Turkey says to ‘reorganize’ troops in Iraq
Press TV – December 11, 2015
Turkey says it has decided to “reorganize” its troops in a camp in northern Iraq after holding talks with officials in Baghdad, who strongly criticized Ankara for the deployment.
In a statement on Friday, the office of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said after holding talks with Iraqi officials, Ankara has decided to change the way it has been deploying soldiers at the Bashiqa camp near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
It said the two sides have reached an agreement to start work on creating mechanisms aimed at deepening cooperation on security issues.
The statement did not specify the details of the proposed mechanisms and how the troops would be reorganized. However, other officials in Turkey said Baghdad and Ankara have decided to work together on the issue.
“We’ll decide together if we’ll increase or decrease the number of Turkish troops,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, adding, “It is our duty to address the Baghdad government’s concerns.”
Turkey’s apparent change of tone over the last Friday deployment of hundreds of troops comes two days after it missed an ultimatum to pull out the fight from Bashiqa, prompting Baghdad to threaten to follow up the case in the United Nations Security Council.
However, Turkey’s latest move seemed to be insufficient for Baghdad, as Iraq’s Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi on Friday asked his foreign ministry to lodge formal complaint with the UN Security Council over the Turkish incursion.
Abadi, in a statement on his website, asked that the Security Council order Turkey to withdraw its troops from Iraq immediately.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan again said on Friday that he will resist Baghdad’s call for pulling out troops. Erdogan had said on Thursday that “withdrawal is out of the question for the time being.”
Turkey had said that the deployment was in line with previous agreements with the Iraqi government. Iraq, however, denied any such deal, branding the presence of troops as a violation of its national sovereignty.
Reports said that Turkey’s powerful intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and foreign ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu were in Baghdad on Thursday to discuss the deployment.
Cavusoglu also said that Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz will also pay a visit to Iraq to follow up the reorganization plan.
Iraqis Fear US Backs Turkish Land Grab in Mosul Region
Sputnik – 11.12.2015
Iraqi parliamentarians worry the US government has given Turkey a free hand to grab territory in the country’s oil-rich Mosul region, experts told Sputnik.
The Iraqi Parliament’s Security and Defense Committee recently called on Prime Minister Haider Abadi to reassess and, if necessary, cancel the country’s security treaty with the United States following Turkish occupation of Iraqi territory near Mosul.
“My impression is that the Iraqi government has observed that the Russians are more effective in combatting ISIS [Islamic State] than the United States,” University of Louvain Professor Jean Bricmont in Belgium, author of “Humanitarian Imperialism,” told Sputnik.
Iraqi politicians recognize that Turkey continues to be favored by Washington as a major military ally in the Middle East, and Ankara also remains a member in good standing of the US-led NATO alliance despite its aggression toward Iraq, Bricmont pointed out.
“The Iraqis can see that NATO is supporting Turkey, and the latter is invading part of Iraq. Certainly this cannot happen without US approval.”
Genuine concern about Washington’s long-term policies toward Iraq was growing among policymakers in Baghdad and the parliamentary committee’s statement was an expression of this, Bricmont explained.
“I don’t know what is going on in the minds of the members of the Iraqi government, but I don’t see why that would only be pure posturing.”
Bricmont added that Turkey’s and Saudi Arabia’s support for the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, and the continued US support for Ankara and Riyadh was driving all forces in the Middle East to look to Russia for protection.
“Turkey’s support for the Islamic State and the recent events in the region are a game changer, since all the forces that are opposed to ISIS — Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon — see that their only real ally is Russia.”
However, would the United States allow Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi to escape from his security obligations to Washington?
“Abadi is a US puppet. Obama put him in power and keeps him in power. Nothing more than the Mayor of Baghdad,” University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle told Sputnik.
The Iraq-US Strategic Framework Agreement of 2008 contains a provision that allows either party to terminate it at one year’s notice.
Kurds Protest Erdogan’s Invasion, Bombings of Iraq
Sputnik – 10.12.2015
Kurds in Iraq protested Turkey’s invasion of Iraq, which is a threat to both the independence of Iraq and the Kurds living in the northern part of the country.
