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rememberingwar · 7 years ago

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Any lessons from the First World War??

David Roberts gave a talk at Southwark Cathedral 3 November 2018 on aspect of the First World War and in particular what lessons may be learned. Tumblr isn’t able to take the full text of this so I have created a new website and blog which may be found at

www.rememberingwar.co.uk and see the blog there

There you can find the full text, illustrations, maps, charts and future posts.

START

At the end of the First World War for Britain, came victory, but a weakened country, an enlarged empire, a huge population of disabled ex-soldiers and searing grief in almost every town and village. Why the war? What had been achieved? Does history provide any lessons?

We are coming to the end of 4 years of commemorating the first world war. No country in history has ever endured such a prolonged and intense commemoration of a war. The government has spent £50 million funding projects to commemorate this war. The Heritage Lottery Fund gave grants of £3000 to £10,000 each to groups of people who wanted to research and commemorate the First World War.

But what is the use of all this storytelling and analysis of the First World War if we can learn nothing from it?

Seldom, in all this commemoration do we ever ask the question, What can we learn from this human catastrophe?

So let us not talk falsely now

the hour is getting late.

[Bob Dylan.]

Wars are always full of lies, deception, and self deception.

All wars are racist wars fought against the evil them by the self-righteous us.

[David Roberts]

Teachers have misled children using First World War poetry Wilfred Owen said that “the true poet must be truthful.” Yet his truth is called into question by some modern historians, For example, Lynn McDonald and Dan Todman. They suggest that generations of young people have formed their opinions about the First World War based on selective information provided by the war poets and this information has misled and distorted their view of the war.

Historians maintain that there were positive aspects of the war which are not recognised by modern readers. Also, that the response of the war poets that are best known to us today was not typical of the feelings and experience of the majority of the British people.

Where does the truth lie? What’s wrong with the popular view?

How did the people of 1918 really view the end of the First World War?

As we look back at the First World War we tend to think of it as a disaster, a monstrous failure, with generals mindlessly throwing away the lives of tens of thousands of men in futile attacks which achieved nothing or less than nothing.

Siegfried Sassoon’s poem, The General, is a succinct summary of this point of view.

THE GENERAL

Good morning, good morning! The General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of them dead,

And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

He's a cheery old card, grunted Harry to Jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

[Siegfried Sassoon]

Two ideas in this poem come through in the most studied war poems of the First World War.

1. The incompetence of Generals. 2. The idea that most of the soldiers who fought were killed.

Not only poets promoted this point of view.

David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, in his war memoirs was scathing about the conduct of his generals and in particular Field Marshal Douglas Haig.

Writing about the Battle of the Somme he said, “The volunteers of 1914 and 1915 . . .. 500,000 of these men . . . were thrown away on a stubborn and unintelligent hammering away at what was then an impenetrable barrier.” The Battle of the Somme ran from 1st July till 18th November 1916.

But the British people in 1918 did not see the First World War as a disaster conducted by incompetent generals. On November 11th 1918 the principal initial reaction to victory was jubilation.

and the man given the credit for the achievement of victory was not Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, but Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. He was feted in the press as the conquering hero.

Soon he was made an Earl, and such was the high regard of the newspapers and the mass of the public for him that Parliament voted a gift to him from the public purse of £100,000.

Government wanted a victory parade The government mood was all for celebration. It planned a victory parade which took place on July 19th 1919 15,000 able bodied servicemen marched down Whitehall. At the new hastily constructed temporary cenotaph soldiers saluted it as a mark of respect for the dead.

Celebrating in ignorance

Celebrating military achievement is easiest when you don't know the scale of the suffering and losses.

Today we can have a fairly accurate idea of the scale of casualties in the First World War, but the people of 1918 had no such information. Censorship and press lies combined to keep the British people in childlike ignorance of the unfolding horror.

British people were propaganda victims

How were the people of 1918 mis-informed about the First World War? They probably believed they were reading trustworthy newspapers.

So, today, publicity for The Times claims 233 years of quality journalism.

And that it is Britain's most trusted newspaper.

As an example of how the misinformation system worked let’s look at The Times’ report on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

This was the worst day in British military history. 20,000 men were killed and a further 40,000 were injured.

The Times on the Battle of the Somme

The Times headline FIRST DAYS RESULTS.

The report read,

“It is now possible to get something like an accurate picture of the results of the first days fighting in the battle which is now raging here; and the essential fact that stands out is that on the main part of the offensive both we and the French won complete success.”

There's quite a bit more describing the complete success of the day.

So people back home in Britain could feel pretty pleased with the progress of the war - even on the worst day in British military history.

Popular press teamed up with politicians

So the popular press powerfully influenced, even molded, public opinion and the influence of the press came about because the owners were friends with, and worked closely with, politicians.

Press encouraged hatred

It was the popular papers that helped to stir up hatred of Germany before, during, and after the First World War when they fostered a spirit of revenge in Britain.

The poet, Siegfried Sassoon, had come across the spirit of revenge on the 6th of November 1918 when he went to see Winston Churchill in untypical mood. He wrote in his diary that day, “saw Winston Churchill for a few minutes at the ministry. Full of Victory talk . . . one feels that England is going to increase in power enormously. They mean to skin Germany alive. ‘A peace to end peace!’ “

The very harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty which concluded the First World War were predicted by Lloyd George to cause immense anger in Germany and be the cause of another war.

No press monopoly on knowledge about the war

The press did not hold a monopoly on the sources of information. Although the people of Britain could not know the casualty statistics of the war, huge numbers knew of their personal losses and those of friends and neighbours. Their mood was not for celebrating the peace.

On the day of the victory parade no sooner had the troops passed the Cenotaph than members of the public rushed forward with flowers and wreaths to place at the foot of the temporary memorial.

The following year, when the new Cenotaph, now constructed of Portland stone, was in place, so many people came to lay wreaths that the whole of Whitehall was blocked and remained closed to traffic for five days.

The Balance Sheet - celebration versus distress and anger

So, in simple terms the mass of the population at the end of the First World War was celebrating victory OR wracked with grief and distress at the loss of loved ones and the crippling of others.

How should we view The Peace of 1918?

