Green Party deputy leader MOTHIN ALI, who will speak at the International Anti-War Conference in London on June 20, says Britain needs to rethink its priorities – and its allies
FROM Iraq (circa 2002-3), to Libya in 2011 and Syria today, influential liberal commentators including David Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen, Paul Mason, Jonathan Freedland and many politicians have repeatedly pushed for Western military intervention.
“Something must be done,” they shout from their newspaper columns. “We must act now before it is too late,” they warn in the House of Commons.
One of the things that characterises these emotive and often simplistic calls for action is their narrow, laser-like focus on human rights abuses Western governments are publicly concerned about.
Outrage greeted Donald Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that Britain stayed off the front lines. But evidence suggests our forces were at times pulled from the most dangerous fighting — not by military failure, but by pressure at home, says IAN SINCLAIR
GUILLERMO THOMAS enjoys a survey of the current state of the CIA (aka Langley) from an expert and insider of sorts
ALEX HALL follows the battered fortunes of Syria, a multi-ethnic country caught in the crossfire of competing imperialist interests