Although Turkey found a friend in Iraqi Kurdistan’s most dominant clan leader and current president Massoud Barzani, many Iraqi Kurds have opposed the measure.
On Wednesday, Turkish jets bombed Iraq, hitting the mountainous Qandil region, on the border with Iran, AP reported. According to Turkey, the mountains are home to camps of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, banned in Turkey.
“Yesterday, in multiple provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan there were popular manifestations, which local politicians also took part in. The protest expressed a harsh condemnation of the invasion and quartering of Turkish troops on the territory of a foreign state,” head of Kurdish News Network (KNN) Sohayeb Ahmad Kakeh Mahmoud told Sputnik Persian.
Mahmoud added that protesters chanted nationalist slogans, expressing their disapproval of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s silence in regards to the Turkish military’s actions. At the same time, Barzani left Iraq to hold talks with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
Syrian Kurds also reportedly condemned Erdogan’s actions.
“[Democratic Union Party head Salih Muslim] emphasized that Turkey is violating the territorial integrity of another state. Muslim also made an important statement: Turkey, which is ready to defend its territorial integrity at all costs, even shooting down Russian planes on its border for so-called airspace violations, yet itself invades an independent state,” Mahmoud added.
Is Iran Next on Erdogan’s Hit List?
Turkey has also continued to attack Kurdistan Workers’ Party positions in the Qandil Mountains, which border Iran.
“Despite the Turkish air force now attacking Qandil, the mountainous region bordering Iran, I still believe that Ankara is not ready to open yet another front by starting a war with Iran,” Mahmoud said.
Turkey has also managed to turn nearly all of its friends in the region into enemies, as Iranian Ettelaat newspaper’s Abulkasem Kasemzade recently noted, breaking the relationships it once had with Russia, Syria and Iran.
“Turkey has now simply surrounded itself with a circle of confrontation. On one hand, there is cooled Russia, from another, scrapes associated with the exposure of its collaboration with Daesh terrorists, lastly the simply insufficiently considered military operation against Kurds,” Mahmoud added.
According to Mahmoud, Syria and Iraq must cooperate to drive Turkish troops out of Iraq, as the invasion, and Turkey’s attacks on Kurdish groups in the region, is dangerous for Kurds living in Iraqi Kurdistan.
100,000 foreign troops incl. Americans to be deployed in Iraq, MP claims
RT | December 10, 2015
The US is to send some 10,000 troops to Iraq to provide support for a 90,000-strong force from the Gulf states, a leading Iraqi opposition MP has warned. The politician said the plan was announced to the Iraqi government during a visit by US Senator John McCain.
During a meeting in Baghdad on November 27, McCain told Prime Minister Haider Abadi and a number of senior Iraqi cabinet and military officials that the decision was ‘non-negotiable’, claimed Hanan Fatlawi, the head of the opposition Irada Movement.
“A hundred thousand foreign troops, including 90,000 from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Jordan, and 10,000 troops from America will be deployed in western regions of Iraq,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
She added that the Iraqi prime minister protested the plan, but was told that “the decision has already been taken.”
McCain and fellow hawk Senator Lindsey Graham have both been calling for a tripling in the current number of US troops deployed in Iraq to 10,000, and also advocate sending an equal number of troops to Syria to fight against the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Americans would prop up a 90,000-strong international ground force provided by Sunni Arab countries like Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
“The region is ready to fight. The region hates ISIL – they are coming for Sunni Arab nations. Turkey hates ISIL. The entire region wants Assad gone. So there is an opportunity here with some American leadership to do two things: to hit ISIL before we get hit at home and to push Assad out,” Graham argued during the joint visit to Baghdad in November.
“Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey – they have regional armies and they would go into the fight if we put [the removal of] Assad on the table. Most of the fight will be done by the region. They will pay for this war,” he added.
The US currently has about 3,600 troops in Iraq, including 100 special operations troops deployed last month to take part in combat missions involving hostage rescue and the assassination of IS leaders. The White House is reluctant to commit a large ground force, citing the cost in human lives and money and the possible political ramifications of what will be portrayed by America’s opponents as yet another Western invasion of the Arab world.