Should we celebrate our victory and the peace that was achieved?

November 1918 found Europe reeling from the greatest self-inflicted catastrophe ever experienced by mankind up to that time.

The total war dead for the First World War is now estimated to be around 15 million people. Ten million combattants and about 5 million civilians.

UK Deaths

British losses were 740,000 men killed.

But it is not true that most British men who went to fight were killed. Whilst some front line regiments were practically wiped out, in the British army as a whole nearly 90% of the British soldiers who fought came home alive.

“Being alive” is a relative term. Vast numbers, nearly half of British combattants (2.4 million) were seriously disabled by the war.

Trauma, grief, and the loss of “breadwinners” and the creation of hundreds of thousands of disabled dependents brought distress and poverty to hundreds of thousands of homes across the country - distress which was to last for many years.

Wilfred Owen's poem Mental Cases, his poem Disability and Sassoon’s poem, Does it matter? Does it matter, losing your legs? give just a small insight into the nature of the suffering but not the scale of it..

In Germany and Austria/Hungary the British blockade had led to immense suffering with hundreds of thousands of people dying of starvation in the last half of the war and in the following year. The British blockade of German ports, which prevented food getting into Germany, was maintained into 1919 in spite of the war having ended.

PIC starving children

IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Tumblr isn’t able to take the full text of this so I have created a new website and blog which may be found at

www.rememberingwar.co.uk

There you can find the full text and future posts.

To judge the success of a war we must know the British aims in entering this war. What were the British government and the British people trying to achieve? What were the reasons given for war?

To save Britain from a German invasion.

to save poor little Belgium from the German invasion and expel the invader.

To save France from German occupation and honour our agreement to support them if attacked

To save Europe from German domination

To prove that might is not right.

To smash militarism forever - a war to end war.

To fight a war for civilised values.

To set back Germany's growing strength in international trade

To preserve or expand the British Empire.

To secure the Suez Canal

To take control of Palestine

To secure the oil fields of Iraq (then known as Mesopotamia)

[Not all these aims were declared at the start of the war, but very early on in the war troops were dispatched to places which were nothing to do with the defence of Belgium, France or Britain. 1.5 million Indians fought and many of these fought to win Iraq for Britain.]

Let’s examine just a few of these.

1 A land invasion by Germany was prevented. People in Britain had truly feared a German invasion so for British people this may have been the most significant success. There was immense relief.

[But did the Germans ever plan such an invasion? Probably not.]

2. But from the British point of view the immediate stimulus for going to war in 1914 was Germany's occupation of Belgium.

Save poor little Belgium had been the cry in 1914.

Was Belgium saved?

Although German troops were expelled at the end of the war Belgium suffered horrendously.

Within weeks of marching into this neutral country the German army carried out savage reprisals against civilians who had attempted to harass the German forces by tearing up railway lines. Scores of civilians including children, teenagers and old people had been rounded up for being in the vicinity of the sabotage and killed by firing squads. For example, on the 23rd of August 1914 in the town of Dinant 612 men, women and children were executed.

Villages, including churches, were totally destroyed.

700,000 Belgian men had been deported to Germany as slave labourers.

Famine had broken out. The birth rate fell by 75%.

The university city of Louvain had been set on fire.

Art treasures had been looted and shipped to Germany. Machinery from factories was taken to Germany and what could not be moved had been destroyed. Blast furnaces had been blown up. Coal mines had been flooded.

In the Imperial War Museum today you can see a film, taken from an aircraft flying over the villages and towns in Belgium and Northern France, showing them in ruins.

Towns like Ypres had been blasted to rubble.

Vast areas of farmlands were ruined by trenches and shells.

British action did not save Belgium. British action did not establish humanitarian principles. It played a part in a prolonged catastrophic humanitarian disaster.

Saving France

Yes, undoubtedly the French felt relief at the end of the war.

France was saved from conquest by Germany, and a major gain for the French was the return of their provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

But the French paid a terrible price - worse than the suffering of Belgium, and with far greater human losses than Britain.

Unlike Britain the French also had to cope with vast areas of devastation. Through Belgium and France the 250 mile Western Front saw almost 1,700 towns and villages destroyed.

Preventing the German domination of Europe

That aim was achieved in 1919 but it was to be contested again 20 years later so it was a staving off, rather than a saving. And some would argue that Germany's dominant role in The European Union means that by peaceful means Germany has achieved what it twice failed to achieve by war.

A war for civilised values

This is an important claim because it is a claim often made in support of contemporary wars. Nowadays it is expressed as humanitarian intervention.

On the 7th of August 1914, Herbert Asquith the Prime Minister, said in Parliament that the war was “in defence of principles, the maintenance of which is vital to the civilisation of the world.”

It was ironic that a British government that ruled a quarter of the world by force, and with a record of often using great brutality, should be preaching about moral principles on this occasion.

Britain in 1914 was only an emerging democracy. Just 8 million men had the vote, and when the war was over conscientious objectors, as a punishment, were deprived of the vote for 5 years.

We had a free press which gave freedom to rich newspaper owners to promote the arms industry, continually make the case for war and deliberately create fear and hatred of Germany.

The tragedy of saving Belgium

The humanitarian crisis developed in Belgium within a matter of days of the war starting. but what is principled, what is humanitarian in the obscenity of a war which killed 15 million people? Nothing is less principled, nothing is less civilised than warfare.

Today we might ask what sort of British values are represented by our bombing of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Lessons from the First World War

Can we learn anything from this war - about how wars start - or how they may be avoided?

It is often said that no one expected, in the beautiful peaceful summer of 1914, that a European war would break out and that everyone was taken by surprise.

It was as if the war had started by mere chance. But wars cannot start by mere chance. It takes years to prepare for a war.

There are clear steps to war and European Nations then, as now, had taken all the steps in readiness for war.

Steps to a war

A MOTIVE Wars start with an idea, a motive. The commonest motives are

fear of attack by another country

desire to expand territory

desire to promote an ideology or expand influence and control

Revenge

Wars may be motivated by the dreams of deranged leaders - men with personality and mental disorders - maybe psychopathic, narcissistic, delusional megalomaniacs.

