The Promised Spring: Death and Neoliberalism in Iraq

Globalisation and modernisation were expected to transform the Middle East, by ending regional conflicts and spreading democracy, freedom, prosperity and peace. However, the oil reserves of the Gulf have been the main stake in Western policies that led to wars, not only to benefit the hegemon, but also the health of the world capitalist economy. Instead of democracy and prosperity, neoliberalism has fostered inequality, unemployment, poverty, mass migration and terrorism. Globalisation makes security interdependent; terrorism, gun crime and illegal migration are spill over effects of structural, political and economic insecurity. Iraq today shows how globalisation incites rebellion and radicalisation. The advancement of the neoliberal agenda by industrialised states through globalisation has failed to deliver the economic stability and growth it promised. Through a process of macro-securitisation, relationships, agendas and security dynamics have been consolidated. Globalisation coupled with a universalist narrative have constructed a neoliberal system of economic and ideological dominance, with clearly defined threats to it, regionally and globally. It is those security threats the War on Terror was designed to fight and eliminate, through the neoliberal, universalist narrative of a hegemonic social, political and economic culture. Thus was achieved the implementation of policies and procedures, ideas and cultures, that promote the structures and ideologies that will maintain hegemony

Covid 19 and the myth of security

In April 1946, the former leaders of the Nazi regime faced trial at Nuremberg for crimes they committed against the peoples of Europe. These men became the embodiment of evil and provided a clear indication of the crimes carried out in the name of national security. What is often forgotten in the euphoric atmosphere of victory is those who sat in judge-ment. The judges representing the Soviet Union were themselves advocates of a barbaric political regime, which had organized the death and detention of millions of its own citi-zens. As for the USA, by dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the previ-ous year, the Americans caused the deaths of 250,000 civilians. Churchill was considered a hero during the WWII period, but in 1919 he had advocated the use of chemical weapons (primarily against Kurds and Afghans), which killed tens of thousands of people, while later in 1943, in Bengal-India at least 3 million people are believed to have died as a direct result of Churchill’s decisions and actions

State and non-state extremism: crisis, hate crimes and the far right

Extremism has adopted sometimes a religious and sometimes a secular form, it has been espoused by states and by non-state actors, but both are equally intolerant of difference. Right-wing extremism refers to political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist and authoritarian. The right-wing authoritarian drive is based on repressive social conservatism that legitimises dangerous paths against democracy, individual rights and social justice (Gokay, 2017).  Right-wing shifts often result from volatile and chaotic international conditions, within which classes and social forces are subordinated to states: state security, state power and state interests

IRAQ 2020: Legitimacy, security and war crime let-offs

Along with the rest of the world, Iraq suffered thousands of deaths from Covid-19 during 2020. Despite efforts to tackle the virus, the growing number of severe and critical cases has recently overwhelmed Al-Kindy and other health facilities treating people with COVID-19

On the 18th anniversary, Iraq’s state of war

Security since 2003 On May 1st, 2003, six weeks after the start of the invasion, US President Bush gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq War. Above him hung a banner stating ‘Mission Accomplished’. The war was officially over. Over 7,500 civilian lives had been lost in the six weeks of bombings and overwhelming firepower, but the greatest losses were yet to come. The vast majority of casualties occurred after Bush’s speech and came as a result of coalition airstrikes and raids, but also of car bombs, suicide bombings, shootings and executions

Britishness, Brexit and the War on Terror

On October 9, 2023, Lord Justice Haddon-Cave opened the Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, to investigatealleged extrajudicial killings by British Special Forces in Afghanistan and examine accusations of a cover-up

Crimes of a “benevolent” hegemony: Configurations of UK power in Northern Ireland and Iraq

Themes of hegemony and neoliberalism are explored in this paper that looks at UK role in crimes against humanity in Ireland and in Iraq, either alone or as part of a hegemonic coalition that claims to be fighting a brutal, unjust, and uncivilized insurgency. The common thread that ties crimes spanning 100 years is the narrative of the “benevolent” hegemon that kills, tortures, enslaves, and occupies for the good of the victims. Power is exercised by the hegemon through military and political domination under the guise of a civilized protector, liberator, and the bearer of progress and order

IRAQ 2021: Grave Violations Chronicling the rising tide of child deaths in Iraq

Civilians continue to be killed by armed conflict (and its exploding remnants) in Iraq, but at overall lower levels. Reduced, but only to levels unthinkable if applied to the Western nations that destroyed the country. All the more so since child deaths are in fact rising again, and so we focus here on children killed in 2021 and the dismal politics that fails to protect them