Re: Conference on the Special Relationship (UK)

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

I don't see why this conference is needed. The US tells the UK what to do. They do it. Period. 

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




> -----Original Message-----
> From: k hanly [mailto:khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 7:20 AM
> To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L] Conference on the Special Relationship (UK)
> 
> 
> [ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ]
> 
> Call for a Conference on the "Special Relationship"
> ****************************************
> 
> Website: www.specialrelationship.net   Subscribe to the 
> discussion list by
> sending a blank message to 
> specialrelationship-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> You are invited to participate in a project to organise a 
> two-day Conference
> on the "Special Relationship". It will be a national conference with
> international dimension, with speakers from the US, the 
> Middle East and
> elsewhere. It will take place in Sheffield in early 2005, and 
> maybe also in
> Manchester and London. A book will be produced of the 
> Conference papers.
> 
> The main themes of the Conference will include:
> -    the origins of the "special relationship" in post-WW2 
> Middle East, in
> particular the 1953 military coup in Iran and the 1956 Suez Crisis;
> -    the economic relations between the US and the UK;
> -    the $ vs.?, US vs. Europe
> -    the "special relationship goes to war" - the invasion 
> and military
> occupation of Iraq;
> -    the Israel-US-UK triangle
> -    what is imperialism? (This has been included as a theme since
> examination of the specific alliance between imperialist USA 
> and UK needs to
> be informed by a working concept of imperialism in general)
> Please contact us via our website or discussion list for a 
> full Conference
> Prospectus, in which these themes are broken down into 
> individual elements.
> All who read this are invited to consider submitting a paper 
> on any of these
> topics - and we welcome suggestions for new topics.
> 
> The Conference Working Group invites and urges you to offer 
> some of your
> time over the next twelve months to realising this project. 
> We need YOUR
> help with many and varied tasks - from selecting articles for 
> the website
> and considering proposed papers, to designing publicity, 
> raising funds,
> translating important articles into English, organising the Conference
> itself. Please volunteer to help share these tasks, and you 
> will also share
> in the overall design and direction of the event.
> 
> 
> ***********************
> 
> What is the "special relationship"?
> 
> The 1956 Suez crisis ended Britain's pretensions of being a 
> stand-alone
> imperial power. Ever since, Britain has protected its vast 
> "interests" in
> the Middle East and elsewhere by maintaining the closest of 
> alliances with
> the USA.
> This "special relationship" is responsible for doz-ens of 
> military coups and
> invasions, the deaths of millions of people, and the theft of 
> trillions of
> dollars.
> Few phenomena are as important, yet suffer such 
> incomprehension, as the
> "special relation-ship". At the Labour Party Conference, 
> Jeremy Corbyn asked
> with amazement "why are we, a British Labour Government with 
> a very large
> Parliamentary majority, so signed up to the ul-tra-right wing 
> George Bush?"
> A review of the 50-year"special relationship" and of the 
> Labour Party's rôle
> within it would show that nothing could be more natural.
> 
> Did you know.
> 
> Question: what is the name of biggest oil com-pany within the US?
> Answer: BP (British Petroleum), which has 40% of its 
> employees in the USA.
> 
> Question: the ruling families of which country own two of the 
> three biggest
> oil companies in the world?
> Answer: Britain (BP and Shell; Exxon is the big-gest). BP has major
> interests from Colombia to Africa to central Asia. Along with 
> other British
> banks and multinationals, it relies on US mili-tary power to 
> protect its
> property and super-profits.
> 
> Question: which country is 2nd only to the USA in the size of 
> its empire of
> overseas wealth?
> Answer: .you've guessed it; Britain. In 2001, Britain's 
> overseas direct
> investments totalled $902bn, 14.4% of the world total 
> (compared to 21.1%
> owned by US imperialists, 7.9% owned by the French, 7.8% 
> owned by Germans,
> and 4.6% owned by Japanese).
> 
> *********************************
> 
> The motive for the Conference is to respond to the almost 
> universal failure
> of the anti-war movement to comprehend why Britain has joined 
> in the US-led
> war and occupation of Iraq. "Blair is Bush's poodle" sums up 
> a widespread
> view, propounded by Steve Bell cartoons, Tony Benn, the SWP 
> and many other
> influential voices critical of the Blair government's actions. It is a
> notion which only makes sense if we ignore the fact that 
> Britain is itself
> an imperialist power, the home for two of the three largest 
> oil companies in
> the world, and the owner of the second-largest stock of FDI 
> after the USA
> (second to none in relation to its size).
> 
> The Conference organisers (at the moment, myself and a number of other
> non-aligned activists in the anti-sanctions and anti-war 
> movements) have a
> working concept of the 'special relationship' which the 
> Conference will test
> and enrich. Central to it is the perception that the 'special 
> relationship'
> was forged in the Middle East following WW2, as the US and UK 
> were forced
> into an alliance in order to confront and roll back democratic and
> nationalist movements in oil-rich and strategically important Iran and
> Arabia. There is no "special relationship" (or only a weak 
> reflection of it)
> in Africa, Asia or Latin America. The rest of the world tends 
> to be divided
> into 'spheres of influence'; in the Middle East, these 
> spheres overlap like
> nowhere else. [I leave aside the very different case of West 
> Germany during
> the Cold War].
> 
> The aim of the Conference is to assemble all the relevant 
> facts which we
> need to answer the question "why did Britain go to war". It 
> aims to put this
> war and this crisis into its necessary context - this is why 
> it might seem,
> at first glance, that the history and current reality of 
> Iraq's crisis is
> just an aspect of a more general remit, when in fact it is 
> right at the
> centre of the Conference, its raison d'être, no less. "
> 
> John Smith (johncsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx),
> Convenor of Conference Working Group
> 
> 
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