2. PREPARING THEIR POPULATIONS Populations must be led to fear an enemy and so be willing to support massive arms spending. This is done using the media.

3. PHYSICAL PREPARATIONS Weapons are manufactured, etc

By 1914 several nations had been expecting war in Europe for a long time.

Talk of a war in Europe had started over half a century earlier, even before the creation of the German state in 1871. Before the end of the 19th century politicians and newspapers were discussing the “inevitability” of an armed conflict between Britain and Germany.

There were press campaigns, all bolstered by the created fear of Germany, for the expansion of Britain's army and more and more weapons, particularly battleships.

As part of this campaign a great deal of popular fiction was created telling the story of the German invasion of Britain or the British invasion of Germany.

For example, in 1905 Lord Northcliffe who used his papers to develop in the British people a fear of a German invasion, commissioned a story of such an invasion from the author William Le Queux. The story was serialised in the Daily Mail and was very popular. The story was then turned into a book and became the best seller of 1906. The clear purpose of the story was to build up fear of Germany and justify arms spending.

A friend of Lord Northcliffe (Earl Roberts, no relation) was quoted at the start of the preface. This began,

“I sometimes despair of the country ever becoming alive to the danger of the unpreparedness of our present position until too late to prevent some fatal catastrophe.”

Fear and alarm

Fear and alarm were developed in the German press too.

Fear of Britain in Germany was increased, not only by the stories in the British press, but also by some of the statements of leading figures. One of these was Sir John Fisher, First Sea Lord.

He made a public statement urging a strike against the German navy, blowing it up while it was still in port. He talked publicly of “Smashing the German Fleet.” He urged a preemptive war.

Talk of a preemptive war naturally alarmed German politicians and encouraged their military expansion.

Minds prepared for war

So this is a key point: in essence, the minds of whole populations had been conditioned to fear the aggression of another nation and this was used to justify exceptional spending on armaments. The nations were ready for war.

When Germany made an aggressive move by marching into Belgium this instantly set alarm bells ringing in everyone's head. All the talk about Germany being an aggressor was suddenly proved to be true and this galvanized the British nation into action.

Today

So what is happening today? In a short space of time we can only look at a few key aspects of war in our times and see what lessons we may learn from the experience of the First World War.

You don't need to be a student of international relations to notice that one country is involved in modern conflicts more than any other. This is America. It is crucial that we understand what America is doing as we are tied militarily to this country by being part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) and by proclaiming ourselves to be America’s best friend and ally, come what may.

Since 1945 America has attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments and has bombed more than 25 countries.

[ Killing Hope page 392]

Why? Two reasons. The first is ideological. The second reason is that America is driven by its arms industry.

The ideology is anti-communism. The American government's hostility to communism and anything which looks like state control of anything is well known. We will all be familiar with America’s hostility to state provided health services like those found in European countries. The American government sees the state control of anything as an infringement of individual liberty.

Expressed another way, America wants the economies of all countries to run on principles of capitalism and free enterprise - so that American corporations can buy up and profit from the raw materials and resources of these countries and buy up or buy into lucrative enterprises. There is the clearest possible evidence that this was part of what was behind the horrendous bombing of Kosovo in 1999, and Iraq in 2003 - For evidence please see the introduction to my pamphlet, Lessons from Iraq, the UN must be reformed.

The other factor driving US foreign policy is their arms industry. America has by far the largest arms industry in the world which is largely supported by its own defence or one might say war budget.

American defence spending

[Chart cannot be shown in this blog. Please go to

www.rememberingwar.co.uk

In order to justify this budget and sustain the American arms industries America needs both wars and enemies. If it has enemies then that justifies spending on weapons to defend itself whether there is a war or not.

Therefore America sets out to create enemies.

One method of creating an enemy is to use the media and describe a country as evil, as a threat, and to suggest that in the words of Sir John Fisher, it needs smashing. Any country that hears US leaders talking in this way is bound to feel that it needs to build up its own defences against a possible American attack.

America's war talk provokes arms manufacture, military expansion and anti-Americanism. America then points out that country x is building up weapons and is therefore a threat “ to the civilised world”. This talk helps to create fear in America and the West and to justify the spending on weapons allegedly for self defence.

This process follows the pattern of what Britain and Germany did before the First World War, a tit for tat slanging match that built up mutual fear.

You may recall President Bush referring to certain countries in the Middle East as “an Axis of Evil”.

Today we have the US quarrelling with a number of countries including Iran and Russia.

The Russian Threat

Let's look at Russia and the Russian threat. For most of my life, over 40 years, I lived with the words “the Russian threat” ringing in my ears. Russia being the inaccurate and popular name for the Soviet Union. This alleged threat was used to justify billions of pounds of spending on nuclear weapons. After decades of this immoral nuclear arms race and shameful waste of money the Soviet threat disappeared suddenly.

On 31st March 1991 the satellite states of the Soviet Union, the members of the Warsaw Pact, ceased to take orders from the Soviet Union. The Warsaw Pact ceased to exist.

[Soviet Union military commanders had then announced that they had relinquished control of Warsaw pact forces.]

Then, on the 26th of December 1991 The Soviet Union itself dissolved. The constituent Republics were declared independent.

The Soviet Union, rather than being a threat couldn't even hold itself together. An alleged threat for over 40 years had been a deception.

Russia today

Today Russia is being provoked into posing a threat to the west.

Over the last few decades we can see that Russia lost influence and control over countries which it regarded as its own. But for a Russian leader things must seem a lot worse than a simple loss of control.

A number of these lost countries have been invited to join the European Union. Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and so on are now members.

Ten countries which were members of the Warsaw pact have changed sides to become members of NATO.

Russia might well consider its western border to be crumbling with countries which are not friendly towards it ranged along it.

Today we have British troops deployed as part of Nato in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. These forces provocatively carry out military exercises close to the Russian border.

In 1999, in a blatant flouting of international law, and its own treaty, Nato indulged in a war of aggression and bombed Kosovo which was a province of Yugoslavia. This communist country was firmly in the Russian sphere of influence. Such an action by Nato can only be experienced by Russia as a threat and make it fear that Nato might dare to use military force against it.

Today Russia is suffering from western sanctions imposed after its action in the Crimea.

