If this were true Blair would have torpedoed Kyoto.
--pb
I don't see why this conference is needed. The
US tells the UK what to do. They do it. Period.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
-Original Message-
From: k hanly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 7:20 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L] Conference on the Special Relationship (UK)
[ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ]
Call for a Conference on the Special Relationship
Website: www.specialrelationship.net Subscribe to the
discussion list by
sending a blank message to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
You are invited to participate in a project to organise a
two-day Conference
on the Special Relationship. It will be a national conference with
international dimension, with speakers from the US, the
Middle East and
elsewhere. It will take place in Sheffield in early 2005, and
maybe also in
Manchester and London. A book will be produced of the
Conference papers.
The main themes of the Conference will include:
-the origins of the special relationship in post-WW2
Middle East, in
particular the 1953 military coup in Iran and the 1956 Suez Crisis;
-the economic relations between the US and the UK;
-the $ vs.?, US vs. Europe
-the special relationship goes to war - the invasion
and military
occupation of Iraq;
-the Israel-US-UK triangle
-what is imperialism? (This has been included as a theme since
examination of the specific alliance between imperialist USA
and UK needs to
be informed by a working concept of imperialism in general)
Please contact us via our website or discussion list for a
full Conference
Prospectus, in which these themes are broken down into
individual elements.
All who read this are invited to consider submitting a paper
on any of these
topics - and we welcome suggestions for new topics.
The Conference Working Group invites and urges you to offer
some of your
time over the next twelve months to realising this project.
We need YOUR
help with many and varied tasks - from selecting articles for
the website
and considering proposed papers, to designing publicity,
raising funds,
translating important articles into English, organising the Conference
itself. Please volunteer to help share these tasks, and you
will also share
in the overall design and direction of the event.
***
What is the special relationship?
The 1956 Suez crisis ended Britain's pretensions of being a
stand-alone
imperial power. Ever since, Britain has protected its vast
interests in
the Middle East and elsewhere by maintaining the closest of
alliances with
the USA.
This special relationship is responsible for doz-ens of
military coups and
invasions, the deaths of millions of people, and the theft of
trillions of
dollars.
Few phenomena are as important, yet suffer such
incomprehension, as the
special relation-ship. At the Labour Party Conference,
Jeremy Corbyn asked
with amazement why are we, a British Labour Government with
a very large
Parliamentary majority, so signed up to the ul-tra-right wing
George Bush?
A review of the 50-yearspecial relationship and of the
Labour Party's rôle
within it would show that nothing could be more natural.
Did you know.
Question: what is the name of biggest oil com-pany within the US?
Answer: BP (British Petroleum), which has 40% of its
employees in the USA.
Question: the ruling families of which country own two of the
three biggest
oil companies in the world?
Answer: Britain (BP and Shell; Exxon is the big-gest). BP has major
interests from Colombia to Africa to central Asia. Along with
other British
banks and multinationals, it relies on US mili-tary power to
protect its
property and super-profits.
Question: which country is 2nd only to the USA in the size of
its empire of
overseas wealth?
Answer: .you've guessed it; Britain. In 2001, Britain's
overseas direct
investments totalled $902bn, 14.4% of the world total
(compared to 21.1%
owned by US imperialists, 7.9% owned by the French, 7.8%
owned by Germans,
and 4.6% owned by Japanese).
*
The motive for the Conference is to respond to the almost
universal failure
of the anti-war movement to comprehend why Britain has joined
in the US-led
war and occupation of Iraq. Blair is Bush's poodle sums up
a widespread
view, propounded by Steve Bell cartoons, Tony Benn, the SWP
and many other
influential voices critical of the Blair government's actions. It is a
notion which only makes sense if we ignore the fact that
Britain is itself
an imperialist power, the home for two of the three largest
oil companies in
the world, and the owner of the second-largest stock of FDI
after the USA
(second to none in relation to its size).
The Conference organisers (at the moment,