The McCain-Graham plan also poses the risk of direct confrontation between the proposed coalition force and Russia and Iraq, which are both militarily assisting the Assad government and may not stay out of the fight – something which the hawkish duo have not factored into their plan.
This is especially true after Turkey’s downing of a Russian bomber plane on the Turkish-Syrian border, which Moscow considered a stab in the back and which sent relations with Ankara to a low not seen for decades.
Baghdad has its own concerns about a Turkish presence on its territory after Ankara sent troops into western Iraq and refused to withdraw them, despite Iraqi protests. Ankara claimed the incursion was made under a 2014 invitation from Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi.
‘Blackwater troops replacing Emirati forces in Yemen’
Press TV – December 10, 2015
A new report says mercenaries and military advisers from the infamous US security firm, formerly known as Blackwater, are replacing UAE troops in the Saudi war in Yemen.
The Beirut-based al-Akhbar newspaper said on Thursday UAE forces are being gradually replaced by recruits from the US-based private military contractor, which now goes by the name, Acamedi.
The move came after the UAE evacuated some of its military sites in Yemen following its failures in several operations, the Lebanese daily added.
According to al-Akhbar, UAE’s move to involve the private military contractor in the Yemen conflict has raised objections among some members of the Saudi-led coalition.
On Wednesday, Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah news website said the commander-in-chief of Blackwater mercenaries in the country was killed in the al-Omari district of Ta’izz Province.
Some Australian, British and French advisers and commanders, plus half a dozen Colombian soldiers, were reportedly among the dead. The mercenaries are part of the Emirati forces that help Saudi Arabia in its war against the impoverished nation.
Blackwater has had to change its name several times due to its ill fame around the world. The company which went by the alias Xe Services before its current name is one of the most notorious private security firms in the world for killing scores of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
Yemen has been under military attack by Saudi Arabia since March 26. The Saudi strikes were launched to undermine Yemen’s Ansarullah movement and bring fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, back to power.
Turkish jets strike Kurdish positions in Iraq amid rising tension between Ankara & Baghdad
RT | December 9, 2015
Ankara carried out airstrikes targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) forces in northern Iraq, the Turkish army said on Wednesday. The action comes in the wake of rising tensions between Ankara and Baghdad over the deployment of Turkish troops in Iraq.
Ten F-16 fighter jets launched an attack between 10pm and 10:50pm on Tuesday, targeting PKK positions in the Kandil, Hakurk, Zap and Avasin-Baysan regions in northern Iraq, the Turkish General Staff said in a statement. It added that the targets were “destroyed in an aerial campaign.”
Tensions have been rising between Ankara and Baghdad after Turkey deployed hundreds of troops equipped with tanks and artillery to Iraq’s northern Nineveh Governorate last Thursday, saying they will train forces battling Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
Baghdad said it had not asked for the help of Turkish forces, and demanded their withdrawal after it said Turkey had “illegally” sent the troops into Iraq. Describing the move as a violation of sovereignty, the Iraqi government also asked NATO to intervene.
Meanwhile, Shiite paramilitary groups have threatened to use force against Turkey unless it pulls its forces out of Iraq. Likening the Turkish incursion to the occupation of Iraq by IS militants, Badr Brigade spokesman Karim al-Nuri said “all options” were available.
“We have the right to respond and we do not exclude any type of response until the Turks have learned their lesson,” Nuri said on Wednesday. “Do they have a dream of restoring Ottoman greatness? This is a great delusion and they will pay dearly because of Turkish arrogance.”
Also on Wednesday, the Iraqi parliament unanimously approved a motion condemning the Turkish intervention, supporting the government in taking whatever measures it viewed as appropriate.
Russia raised the issue at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday, expressing hope that Ankara will avoid escalating the situation in the region with any further reckless actions. Following the meeting, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said that Moscow expects Ankara to “settle the situation in Iraq in a way that would satisfy the Iraqi government.”