This is all quite humiliating for Vladimir Putin. He can’t simply ignore Nato’s behaviour. So what does he do? He has to look tough. He tries to make a great show of Russia’s military strength, flexing his military prowess in Syria, invading NATO airspace, harassing Nato’s submarines.

and on 29th August this year holding the biggest Russian military exercise since the days of the cold war.

Details of his military actions are fed to our media which quite reasonably interpret them as a threat to Britain.

But media coverage goes beyond this. Since I planned this talk in August there has been an increasing attempt by the media to build up fear of Russia. Huge coverage was given in the Sunday Times on the 7th of October 2018. This was about a recent British military training exercise where British soldiers in the Omani desert practised fighting “Russians”.

A “senior source” is even quoted as suggesting that Britain might use nuclear weapons against Russia. Such a statement is not going to encourage Russia to reduce its military strength! A threat not so very different from Sir John Fisher’s threat to smash the German fleet.

[Then we are treated to a chart showing how our military hardware cannot match Russia’s Oh Dear! It would seem we are being encouraged to think that we need a ten-fold increase in military hardware in order to be able to fight Russia. This is a crazy idea. The alternative is obvious. We’d better make friends with Russia.

[This is just one example of an attempt to influence and alarm British people.

[On 23nd October [2018) President Trump announced that he was going to build more nuclear weapons in response to the alleged build up of Russian nuclear weapons.]

Whilst we as a people feel we are suffering from threats from other countries, however unrealistic these may be, then we may be persuaded to think that our billions spent on defence is well spent. Only this Monday, 29 October 2018, an extra £2 billion was added to the defence budget.

[£1 billion this year, £1billion for next year. Nothing for police and prisons. £400 million for schools.]

How does peace break out?

For centuries Britain fought France, Spain and Holland. How do we defend ourselves against potential attacks from these countries today? Surely an attack by one of these countries is unthinkable. We have planned no defence against attacks by these countries.

To put the question another way how is it that our former enemies whom we fought for centuries are now our friends and trading partners? At some point and in some way we began to move from enmity to friendship. It all begins with having the idea, followed by making overtures. It begins with goodwill on one side.

If we can understand how peace has broken out with these former enemies then surely we can turn current enemies into friends.

Can we avoid the mistakes of European countries before the First World War and tone down and then counter a buildup of fear? Can we not foster friendly relations with Iran and Russia, for example?

The UK is running out of money

In 1914 HG Wells observed that

“ All Europe has for more than half a century bent more and more wearily under a perpetually increasing burden of armaments. . . with the fear of war universally poisoning its life . . . with everything pinched but its equipment for war.”

Is life in Britain pinched?

It appears that although we are one of the richest countries in the world we are running out of money and cannot adequately finance policing, prisons, healthcare and education. Yet, at the same time, we have found huge sums of money for recent wars, and increased arms spending for future wars.

[We have just purchased two new aircraft carriers at a cost of £7 billion and are planning to spend over £60 billion pounds on nuclear weapons. We spent maybe £60 billion on wars against Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.]

Britain’s actual defence needs

What are Britain’s real defence needs? Do our needs include two new aircraft carriers at a cost of 7 billion pounds? By 2021 the first one is expected to have 12 aircraft. How could such ships defend Britain? Where would you place them?

[This ship has a crew of 700 which means that there is a considerable ongoing cost. ]

It has been suggested that such a ship would be an easy target for a modern day missile.

Is it right and does it make military sense to invest huge sums of money in more nuclear weapons which will cost upward of £60 billion?

These are weapons of mass extermination. Which cities might we feel it right to destroy with nuclear weapons?

Which countries might attack us in the foreseeable future? And what could their motives be?

Did we need to spend more than £50 billion on our wars against Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq?

It is difficult to identify any country that is likely to attack us in the next 5 or 10 years. There are no countries that we will need to invade in the foreseeable future. There are no major cities anywhere in the world that we are likely to feel the need to destroy utterly using nuclear weapons. - Just my opinion.

If there is truth in these suggestions then Britain can drastically cut its defence spending and transfer it to socially useful purposes. We do not need to be caught up in the lethal war games of the United States of America, Or follow the pattern of threat and counter-threat that Britain and Germany indulged in before the First World War.

[We have to recognise that peaceful cooperation and mutual assistance are the keys to security and the only sure form of defence.]

THE UN CHARTER

The most important peace document ever written was the Charter of the United Nations. This should be our guide. It should be studied in every secondary school and college in the world. Key sections of this are quoted in my booklet on the Iraq War and the UN, and my book of remembrance poems and readings.

Poets and poems can’t solve the problems of international relations, but they can identify what is needed. The cruel irony of war is that when we kill others we are killing people just like ourselves.

There will be no peace

Till enemies become fellow human beings.

And Wilfred Owen wrote in Strange Meeting the story of his ghost meeting the ghost of a German soldier. He pointed to the problem. He said,

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

--------------------

[NB This is the text of a talk given to an audience in the library of Southwark Cathedral on 3 November 2018. Original title: At the end of the First World War came “The Peace to End Peace” (Siegfried Sassoon) What had been achieved? What are the lessons? - The poetry, the politics, the facts. A talk by David Roberts.

The limited time available for dealing with this large topic led to a certain amount of oversimplification and sometimes an absence of supporting evidence. Nevertheless, in essence I think the talk raises important ideas and tells a fair story. - DR.]

I'd like to recommend two books. The first is Killing Hope by Lionel Blum. This gives you the details of America's horrendous record of military intervention since the Second World War.

The second book is Lawless World by Philippe Sands. This is a fascinating account of how international law and the United Nations are breaking down and failing the world.

