts for busy people who care about the world in which they live'.

If any of his writing grabs your attention, excites or frustrates you, Keith would love to hear from you – email: . In addition to discussing his ideas, he can put you on his emailing list so that you receive future Broadsides directly.

Monsanto, the world's largest agro-chemical company, has been fined a measly $1.5 million for bribing an Indonesian official to avoid environmental studies on the effects of genetically modified cotton.

Over 5 years ago the world's richest nations pledged to give 0.7% of their country's wealth (i.e. GDP) to aid the development of the world's poorest countries. The US only actually gives 0.14% i.e. one-fifth of the promised amount, the lowest of all the countries. In contrast it spends more than 30 times that amount on 'defence' or as we know it 'war'. It's good to see that Governments and big business are modelling the ethical and moral values that they want the rest of us to adopt.

Cherie B.Liar's 50 birthday party was NOT paid for out of taxpayer's money. But we did pay for him to entertain the chairman of Everton F.C. and Alain Perrin, largest shareholder in British American Tobacco, doubtless both in the nation's interest.

Bush is surprised that the Syria is not 'being more helpful' in dealing with situation in Iraq. This is one of the poorest countries in the region, with 60% unemployment, has lost its access to cheap Iraqi oil and now has had US sanctions imposed on it.

Sun. 9 Jan. 2005, the date on which US military admitted that yesterday it made a mistake and bombed the wrong house. Fourteen people including women and 7children were killed when a 500lb bomb was dropped on their house by a US jet. With typical remorse they added that those killed were 'possibly innocent civilians' – just the sort of stuff that leads the rest of the world to believe that the Americans consider every Arab to be a terrorist and/or guilty of something – that if we've killed them they can't possibly have been innocent.

If the US is admitting for the first time that 14 civilians might have been killed accidentally, does this automatically suggest that the 100,000 civilians killed in the past 21 months were killed deliberately? Perhaps Colin (Uncle Tom) Powell can entertain us with another tear-jerking performance like that of last week following the tsunami disaster; perhaps he could use the same speech, delivered in the same (pathetic) symathetic tones – 'I can't begin to imagine what went through the minds of those people who heard the sound of this (wave) 500lb. bomb coming and their lives being snuffed out'. Well perhaps you might try harder Mr. Powell and then see if you and yours wish to continue this slaughter of innocent people. We know that there was nothing you or anyone else could have done to prevent the tsunami but you and your government can do something about your country's foreign policy.

George 'Dubya' Bush is planning to return Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni 'detainees', currently held in the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, back to their own countries. Once, that is, America has financed and constructed a number of 'purpose built' prisons on these host nations's soil. The 'detainees', along with any other local citizens that the US take exception to, can continue to be incarcerated and tortured. Doubtless this is to get round a US recent judicial outcome which held that prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, although in Cuba were legally on American soil and therefore subject to US law.

Once we had McDonalds in every country in the world soon it will be McPrisons, doubtless serving 'fast pain' to the endless stream of 'customers' dying to get in. A smart piece of strategic marketing by the Bush administration, helping the US to police the world from inside each country. Doubtless B.Liar has already taken ownership of a nice piece of 'real estate' to sell to Bush for just such a purpose.

Did you know … ? On 16 Jan., 4 days before his inauguration as President of the US for another 4 years, Bush tells the world that his re-election by the American people completely vindicates his foreign policy and that he and his buddies are not accountable for any mistakes or misjudgements over the illegal invasion of Iraq. Please, someone reassure me that we in the UK will not hear the same amoral rhetoric from B.Liar following the May elections.

Did you know … ? US commandos have just completed a number of undercover operations in Iran – identifying strategic targets for an attack – obviously to democratise more Arabs. Almost two and a half years ago the Stop the War Coalition, as part of its campaign claimed that Iran and N. Korea would be the next targets for US invasion. Does this sound like 'we told you so' … ?

Did you know … ? Whilst 14 out of 18 districts in Iraq have been declared 'safe' for the forthcoming elections, the 4 districts that remain 'unsafe' are in the so called 'Sunni triangle' and account for over 50% of Iraq's population. As long as one Iraqi votes without getting killed Bush will declare the invasion as success and hail Iraq as a model of democracy in the Middle East.

Did you know … ? At the end of this month most Iraqis will still have no idea who they are voting for; for 'security reasons' (ie 2 years after US occupation and the country is less safe than ever) the candidates cannot reveal their names for fear of attack. And these are 'free and fair democratic elections'? Will the successful candidates suddenly turn out to be those people the US Gov't has already installed and will they govern from inside the 'Green Zone' - in the same way Afghanistan's (US representative) President who daren't leave Kabul.

Did you know … ? This week 80 Afghans were released from Bagram air-base after being held for over 4 years without charge and consequently without conviction despite repeated torture by the US. Their only 'crime' was to be in their own country when America decided to invade it. There has been no apology, no compensation; they were told they should be grateful to be let out in time for a forthcoming religious festival.

Did you know … ? In his inauguration speech 20/1/05 Bush promised to bring peace and freedom to the rest of the world – something 'God' hasn't been able to achieve in several millennia.