“Now the situation is within the focus of the attention of the Security Council, so we hope it will help resolve [it] to the satisfaction of the Iraqi government, whose sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence will be respected,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed Ankara’s actions while speaking to Italian media on Wednesday.
Lavrov proposed a thorough examination of how Turkey performs goals set by the coalition in Syria. “We need to examine how a member of the US-led coalition – the Republic of Turkey – performs goals set by the coalition,” the minister said. “Why is it not bombing terrorists as such, but the Kurds instead?”
On Wednesday, Ankara argued that Turkish soldiers were sent to northern Iraq after a threat from IS to Turkish military trainers in the area. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the deployment was an act of solidarity, not aggression.
“The [military] trainers in the Bashiqa camp were threatened by Daesh (Islamic State) because it is 15-20 kilometers from Mosul and they have only light arms,” he told media in Istanbul. “So when these threats increased… we sent some troops to protect the camp, not as an act of aggression but as an act of solidarity.”
Invisible harm from ionizing radiation
By Bjorn Hilt | International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War | December 8, 2015
Besides the terrible effects of the burst of light that causes eye damage, the heat that sets everything flammable on fire, the electromagnetic pulse that knocks out all electronic devices, and the blast that produces winds with ten times the force of a hurricane, demolishing everything, the detonation of nuclear weapons also leads to the emission of large amounts of ionizing radiation, which has serious deleterious effects on humans and many other species. Ionizing radiation is, in fact, a lurking danger as we cannot see it, we cannot smell it, we cannot hear it, and we cannot feel it immediately. But we certainly get harmed from it.
To reduce exposure to ionizing radiation and the risk of deleterious effects, we doctors usually warn our patients against having frequent examinations or procedures that involve x-rays. That is because x-rays are ionizing radiation that can harm your body in the same ways as radiation emitted by nuclear detonations. The main difference is that, for medical purposes, the radiation is applied in a controlled way.
The international standard unit for the dose of ionizing radiation is the Sievert. National guidelines in many countries warn against people having a cumulative dose of ionizing radiation exceeding 0.001 Sievert/year. The dose from a full body CT scan is 0.01 – 0.03 Sievert.
The ionizing radiation to which everybody in the vicinity of a nuclear detonation is exposed is so high and immediate that measuring in Sievert does not have much meaning. Such exposures are measured in Gray, where five Gray is reckoned to be lethal to 50% of those exposed (LD50). Even though these types of exposures are not directly comparable, for the common types of ionizing radiation, 1 Gray equals approximately 1.3 Sievert.
The intensity of the radiation at the epicenter of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki was estimated to be 320 Gray; one kilometer away it was 7.83 Gray; two kilometers away it was 0.13 Gray. The first two exposures are lethal; the third is about 130 times above the recommended yearly dose for humans. In an attempt to transform the radiation from a nuclear explosion into a standardized dose estimate, the highest reading of ionizing radiation from the fallout from the Trinity bomb, 32 km away from the detonation, and 3 hours later, was 0.190 Sievert/hour which equals 1.700 Sievert/year. There is evidence that a single dose of about five Sievert may be lethal. Cancer risk in general is reckoned to increase by approximately 5.5% for every Sievert/year.
Ionizing radiation and, in particular, gamma radiation, can penetrate tissue and cause harm throughout the body. Cells that have rapid life cycles are the most susceptible to acute damage. If the dose is high enough, the irradiated cells are simply killed by the radiation. That knowledge is used in all kinds of radiotherapy. The most susceptible cells are those of the central nervous system, blood cells, gamete cells, and barrier cells in the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, symptoms of acute radiation illness are drowsiness and convulsions, anemia and bleeding, and loss of body fluid by bleeding and through the gut. Patients are seen more or less unconscious with skin hemorrhages and bleeding out of every opening of the body. No treatment is available apart for attempts for symptomatic relieve.
Long term effects of too much ionizing radiation include congenital malformations from genetic damage to gamete cells, and an increased risk of different types of cancer as seen in the cohorts of survivors from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the past 70 years.