For more on this topic see www.rememberingwar.co.uk including the Blog

Cost of Keeping Nuclear Weapons (details)

Manufacturing four submarines to replace our current Trident nuclear submarines – £31 billion

Contingency fund in anticipation of cost over-run – £10 billion

Missile life extension programme to keep our current nuclear missiles working longer – £350 million

Replacement warheads – £4 billion

Infrastructure capital costs – £4 billion

Decommissioning existing nuclear submarines and warheads– £13 billion

Total more than £62 billion]

#First World War analysis #First World War lessons #First World War understanding #First World War and poetry

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rememberingwar · 7 years ago

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There Will Be Peace

There will be peace: when attitudes change; when self-interest is seen as part of common interest; when old wrongs, old scores, old mistakes are deleted from the account; when the aim becomes co-operation and mutual benefit rather than revenge or seizing maximum personal or group gain; when justice and equality before the law become the basis of government; when basic freedoms exist; when leaders – political, religious, educational – and the police and media wholeheartedly embrace the concepts of justice, equality, freedom, tolerance, and reconciliation as a basis for renewal; when parents teach their children new ways to think about people. There will be peace: when enemies become fellow human beings.

David Roberts

#peace poem #peace poetry #achieving peace #humanity #security recipe #security

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rememberingwar · 7 years ago

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Shall We Remember What War Is?

What is war?

In the human psyche

it is the fatal flaw,

a perversion of the human mind,

using our greatest brains to create

outrageous threats to all mankind.

War is

the profoundest disrespect

for the sanctity

of human life,

the ultimate in racism,

the collapse of morality.

War is

the ultimate in criminality,

the ultimate obscenity,

the ultimate crime against humanity.

So shall we honour war?

and shall we now praise troubled men?

Or shall we remember what war is

and give true meaning

to "Never again"?

David Roberts

#war on terror #meaning of war #war reality #remembering war #war truth #war poem #David Roberts

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rememberingwar · 7 years ago

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Thank God the First World War is over

Thank God the First World War is over.

Let's have a break now from endless commemoration.

Our soldier dead are all beyond our thanks and honouring. There's no-one left to grieve for them.

All the stories that can be told have surely now been told.

Everything that can be said has been said. All the lessons that can be learned have been learned.

If there could possibly be any more to be known about this war it can safely be forgotten. There's no more history to be written.

It's over. It's over. Surely the First World War is truly over. Can we live in peace now and move on?

David Roberts

11 November 2018

#First World War poem #David Roberts #David Roberts poem #war is over

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rememberingwar · 7 years ago

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Today, 11th November 2018, is seeing an unbelievable amount of “remembrance” focussing on the end of the First World War. The papers, the radio, the TV are full of it. People have bought millions of plastic poppies. People have hand-made, even knitted, millions of poppies. Locally there is a village with giant poppies, maybe 40cms across, on nearly every lamp post! The poppy factory, for the first time ever, went on to 24 hour working to meet demand. WHY? WHY? The answers so often given are thoughtless parotting of platitudes, cliches, half truths, untruths, mistaken readings of history, hypocrisy and sentimental wallowing in the tragedy of a war which no-one alive today remembers and few have any grasp of the historical facts of it. This is not what remembrance is about.

Meanwhile the wars of our lifetime and the servicemen, alive today (with many suffering), are given hardly a mention.

In this book, Remembrance Poems and Readings, is an explanation of the true meaning of remembrance, a brief history of remembrance, traditional remembrance statements and poems, and prayers, and many deeply thoughtful, forward looking and insightful poems by contemporary servicemen and others. Two mayors of Hiroshima, the city that was bombed with a nuclear bomb in 1945, commemorate the occasion of their city’s destruction with humane and positive messages.

#remembrance #remembrance poems #remembering hiroshima #hiroshima #11th #Remembrance services

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rememberingwar · 9 years ago

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We Are Many, Film Review

Review of Film, We Are Many, by David Roberts

We Are Many, Director Amir Amirani, 2015, 104 minutes

Friday 11 March 2016 I went to see the film We Are Many at a showing in the old village hall in Forest Row in West Sussex. This film is about an extraordinary and unique day in world history, 15 February 2003. It was the day when tens of millions of people marched in 780 cities around the world in protest against the proposed war by Britain and America, and a few others, against Iraq.

Marching with millions The film brought back memories of the experience of that demonstration in London as a day of enormous pleasure. Marching in a crowd of hundreds of thousands, (it turned out to be between one and two million) united in a common feeling of opposition to war and with an expectation that such a huge expression of public opinion could not be ignored gave the whole of that incredible and unprecedentedly large gathering a huge sense of human solidarity, well-being and optimism.

I’m the guy with the beard

That biggest of all demonstrations

I knew, even on the day of the demonstration, that there were demonstrations taking place around the world. Our contingent of demonstrators travelled up to London from the little town of Burgess Hill in a coach, early that morning, and I remember taking the microphone on the bus and telling people the news of the demonstrations that were taking place around the world, but I had no idea that the scale was so vast. The film claimed there were demonstrations in 780 cities, including 145 in America. We saw footage of many of them and these were all on a vast scale except in Egypt where only a few dozen people dared to take to the streets.

Of course, we can understand that tens of millions of people around the world, having looked at the evidence would be distressed by the conclusions that politicians were drawing but how could such a gigantic world wide event be organised? The film had footage of a meeting, attended by thousands of people in a disused railway station in Florence, on the occasion of The World Social Forum of 2002, when the demonstration was proposed for 15 February 2003.

Against morality and international law

Everyone now knows that popular opinion, common sense, international law, human decency, morality, rational argument were all ignored by those who had the power to prevent the war.

So the film also reminded me of my feelings of outrage against the ridiculous arguments that were put forward in favour of the war against Iraq. For example, did any sane person in Britain really believe that Saddam Hussein in Iraq was planning to attack British soil and had prepared to be able to do so within 45 minutes? (We, the French and others had comprehensively bombed his air force into extinction in the preceding years - acting totally illegally, of course.) Did anyone believe that he had weapons of mass destruction when the UN weapons inspectors had been there for years without finding them, or that removing the inspectors and bombing the country was a more effective route to finding these weapons?

Apparently in America over half the population became convinced that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, this being an idea fostered by the American government and was always a barefaced lie.

The low point of British democracy

18 March 2003 the British Parliament voted to support a war against Iraq. This event was , in my estimation, the lowest point in my lifetime in British and American democracy when so many politicians pretended to be convinced by the evidence put before them and voted for a massive bombing attack on a people that did us no harm and never once threatened us. There could hardly be a clearer case of an illegal war and there could hardly be a clearer case that leading politicians like Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Jack Straw are war criminals who should be brought to trial in The Hague and incarcerated for a long time. Not only them but also all those weak, and immoral politicians who voted for the war. Personally I have never been so disgusted with our much-praised British democracy.

