Global Peace Index: Britain Now One Of The Most Violent Nations On Earth

The Global Peace Index measures the state of peace in 162 countries according to 23 indicators that gauge the absence of violence or the fear of violence. It is produced annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

The UK, as an example, is relatively free from internal conflict, making it easy to fall to thinking it exists in a state of peace. However, disinformation and propaganda hides the disastrous results of its external efforts.

This year the results show that globally, levels of peace remained largely stable over the last year, however, peace is still lower than when the financial crisis emerged seven years ago.

The most peaceful countries are Iceland, Denmark and Austria. The countries that made the biggest improvements in peace over the last year, generally benefited from the ending of wars with neighbours and involvement in external conflict. The biggest improvers were: Guinea-Bissau, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt and Benin.

The world is less peaceful today than it was in 2008. The indicators that have deteriorated the most are the number of refugees and the number of deaths from internal conflict and the impact of terrorism. Last year alone it is estimated that 20,000 people were killed in terrorist attacks up from an average of 2,000 a year only 10 years ago.

One should not forget that the number of people forced to flee their homes across the world has exceeded 50 million for the first time since the second world war, an exponential rise that is stretching host countries and aid organisations to breaking point.

Syria remains the world’s least peaceful country, followed by Iraq and Afghanistan. The country that suffered the most severe deterioration in peace was Libya, which now ranks 149th of 162 countries. Ukraine suffered the second largest deterioration: following a western backed revolution which brought down the democratically elected administration of Viktor Yanukovych, the country quickly descended into violence, meaning it scored poorly on organised conflict indicators.

It is interesting to see that these least peaceful countries in the world are the ones where the West (and more particularly the UK and the US), have got themselves deeply embroiled in geo-political conflicts – Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine.

The total economic impact of violence last year reached US$14.3 trillion, or 13.4% of global GDP. That’s equivalent to the combined economies of Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and the UK and is a shocking indictment of civilisation as a whole.

According to a 1998 United Nations estimate, ending extreme poverty in the world by providing education, water, sanitation, nutrition and basic health care to the entire population of every developing country would cost $58 billion per year. This represents less than one percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world – or put another way, the income of the top 100 wealthiest people.

Of the 162 countries the IEP analysed for its 2015 Global Peace Index, 81 – exactly half were rated as having no involvement in external conflict.

The worst country in the world for internal conflict was Uganda, according to the IEP. It has been heavily involved in fighting in the DR Congo, as well as in skirmishes with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of Joseph Kony in border regions.

The US came second, followed by Rwanda and then the United Kingdom. 

The UK has the 22nd highest population in the world, is contemplating exiting from the worlds most peaceful region (the EU) and holds the rank of fourth most violent nation on earth behind Uganda and Rwanda. Rwanda and Uganda are both nations of Commonwealth and both are supposed to cooperate within a framework of common values and goals as outlined in the Singapore Declaration issued in 1971.

Common values of the Commonwealth include the promotion of democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, individual liberty, egalitarianism, free trade, multilateralism, and world peace which are carried out through multilateral projects and meetings, none of which are being exercised by Uganda and Rwanda given the top most violent nations ranking.

British has a bloody and very violent past. Since the second world war, Britain has been involved in 30 conflicts and troops have been fighting somewhere in the world every single year for the 100 years.

On David Cameron’s own Facebook page he states “Our nations (US and UK) have always believed that we are more prosperous and secure when the world is more prosperous and secure”. He continues “Countries like Britain and America will not be cowed by barbaric killers. We will be more forthright in the defence of our values, not least because a world of greater freedom is a fundamental part of how we keep our people safe. We must invest in the building blocks of free and open societies, including creating a genuinely inclusive government in Iraq that unites all Iraqis, including Sunni, Shia, Kurdish, Christian and other minority populations”.

As for Ukraine, David cameron says “We must use our military to ensure a persistent presence in eastern Europe, making clear to Russia that we will always uphold our Article 5 commitments to collective self-defence. We must back this up with a multinational rapid response force, composed of land, air, maritime and special forces”. Not the language of a peacemaker and nothing more than an open threat to Russia.

The result of this global survey is that it clearly demonstrates that we are not more prosperous or safe, the world does not have greater freedom or inclusive governments in exactly the same places that David Cameron and previous British governments have got the country involved in. The same can be said of America.

The US coming second to Uganda in this report is utterly misleading in every way possible.

In 2013, the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) — one of the nine organizational units that make up the Unified Combatant Command — had special operations forces (SOFs) in 134 countries, where they were either involved in combat, special missions, or “advising and training” foreign forces such as in Syria. SOCOM admits to having forces on the ground in 134 countries around the world, so this is not a point of dispute. Uganda is involved in two conflicts.

The Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC, along with the Special Activities Division at the CIA, have been the leading edge of counterterrorism under Obama. Journalists Dana Priest and William Arkin found that JSOC has carried out counterterrorism operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Malaysia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen to name just a few.

In addition, The United States has been involved in and assisted “regime change” without the overt use of the United States military. Often, such operations are tasked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Regime change has been attempted through direct involvement of US operatives, the funding and training of insurgency groups within these countries, anti-regime propaganda campaigns, coups d’état, and other activities usually conducted as operations by the CIA. The list of countries involved makes for sobering reading.

From a global perspective, the death toll in the world’s most brutal conflicts climbed by more than 28 percent in 2014.  76,000 people were killed in Syria, 21,000 in Iraq and nearly 15,000 in Afghanistan in 2014 – the vast majority civilians. In addition, Ukraine has experienced a civil war that has cost the lives of nearly 10,000 people in just one year.

The world as a whole has been getting incrementally less peaceful every year for the last decade – sharply bucking a trend that had seen a global move away from conflict since the end of the Second World War.

Research conducted by the EuropeanGeostrategy.org website has revealed, no doubt to the surprise of many, that the United Kingdom is indeed still a global power, and comes second only to the United States in terms of influence on the world stage.

Britain has had considerable influence in the outcomes of nations that are being systematically destroyed because it follows a disastrous foreign policy driven by the United States. It should use it’s power and influence to calm the world, act as a peace negotiator and mediator and change its ways from being one of the worlds biggest warmongers and incitement of global warfare, terrorism and fear.

Graham Vanbergen – TruePublica

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