Detonation of a nuclear bomb generates both direct ionizing radiation from the explosion and also huge amounts of radioactive contamination that can spread with the wind into the atmosphere and precipitate as “fallout” onto land or water. The same can happen as a consequence of nuclear reactor disasters, such as Chernobyl and Fukushima. Such radioactive fallout is immediately deleterious to both humans and animals and can make large areas of land uninhabitable, unpastoral, and uncultivable for decades.
Ionizing radiation is normally present in nature from many sources in the Earth’s crust. Humans and animals have evolved to endure small amounts of ionizing radiation, with an assumed (but nevertheless controversial) “safe” dose of less than 0.001 Sievert/year. That is a fine and tender balance that should not be disturbed by the emission of unnecessary and dangerous ionizing radiation anywhere into the environment, whether by nuclear weapons or other human activities.
Cruz Threatens to Nuke ISIS Targets
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | December 8, 2015
As Republican presidential candidates lined up to one-up each other about how they would fight Islamic terrorism, many mainstream pundits questioned the hysteria and took particular aim at billionaire Donald Trump for seeking a moratorium on admitting Muslims to the United States, but Trump’s proposal was far from the most outrageous.
Getting much less attention was a statement by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is considered by many a more likely GOP nominee than Trump. Cruz suggested that the United States should nuke the territory in Iraq and Syria controlled by Islamic State militants.
“I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out,” Cruz told a Tea Party rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In reference to Cruz’s comment, a New York Times editorial added, “whatever that means.” But the phrase “glow in the dark” popularly refers to the aftermath of a nuclear bomb detonation.
In other words, Cruz was making it clear to his audience that he would be prepared to drop a nuclear bomb on Islamic State targets. While the bombastic senator from Texas was probably engaging in hyperbole – as he also vowed to “carpet bomb them into oblivion” – the notion of a major candidate for President cavalierly suggesting a nuclear strike would normally be viewed as disqualifying, except perhaps in this election cycle.
While Cruz drew little attention for his “glow in the dark” remark, Trump came under intense criticism for his proposal to block the admission of Muslims into the United States until the nation’s leaders can “figure out what is going on” in the aftermath of the Dec. 2 terror attack by a Muslim husband-and-wife team in San Bernardino, California.
Across mainstream politics and media, Trump’s idea was decried as both “unprecedented” from a top candidate for President and a likely violation of the U.S. Constitution which respects freedom of religion and requires equal protection under the law.
Other Republican candidates, even the more “moderate” ones, also talked tough about Muslims in what shaped up as a heated competition to outdo one another in appealing to the angry and frightened right-wing “base” of the GOP.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush argued that the threat from Muslims was unique: “The idea that somehow there are radical elements in every religion is ridiculous. There are no radical Christians that are organizing to destroy Western civilization. There are no radical Buddhists that are doing this. This is radical Islamic terrorism.”
Bush’s comment failed to recognize that the institution of Christianity has been at the center of “Western civilization” since the latter days of the Roman Empire and that “Christian” nations have routinely plundered other civilizations all over the planet, including across the Islamic world both in Asia and Africa. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Why Many Muslims Hate the West” and “Muslim Memories of West’s Imperialism.”]
Though inspired by a pacifist, Christianity has established a record as the most bloodthirsty religion in history, with its adherents conducting massacres and genocides in North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia – every continent except Antarctica, which is largely uninhabited by humans. In many cases, European Christians justified the repression and extermination of non-Christians as the will of God, deeming indigenous people to be “heathens.”
The violence by Western nations against Muslims also is not something confined to history books and the distant past. In 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair led an unprovoked invasion of Iraq which killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed much of Iraq’s national infrastructure.
In other words, in the view of many Middle Easterners, the West continues to wage war against their civilization. However, none of that reality is reflected in the current U.S. political and media debate, even when a major Republican candidate raises the prospect of dropping the Bomb.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Iraq calls on NATO to pressure Turkey into withdrawing troops
Press TV – December 8, 2015
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has called on NATO to pressure Turkey into recalling its troops from the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh.