Players and commentators

There was footage of many of the speeches at the demonstrations and lots of interviews with organisers of demonstrations particularly British and American ones.

There were comments from Hans Blix, Jeremy Corbyn, John le Carré, Richard Branson, Mike Leigh and many others.

Tony Blair appears in this film. He is seen making his lying statement in Parliament about the imminent threat and the active factories across Iraq producing these weapons of mass destruction. He also appears in a brief clip from the Chilcott enquiry, the report of which, all these years after the event has still not been presented to the British public. It shakes one's faith in politicians and the political system in this country.

George Bush is seen making his smirking speeches and playing a game of "lets-find-those-weapons" in the White House.

The film showed a number of expert witnesses testifying to the illegality of the war including the British international lawyer, Philippe Sands and a rather hesitant, reluctant-to-answer, Kofi Annan, then secretary General of the United Nations.

The guy who was, I think, a general, and second to Colin Powell, said that the support he gave at the presentation to the UN Security Council by Colin Powell was the low point of his personal and professional career. He regarded George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others as war criminals who ought to be brought to trial in The Hague and he would gladly testify against them even if he was included in the trial found guilty himself. It was clear that he felt a deep sense of shame over the whole affair.

The initial attack

The footage of the bombing of Baghdad, street scenes, and the bombing of Fallujah reminded us of what our censored world seldom shows of British and American military action. I don't ever remember hearing or reading of there being any casualties of the bombing of Baghdad which some said used more explosive power than was used in the whole of the Second World War.

See this film if you can find it

All in all, I consider the film very important record of the extraordinary and unprecedented historical day when the people on the street were right and the politicians were wrong. It is hard to get to see it. Google the title. If you are lucky there may be a showing in your area. My thanks to Forest Row Film Society.

David Roberts,13 March 2016

#We Are Many #Film review #David Roberts #iraq war #Anti-war demonstrations

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rememberingwar · 9 years ago

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Demonstration against Trident Nuclear Weapons

Thank God for leaders who are NOT willing to annihilate millions with Trident nuclear weapons: Jeremy Corbyn, Labour; Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish National Party; Caroline Lucas, Green Party; Leanne Wood, Plaid Cymru - Welsh National Party. All of them spoke at the anti-Trident demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London, yesterday 27 February 2016.

The more I listened to anti-Trident speeches the more the word outrage outrage outrage against nuclear weapons filled my mind.

What sort of leader do we have in this country who says he is prepared to use Trident nuclear weapons to annihilate millions of people and cause

unimaginable environmental devastation as a means of defending this country.

Where are the terrible bogeyman dangers? Which countries, which people might make threats that might one day justify retaliating with nuclear weapons and destroying vast populations?

The vast majority of countries do not have or want nuclear weapons including the whole of South America and Africa. Are they less safe from external agression than us?

And then there is the cost. Over £100 billion at a time of austerity and cuts in education and other vital services!

David Roberts

#nuclear weapons #Trident #austerity

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rememberingwar · 9 years ago

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TRIDENT, WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

TRIDENT IS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

No imaginable threat can justify preparing to annihilate cities and cause long-term environmental devastation. LONDON ANTI-TRIDENT DEMONSTRATION SATURDAY 27TH FEBRUARY. I'll be there. Meet noon, Hyde Park by Marble Arch.

Each trident submarine carries destructive power over 200 times greater than the bombs that destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Over 190 countries do not have nuclear weapons. What and whom are we afraid of?

Our nuclear weapons did not deter Argentina from trying to seize the British Falkland Islands in 1982. They cannot deter suicidal terrorists. No potential invader (who could that possibly be?) wants to use nuclear weapons against us because what use would a Britain that had become a radio-active wilderness be to them?

Defence is best achieved through international co-operation and trade. That's how we have overcome the threats from our former enemies: Spain, Holland, France, Germany and others. They do not co-operate with us because of fear of annihilation. Nuclear weapons, like castles, are relics of of outmoded thinking on defence and have no place in the modern world. Now, the last thing we need is the threatened destruction of humanity. Today we need to co-operate to deal with environmental and humanitarian crises that call for our attention.

For more information see http://www.cnduk.org/information/briefings/trident-briefings

Click her for demonstration details.

David Roberts

26 February 2016

#Trident #nuclear weapons

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rememberingwar · 9 years ago

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World premier of Making or Breaking as a piece for choir

A special event for me this Friday: the world premier of a choir's performance of of one of my poems set to music by Norwegian composer, Kim Andre Arnesen. The poem is Making or Breaking which he found on a 1999 page of my warpoetry website. The performance is in Denver, Colorado. Choir, The Kantorei.

See the poem for yourself:https://www.warpoetry.uk/kosovo-war-poetry

Visit the composer's website at http://www.kimarnesen.com

He has also set to music words I wrote in 1971 and which I recently revised. The original words were for one item (entitled Infinity) in a cantata, New Creation, which was performed by Brighton Youth Orchestra with Longhill Choir and the Spider Miles jazz band in Brighton Dome. The date 21 January 1972.

David Roberts

#Making or Breaking #David Roberts #Kim Andre Arnesen #singing war poetry choral war poetry war poetry for choirs

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rememberingwar · 10 years ago

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Egyptian Revolution Failed Utterly

youtube

On 25 January 2016 the BBC reported that the Egyptian Revolution had failed. Democracy had come and gone quickly to be replaced by a dictatorship more brutal and repressive than Mubarak's which was brought down five years ago. All opposition has been crushed, with thousands in prison and tortured. Not one pro-democracy demonstrator was allowed into Tahrir Square today, the fifth anniversary of the revolution.

Just under five years ago I wrote a cynical and sceptical poem about the triumph of the revolution. It is tragic that my doubts were well placed. You can hear the poem now and hear the excitement of the naive revolutionaries of that time in BBC interviews that follow the poem in this YouTube video.

David Roberts, 25 January 2016.