Did you know … ? In a recent survey by Globespan in 21 countries 58% felt that the world is far less safe since Bush's re-election and have a negative opinion of the US Gov't. A further 16% 'don't know' and only 26% feel the world is a safer place. As Bush appears to believe he is also President of the world, then surely 58% of us could vote him out – in true democratic fashion.

Did you know … ? 'Arnie' has killed his first real villain. At one minute past midnight 17 Jan. a 61 year old man was killed in a Californian prison. Being shackled and dragged to the death cell, strapped onto a table and forcibly given a lethal injection is a model for the rest of the world as how we in 'the civilised world' deal with miscreants.

Did you know … ? Many of us were 'shocked and awed' when the American people re-elected Bush. Perhaps we shouldn't have been. Sixty years ago the German people also were willing to fight to the last drop of their blood for a fascist regime which destroyed their economy and plunged them into senseless wars.

Did you know … ? Bush is surprised that the Syria is not 'being more helpful' in dealing with situation in Iraq. This is one of the poorest countries in the region, with 60% unemployment, it has lost its access to cheap Iraqi oil and now has had US sanctions placed on it.

Imagine a town with a population of around 300,000; a town 4 times the size of Scunthorpe, 3 times the size of Grimsby. Imagine ordinary people like you and I living there, mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, cousins and grandparents. Ordinary people going about their daily lives, washing, cooking, cleaning, going to work to earn a living, watching TV, playing in the park; not rebels, not terrorists, not insurgents, just ordinary people. Imagine Fallujah.

And then the bombing starts. Suddenly there are US jets screaming overhead and suddenly your children are screaming. Bombs explode, and suddenly you are screaming. People die, torn to pieces by shrapnel or splintered glass and wood, crushed by the rubble that once was their home or burned alive by napalm type substances. (Not napalm because it was banned after Vietnam!) Imagine how you would feel. Weeks later Bush declares 'mission accomplished', what does this mean to you? The sounds, the sights, the smell of burning flesh are still with you; relatives and friends have been killed, maimed, disfigured; houses, possessions, livestock, destroyed. Imagine people and buildings, a town you have known all your life still smouldering from the onslaught. Imagine the thousands of anti-personnel 'bomblets' (which Hoon initially denied were being used but who later had to retract his statement) left in the streets – canisters looking like 'Coke' cans being found by a (your) small child, only to have it explode in his/her hands leaving a pair of legs twitching by the roadside. Imagine how you would feel.

Imagine your local school being taken over by US soldiers. Heavily armed, arriving in tanks and turning classrooms into barracks. Imagine your frustration at trying to make sense of your life, trying to bury your dead and/or rebuild a relative's house when your children are traumatised by what they have seen and the routine of going to school has now been disrupted. They are with you 24 hrs/day, you daren't let them out of your sight. Perhaps you and some of the other parents could persuade the soldiers to find different barracks. You try; they open fire killing 17 men, women and children and wounding 90 others. Imagine how you would feel.

Fifteen months later the US military decide that your town is a 'hotbed of insurgents'. (Insurgents are local people who resent the occupation of their country by a foreign power – the French Resistance is a classic example in their fight against the occupation of France by Nazi Germany.) Now the US tells you that you have 3 weeks to leave your town or suffer the consequences. No one knows how many people left Fallujah; how many gathered their possessions, their old, and their infirm and piled them onto lorries, carts, donkeys and/or bicycles or into cars - estimates vary between 30 and 150 thousand. No one knows how many were killed in the 6 weeks of bombing, shelling, door to door searches. We do know that at least 1,600 were gunned down by US troops and that many of their bodies were left to rot in the sun or were gnawed at by scavenging dogs and cats. We do know that 30% of all buildings were destroyed. Imagine Grimsby being totally flattened or a town one and half times the size of Scunthorpe razed to the ground, not a building standing within a 5 mile radius. Imagine how you would feel.

Time to return home. but before you do you must be fingerprinted, photographed and your iris' scanned – for a US database, you are not a criminal, terrorist or an insurgent you are just an ordinary Iraqi citizen in your own country doing what the occupying forces want. Imagine how you would feel. You arrive at what was once your home, now a pile of rubble. Homeless, jobless, no food for your family, no water, electricity or toilet facilities - the US offer you $1,000 (£500) compensation. Imagine how you would feel. Only 8,500 returned, the other 291,500, - who knows?

Bush and his friends in the White House have a big party for his re-election and he promises to bring freedom and democracy to other towns in other countries, just like he has to Fallujah.

How you do feel now? If you don't want this to happen elsewhere please contact me – see below

One third of Palestinian children under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition ie are starving; 70% of the population live below the poverty line. If Bush & B.Liar are so keen on freedom and democracy why have they done nothing to provide economic freedom for the Palestinian people or democratic equal rights in what was their country?

Progreso in Covent Garden is the first of a chain of 'fair trade' coffee bars which will help farmers in Ethiopia, Honduras and Indonesia trade their way out of poverty.

The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean has warned that Wal-Mart's takeover of Asda has already had a detrimental affect on the islands' economy. Asda Wal-Mart uses its market power to force farmers to sell their produce at cripplingly low prices. Keeping people in poverty – 'That's ASDA price'!