According to a statement released by the Iraqi government on Tuesday, Abadi made the request during a phone call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“NATO must use its authority to urge Turkey to withdraw immediately from Iraqi territory,” read the statement issued after a 48-hour deadline for the troops’ removal expired.
Despite Iraq’s ultimatum, Ankara still has some 150 heavily-armed soldiers stationed on the outskirts of the city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province.
Turkey refuses to recall its troops claiming they are stationed there to train Iraqi forces battling the Daesh Takfiri militants.
During a press conference in the Ankara on Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that further troops deployment will be halted but those already stationed will not be withdrawn.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is set to hold closed-door talks, called by Russia, on Ankara’s military activities in Iraq and Syria.
“We want the secretariat to tell us what is happening in the region,” said Russia’s representative to the council, Peter Iliichev. “We want the secretariat to tell us what is happening in the region.”
Ties between Moscow and Ankara have been strained after Turkish jets shot down a Russian fighter plane on November 24.
Moscow has imposed a number of economic sanctions against Ankara following the incident.
UN passes Iranian-proposed nuclear disarmament resolution
Press TV – December 8, 2015
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has passed a resolution proposed by Iran aimed at bringing about the disarmament of nuclear powers.
On Monday, the Assembly voted 121 against 48 in favor of the non-binding resolution, which had already been cleared by its First Committee, aka Disarmament and International Security Committee. The voting saw 12 abstentions.
The resolution demands practical action by all nuclear-armed countries toward disarmament and the promotion of international stability and security for all.
It also demands unilateral steps by such countries to scale down their nuclear arsenals as well as more transparency regarding their nuclear arms capabilities and implementation of international agreements.
The Islamic Republic had devised the resolution based on the ratifications of the Review Conferences of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995, 2000, and 2010.
The majority of the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement threw their support behind the resolution. The United States, Israel, Canada, Britain, Russia, France, and Germany were among those voting against it, while China, South Korea, Japan, India, and Italy, among others, abstained.
Speaking after the approval of the resolution, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Gholam Hossein Dehqani (seen below) said, “It has been declared in Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that these countries are obliged to initiate negotiations for the disarmament and have been asked to put into force step-by-step measures for decommissioning nuclear weapons and then destroying them. Unfortunately, though, no effective or serious step has been taken in this direction.”
“The international community is insistent upon nuclear disarmament and the nuclear-armed countries’ implementation of their obligations. The current trend suggests that slowly, nuclear-armed countries and the Zionist regime (Israel), which possesses nuclear weapons, will move toward isolation in the General Assembly’s First Committee and other assemblies, and will certainly end up in worse circumstances every day,” the Iranian official added.
Israel is regarded as the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
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The Great Recycling Scam
By Dr. Vernon Coleman – 21st Century Wire – September 2, 2022
Recycling was introduced, worldwide, as a tool to teach citizens to become compliant.
Forcing citizens to sort their rubbish into up to nine separate bags or boxes every week had absolutely nothing to do with ‘saving the planet’ and everything to do with teaching citizens (through a mixture of fines and shame) to behave ‘responsibly’ i.e. to do as they were told without looking too closely at the rationale of what they were being told to do.
The recycling never had anything to do with protecting the planet, of course. Most of the rubbish sorted, washed and collected in the UK was taken abroad, by lorry or ship or train, and burnt or dumped. It was, quite simply, impractical and not cost effective to recycle the material that had been collected. And, of course, collecting the sorted rubbish involved massive costs in terms of cash and pollution.
Today, the recycling business has reached an apogee of lunacy. Councils introduce ever more complex rules and fees. They refuse to take away much of the waste that is collected. And those wanting to take their rubbish to a ‘recycling’ centre will probably have to make an appointment and answer a host of questions.
It is no surprise that fly-tipping has become a major problem. The biggest causes of plastic in the sea are dumped fishing gear and plastic waste (much of it officially designated as recycled) which has been dumped by ships.
The good news, however, is that in Britain, recycling rates are falling. More and more people have become aware that the whole recycling movement was just another piece of manipulative trickery.
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