#Egyptian Revolution #poem #comments #video

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rememberingwar · 10 years ago

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War and Peace, BBC Version and Tolstoy’s - David Roberts makes some initial observations

War and Peace, the BBC adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel, now showing on Sunday evenings at 9 PM is really worth seeing. (You can catch up on iPlayer, or for £1-89 download individual episodes, or the whole series for £9-99 from BBC online store.)

War and Peace is a gutsy story set at the beginning of the 19th century in Russia and features, mainly, the lives of the deeply troubled, super-rich aristocracy. An element of the story is the wars with Napoleon which involve some of the characters in the story and is impressively recreated on-screen.

The TV version by Andrew Davies is so good that I have at last started to read War and Peace, something I have been intending to do for most of my life. I haven't got very far but it is a good read.

Obviously the six, one-hour episodes are a seriously shortened version of the novel which is over 1400 pages of small print. But television has one advantage over the printed page and that is it can convey in seconds the

extraordinary wealth and lavish interiors and and exteriors of homes and palaces, the fantastic clothes worn by the aristocracy, winter scenes and marching armies.

Perhaps it has slightly over glamourised the main characters in that most of them are exceptionally good-looking. The central character, Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, is portrayed as a tall, bespectacled socially inept and awkward young man. Tolstoy describes him as "a stout, heavily built a young man with close-cropped hair and spectacles." And Tolstoy certainly conveys his social ineptitude. So the TV version has made Pierre appear somewhat more normal physically than he is portrayed by Tolstoy (as compared with other male characters).

Pierre Bezukhov is on the left in this picture.

In spite of their wealth, the Russian aristocracy have money worries. Whilst some teeter on the edge of financial ruin others are seeking to consolidate their wealth. The chief means of financial advancement seems to be by the making of favourable marriages and the marrying off of children is a key concern of these aristocrats. From the point of view of the young people, as one might expect, money is not their prime concern when it comes to choosing a marriage partner. Oh the passion, the yearning, the heartbreak, the treachery!

We see drunkenness and gambling as problems as well as issues of the rightness and wrongness of a war with France. And Pierre is a deeply thoughtful, innocent and naive man trying to cope and live a decent life, in spite of his unexpected wealth, in a world which is raw and ruthless.

There are two particularly outstandingly nasty characters; Dolokhov, a Russian army officer who is happy to screw his friends at gambling and seduce any wife or Princess he happens to fancy; the other is Helene Kuragina who is very beautiful and an ace bitch. Although early on she marries Pierre she delights in enticing attractive and wealthy men into her bed only to send them packing when someone more interesting comes on the scene. She also helps to procure a conquest for her brother, Anatole.

Perhaps Tolstoy conveys Helene's mesmeric beauty better than Andrew Davies's TV adaptation. Helene is one of these women who is so good looking and is so aware of the power of her charms that she is a magnet for attention in any social gathering.

In the translation of War and Peace that I have (by Ann Dunnigan - a Signet Classic) Helene's name has been translated from the Russian as Ellen. This is how Tolstoy describes her at a high society party hosted by Anna Pavlovna. "Princess Ellen smiled; she rose with that same unchanging smile, the smile of a perfectly beautiful woman, with which she had entered the drawing room. There was a slight rustle of her moss- and Ivy-trimmed ballgown, a gleam of diamonds, lustrous hair, and dazzling white shoulders as she moved toward Anna Pavlovna. Passing between the men, who made way for her, not looking directly at any of them but smiling on all as if graciously granting them the privilege of admiring her beautiful figure, her shapely shoulders, back, and bosom, which, in the fashion of the day were very much exposed, she seemed to bring with her the glamour of the ballroom. Ellen was so lovely that not only did she show no trace of coquetry, but, on the contrary, appeared to be almost embarrassed by her undeniable, irresistible, and enthralling beauty. It was as if she wished to diminish its effect while being powerless to do so.

"Quelle belle personne!" said everyone who saw her. And the Viscount, as if struck by something extraordinary, shrugged his shoulders and lowered his eyes when she sat down before him and turned the light of that same unchanging smile upon him."

The BBC has been rather too reserved in the way that it dresses Helene Kuragina.

I look forward to the remaining episodes and hope I will have time to finish reading the book.

David Roberts, 26 January 2016.

#War and Peace #books #Tolstoy #BBC

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rememberingwar · 10 years ago

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World War Against ISIS. Was the UN wise to authorise the world to use violence against ISIS?

The United Nations Security Council initiated a world war against ISIS on 20 November 2015 with Resolution 2249.

Comments by David Roberts and the key elements of this resolution calling for war are printed below, followed by the full text of the resolution.

What lies behind many calls for war is a sense of insecurity, a sense of being threatened. No doubt this is a major factor behind the resolution of the United Nations Security Council calling for the "eradication" of "the safe haven they [ISIS/ISIL/Da'esh)]have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria."

Terrorist attacks by Isis in France, Tunisia, and elsewhere have created fear and anger in many countries. But perhaps the general populations of these countries are not as alarmed as the politicians who feel that they are being made to look stupid and impotent and therefore must be seen to be doing something A further factor is the widely felt abhorrence of the violence and lack of human rights in the territory controlled by Isis. It’s stated aim of bringing its rule over the whole world creates both fear and a superficial glamour.

With the phenomenal power of the major countries of the world and most of the minor countries in the world combined one might expect that the conquest of Isis is something that would take only a matter of days. Yet nearly 2 months after the UN resolution Isis remains firmly in possession of territory and oil production capacity in Iraq and Syria.

Only today (14 January 2016) another Isis terrorist attack took place. This time in Jakarta. Many terrorists were involved in a plan to cause mayhem which, on this occasion, seems to have been bungled with the resulting low death toll.

Why could Isis not simply be destroyed? The key complicating factor preventing the destruction of Isis is that it has worldwide support, not the support of many nations, but the support of disaffected, embittered people from around the world who find it believable that the source of many of their own problems lies with Western and "developed" nations, especially those that have been involved in wars against Muslim countries. Isis offers dissaffected and antisocial people a purpose in life.

It is reckoned that fighters in Syria supporting Isis come from 80 countries!