The Royal Bank of Scotland is using customer's money to finance the Baku T'blisi Cehyan pipeline to extract oil from the Caspian Sea and transport it to the West. This pipeline breaches international human rights and environmental standards that the Bank claims it adheres to. Friends of the Earth are trying to get the law changed, to stop companies saying one thing and doing another. How ethical is your bank?

Tony B.Liar's unelected friends decided that the invasion of Iraq was legal and not the Attorney General. Little wonder that two of B.Liar's legal advisors resigned.

Before you read on please take a minute to jot down your own definitions of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. - If you've done this two things are likely to have happened, a) it was probably more difficult than you first imagined and b) you have done something that neither Bush nor B.Liar appear to have done.

Bush has re-phrased his 'war on terrorism' because the spin doctors decided it sounded too aggressive and replaced it with a crusade to take 'freedom and democracy to all parts of the world'. Whilst it may appear a noble cause, neither Bush nor B.Liar have attempted to explain what this means nor how it might be achieved. Perhaps that's because freedom and democracy are ideological concepts and impossible to define without at least some attempt to identify and declare ones own philosophical standpoint. (If you would like a more erudite and detailed explanation of these issues please let me know.)

In the meantime we must simply ignore their rhetoric, understand that the aim of US imperialism remains and recognise that Bush and B.Liar are simpletons who attempt to insult our intelligence by expecting us to swallow their notion of 'freedom and democracy' in the same way as 'fries' and 'dunkin donuts'.

How many times a day do you make a phone call, write an email or send a text? Now is your chance in a lifetime to make a real difference … without leaving your living room and at virtually no cost.

In Israel the GDP per capita for Israelis is $16,200; for Palestinians it's $950 – and yet we continue to be surprised that the Palestinians are aggrieved at such injustices.

If, instead of buying Lottery tickets each week, the British public gave the money to charity, then over 7 million children would not have to starve to death. Be lucky, - some aren't.

If you're a US soldier, you can go to Iraq, kill Iraqi prisoners by drowning them in a river or shooting them in cold blood and/or torture as many as you like and get six months.

If you're a British civilian and the Government 'suspects' that you 'might' have 'thought about' the issues of 'freedom fighters' around the world, you can be kidnapped in the middle of the night, tortured, held in a cage for years and then released without charge.

The US Govt has introduced regulations whereby publishers could be imprisoned for 10 years or fined $1 million 'if they edit, promote or market' new works from embargoed countries, without a license.

The death penalty for terrorism has been introduced in India, Jordan, Guyana, Morocco, Uganda, Zimbabwe – oh yes, and the USA.

The US Master Terror Watch List now has 5 million names on it. Under their Anti-Terrorism Act the UK Gov't has asked Internet providers to retain customer information and make the data searchable – oooops!

… is how Tony B.Liar described the 'elections' in Iraq on 30 January; the same day as a British plane was shot down just north of Baghdad killing all 10 British troops. The same day American troops killed four detainees and injured six others to quell a riot at a prison in British-controlled southern Iraq. The US authorities said the soldiers had used "lethal force" on the inmates corralled into compounds surrounded by razor wire, at Camp Bucca. British military officers said that they were "disturbed" by the Americans resorting to live rounds so quickly, but claimed they were in no position to intervene. Camp Bucca, near Umm Qasar, holds 5,300 prisoners more than Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad some of whom have been detained for more than a year without trial.

… who, for political reasons, blows up a civilian plane killing all 73 passengers including Cuba's national fencing team; attacks a Polish ship with cannons; plants numerous bombs in several countries around the world incl. USA and attempts assassinations against several diplomats? To many, Dr Orlando Bosch is a terrorist; to the Bush family he is hero.

'George the First' put pressure on the Venezuelan Government to release him from prison following the plane bombing and, once in the US, prevented his deportation to Cuba despite the US Justice Dept calling him ' a totally violent terrorist'. Jeb Bush honoured him with a 'Dr Orlando Bosch Day' in Miami, where Bosch still lives in luxury. To the Cuban authorities, whose continued requests for his extradition are refused by George the Second, Bosch is like Osama bin Laden is to the US. Just imagine American reaction if bin Laden turned up in Cuba and Havana proclaimed an 'Osama bin Laden Day'.

An estimated 890 US military bases around the world have resulted in wholesale evictions of local inhabitants, environmental and archaeological destruction and a total disregard for cultural and religious issues. The death rate of 'locals' has risen in many areas as a result of drink-drive incidents involving US troops who are immune from prosecution. But 'did you know', in 1992 the Philippines threw the US troops out; last year, after years of protests, they were evicted from Puerto Rico. Now 'anti-base' protests have taken hold in Japan with the largest anti-US rally taking place in Okinawa and a sit-in has been underway since 19 April 2004 in a small fishing port Henoko protesting about the construction of a military airport. This and much more at www.nobases.net

If any of the above has grabbed your attention, excited or frustrated you, Keith would love to hear from you – email: . In addition to discussing his ideas, he can put you on his emailing list so that you receive future Broadsides directly.