With independence, Scotland could become a beacon for peace
Firstly Scotland is acting as a staging post for the US bombing missions in Iran and their assistance to Israel's war. Prestwick Airport, which is owned by the Scottish Government, has seen large numbers of US war plans landing and being refuelled on their way to wage war on Iran and to assist the Israeli war effort. It's time the Scottish Government closed this route for war by banning US war planes at Prestwick.
READ MORE: Scotland may be 'complicit in war crimes' allowing US to use Prestwick
Secondly, if this war in the Middle East extends to a global war, Scotland's nuclear base at Faslane will be the number one target for attack, and if it's hit then much of Glasgow will disappear. Surely it's time that this expensive and ineffective nuclear base was closed.
Thirdly, Scottish arms industries are supplying the Israeli war machines with vital spare parts and it's time this was ended.
Of course I realise that none of this can be achieved while Scotland is part of the UK and where Starmer's Labour government is guilty of failing to condemn Israel for genocide in Gaza or the US for its warlike interventions. Instead, they are grovelling to Trump in the hope of crumbs from his table.
Support for Scottish independence has reached a new high of 56% recently. Let's turn that into a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament elections next year. If that happens, the Scottish Parliament should declare our independence, end our complicity in war and instead make Scotland a beacon for peace in the world.
Hugh Kerr (former MEP)
Edinburgh
ARE nuclear weapons defensive or offensive? It seems the answer depends on whether the UK Government is talking about a lauded 'friend' or a condemned 'foe', a supposedly 'democratically elected' President or a supposedly 'expertly elected' Ayatollah.
The obscene devastation in Gaza and unabated slaughter of its people on the pretext of responding to the horrendous terrorist acts of October 7 is a totally disproportionate portend of what an expansionist, war-mongering, fanatical regime might impose on the rest of the Middle East if Iran is neutered militarily. This may suit Western governments (which appear to have learned little from the catastrophic consequences of war rhetoric ahead of the illegal invasion of Iraq), with 'energy companies' keen to further exploit Iran and the region's massive oil and gas reserves, but when will the British public stand up and say 'enough is enough'?
READ MORE: UK providing 'political cover' for US and Israel after Iran attack
Proscribing a protest group as a terrorist organisation for spray-paint vandalism would simply demonstrate how far the UK Government, aided and abetted by much of the UK mainstream media, is prepared to go in order to justify its lethal bias in the Middle East, where an out-of-control despot intent on obliterating cities and massacring civilians wreaks generational havoc.
Scotland, as an independent country, could choose a different path by genuinely promoting global nuclear disarmament and by ending compelled complicity in the actions of a 'British state' still posturing as a global super-power in order to feed the greed of international capitalist moguls and the wealthy British establishment while more inconsolable mothers cradle lifeless children in their forlorn arms.
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian
ARE we really expected to believe that British planes are working with the Israelis only to help find the hostages, and only information pertinent to this is given to the Israelis and shared with the US? Why are the hostages still not found? Why are British spy planes still flying over Gaza?
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and wounded since May 27th, when the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began distributing food in southern Gaza. On June 17, at least 51 people were killed and 200 wounded, including children, while waiting for food. Westminster talks big about finding a diplomatic solution while supporting Israel with British aircraft. Is this not complicity in war crimes?
READ MORE: UK Defence Secretary walks into oncoming traffic to escape Israel questions
Now that Iran is in the picture, Gaza is no longer in the news. This allows the IDF to run further amok in the Occupied Territories, destroying homes and businesses. What will be the end result of this destruction? The Riviera of the Middle East?
Keir Starmer is so enamoured with his 'special relationship' with Donald Trump and his rhetoric about Israel's right to defend itself that he ignores the message of the many thousands of UK citizens who march in protest against the treatment of the Palestinians and especially the carnage in Gaza.
Sophocles gives a message from the past that is so relevant for now: 'whoever makes his journey to a tyrant's court becomes his slave, although he went there a free man'.
Marion McPherson
Ayr
PALESTINE Action stage a protest at an RAF base and the Home Secretary announces she plans to proscribe them. The IDF slaughters in excess of 55,000 Palestinians and we give them armaments and surveillance assistance!
READ MORE: Mark Brown: Donald Trump's ultimatum is a threat to Iran and the Middle East
In the US, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before congress in March that Iran had a stock of materials but was not building nuclear weapons. President Trump did not challenge this, but now says she was 'wrong' and that intelligence showed Iran had a 'tremendous amount of material' and could have a nuclear weapon 'within months'.
Ms Gabbard has now made a statement to the effect that Iran could produce nuclear weapons 'within weeks' and that her March testimony (which seemed crystal clear at the time ) had been taken out of context by 'dishonest media'! To paraphrase the Doors from 1967 – strange days indeed!
Alan Woodcock
Dundee
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17 minutes ago
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