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Debunking official myths, starting with our own
Lode Vanoost
Lode Vanoost is a former Deputy Speaker of Belgium’s House of Representatives. Since 2004, he has worked as a consultant on parliamentary methodology to international institutions in post-conflict countries and emerging democracies. Concern over crimes against humanity committed by our opponents is fake, he believes, when matched by silence over or denial/approval of those same crimes, committed by ourselves or our allies. Lode Vanost considers it a moral duty to write about our own crimes first. These are his personal opinions on a wide range of international issues. He publishes regularly on the Dutch-language Belgian news sites www.uitpers.be and www.dewereldmorgen.be.
22 May, 2012, 15:29
New age colonialism: West buying up Third World?
Multinational corporations are buying up swathes of land in underdeveloped countries in an unchecked scramble towards new-age colonialism. So-called “land grabbing” sees western powers vying for economic control of the developing world’s resources. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently gathered...
26 February, 2012, 19:19
African leaders as we like them: Cultured with us, corrupt and cruel with ‘them’
French justice is looking into the fortunes of three African presidents. Finally. Why now? Why not 30 years ago when it could have mattered? Many an African leader has a modest dwelling or two in the nicer neighborhoods of Paris, the city of lights and other delicacies. Teodora Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been president of Equatorial Guinea since 1979. He is also one of the wealthiest heads of...
13 February, 2012, 12:08
Greek austerity: It’s about ideology, not economy
Why can’t the Greeks accept reason? Do they know something we don’t? Yes, they do. They know what’s really at stake and they are not taking it. They see through the arguments from the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the IMF, the World Bank. Most of all, they see through the ideological tear-gas smokescreen their banker government is spreading to obfuscate their real intentions....
2 February, 2012, 13:17
From Syria to Haiti: Another showcase of Western hypocrisy
Haitian justice decided not to prosecute Haitian dictator ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier for human rights crimes during his gruelling regime. Western governments have an easy opportunity to grab a tyrant – no need for UN resolutions or military intervention – he is there for the taking. Instead they do nothing. For good reasons, one of them being that he was ‘our’ dictator. While the free western nations...
18 December, 2011, 20:08
Another African democrat that never stood a chance
Western powers never supported South African leader Steve Biko, just as they do not support democracy in Libya, Bahrain and Saudi-Arabia today. Last 8 October I wrote “Why true African leaders never stand a chance” about Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and also referred to Patrice Lumumba. In that blog I denounced the complicity of Western former colonial powers in the repression of Africa, from...
7 December, 2011, 16:52
Setting the record straight on Belgium
528 days after the election of June 13, 2010 (!) Belgium finally has a new government, a disreputable record. What was that all about? For just this one blog, I’d like to go “local”. For me, Brussels is not “the European Union”, it’s my hometown and Belgium, for better or worse, is my country. This 6 December, 2011, Belgium finally has a new national government, a year and a half after the last...
26 November, 2011, 12:13
What East Timor 20 years ago tells us about Libya today
Twenty years ago, undeniable evidence of a massacre by the Indonesian army in East Timor failed to galvanize us into action. In Libya, we went to war without any evidence at all. What’s the difference? East Timor (Timor Leste by its official name) is the first new sovereign state of the 21st century. It was also one of the last colonies. These days, the country barely makes the headlines. So –...
14 November, 2011, 12:34
‘Weapons of mass destruction’: the sequel
Israel’s hoopla around the possible nuclear proliferation by Iran has a familiar feel. There’s a scent of déjà vu in the air, so potent that nobody with a functioning nose can deny it. Only ideological filters can keep a person from smelling it. Sequels of blockbuster movies rarely ever match the original. They lack the creativity of the original idea. It’s mostly an attempt to cash in on easy...
2 November, 2011, 19:31
EU abolishing democracy?
How should we interpret the negative reactions to the Greek referendum initiative? Greek Prime Minister Papandreou has dropped a virtual bomb. His idea of submitting the recent “haircut” deal to the popular vote in Greece was not well received in Brussels (Paris, Berlin …). It is still unclear what exactly the question to the Greek population will be: a yes/no to the austerity plan or to the...
25 October, 2011, 11:07
A great Arab leader has passed away
Saudi Crown Prince Abdul Aziz was an ally of the West – "our kind of guy," not like that villain Gaddafi. Crown Prince Sultan Abdul Aziz was not your average Saudi. He was a half-brother of King Abdullah and apparently very talented. In 1953, at just 17 years of age, Sultan Abdul-Aziz had already become governor of the city of Ryadh. H went on to hold a range of top jobs in the government,...