The problem therefore is partly the problem of how to defeat perceptions of "the evil West" and the perception that somehow Isis offers "a better way of life".

Added to this are further complicating factors. Isis has the support of countries unknown who supply weapons and buy huge quantities of oil from it. It has the support of large number of Syrians who are fighting against the forces of the Assad regime in Syria. Many countries opposed to Isis are also opposed to the Assad regime which might be the strongest force on the ground that might defeat the forces of Isis.

Some of those who formed Isis were Iraqis who have been disempowered by a government in Iraq which seems not to understand how to run a country to include a voice for, and proper regard for all sections of society. It has been suggested that if the Sunnis were given a proper voice in Iraq then the main basis and strength of Isis would melt away. Obviously it cannot be that simple but it might be a vital element.

This UN resolution invites the world to attack ISIS. This may well have the undesired effect of further inciting Isis fighters to lash out in countries around the world. It also gives Isis great status in that it is being treated like a genuine country rather than a very large, desperate and cruel gang of terrorists , an anti-Islamic Mafia, pretending to be representatives of a religion and currently occupying a tiny territory.

What will be the effects of more bombing? I said this in my article on 29 November, "The warring groups on the ground in Syria are numerous and it is difficult to differentiate between them. The relationship between the warring groups is so complex that dropping bombs on conflict areas can only exacerbate an existing humanitarian disaster. Bombing shows the West to be an aggressor, provokes reprisals, causes tens of thousands to flee their homes and country and is not an answer to a violent philosophy."

For the UN to authorise violence by any country in the world against a large gang of criminals is a dangerous and potentially inflamatory move.

Action that does need taking is the cutting off of arms supplies and cutting off the market for the oil from about 300 oil wells controlled by ISIS. Estimates of the value of their oil sales range from one million US dollars per day to three million. A focus on this could surely be a key step to take and comparatively not very difficult. After all, the oil is not being smuggled out by IS fighters disguised as ordinary tourists crossing borders with a few cans of oil sewn into the linings of their coats. The trade must be highly visible. The purchasers must be well known. Why is no action taken on this opportunity?

The key section of the UN resolution is section 5. And the key elements of this section are:

“The Security Council calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular with the United Nations Charter . . . to redouble and coordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed specifically by ISIL also known as Da’esh . . . and to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria;"

“Take all necessary measures” is UN terminology for authorising force.

The full text of resolution 2249 (2015) 20 November 2015 reads as follows:

“The Security Council,

“Reaffirming its resolutions 1267 (1999), 1368 (2001), 1373 (2001), 1618 (2005), 1624 (2005), 2083 (2012), 2129 (2013), 2133 (2014), 2161 (2014), 2170 (2014), 2178 (2014), 2195 (2014), 2199 (2015) and 2214 (2015), and its relevant presidential statements,

“Reaffirming the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations,

“Reaffirming its respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence and unity of all States in accordance with purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter,

“Reaffirming that terrorism in all forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security and that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable regardless of their motivations, whenever and by whomsoever committed,

“Determining that, by its violent extremist ideology, its terrorist acts, its continued gross systematic and widespread attacks directed against civilians, abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law, including those driven on religious or ethnic ground, its eradication of cultural heritage and trafficking of cultural property, but also its control over significant parts and natural resources across Iraq and Syria and its recruitment and training of foreign terrorist fighters whose threat affects all regions and Member States, even those far from conflict zones, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Da’esh), constitutes a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security,

“Recalling that the Al-Nusrah Front (ANF) and all other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with Al-Qaida also constitute a threat to international peace and security,

“Determined to combat by all means this unprecedented threat to international peace and security,

“Noting the letters dated 25 June 2014 and 20 September 2014 from the Iraqi authorities which state that Da’esh has established a safe haven outside Iraq’s borders that is a direct threat to the security of the Iraqi people and territory,

“Reaffirming that Member States must ensure that any measures taken to combat terrorism comply with all their obligations under international law, in particular international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law;

“Reiterating that the situation will continue to deteriorate further in the absence of a political solution to the Syria conflict and emphasizing the need to implement the Geneva communiqué of 30 June 2012 endorsed as Annex II of its resolution 2118 (2013), the joint statement on the outcome of the multilateral talks on Syria in Vienna of 30 October 2015 and the statement of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) of 14 November 2015,

“1. Unequivocally condemns in the strongest terms the horrifying terrorist attacks perpetrated by ISIL also known as Da’esh which took place on 26 June 2015 in Sousse, on 10 October 2015 in Ankara, on 31 October 2015 over Sinaï, on 12 November 2015 in Beirut and on 13 November 2015 in Paris, and all other attacks perpetrated by ISIL also known as Da’esh, including hostage-taking and killing, and notes it has the capability and intention to carry out further attacks and regards all such acts of terrorism as a threat to peace and security;

“2. Expresses its deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims and their families and to the people and Governments of Tunisia, Turkey, Russian Federation, Lebanon and France, and to all Governments whose citizens were targeted in the above mentioned attacks and all other victims of terrorism;“3. Condemns also in the strongest terms the continued gross, systematic and widespread abuses of human rights and violations of humanitarian law, as well as barbaric acts of destruction and looting of cultural heritage carried out by ISIL also known as Da’esh;

“4. Reaffirms that those responsible for committing or otherwise responsible for terrorist acts, violations of international humanitarian law or violations or abuses of human rights must be held accountable;

“5. Calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular with the United Nations Charter, as well as international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law, on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da’esh, in Syria and Iraq, to redouble and coordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed specifically by ISIL also known as Da’esh as well as ANF, and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al-Qaida, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the United Nations Security Council, and as may further be agreed by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) and endorsed by the UN Security Council, pursuant to the statement of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) of 14 November, and to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria;

“6. Urges Member States to intensify their efforts to stem the flow of foreign terrorist fighters to Iraq and Syria and to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, and urges all Members States to continue to fully implement the above-mentioned resolutions;

“7. Expresses its intention to swiftly update the 1267 committee sanctions list in order to better reflect the threat posed by ISIL also known as Da’esh;

“8. Decides to remain seized of the matter.”

#UN #ISIS #ISIL #UN Resolution against ISIS #Syria

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