Archive 1986 – 2017

Will the Bush regime “prevail” and go to war? Or will it listen to citizens – and quite a few governments – around the world and think? Could it be that President Bush is projecting his own subconscious and fears when he tells Saddam that “the game is over”? Could it be that he and the apparently desperate people around him are beginning to feel that their bullying and vision-less game – not with the world but against it – could spell the end of their regime and the U.S. empire? Political fundamentalism The Bush regime is politically fundamentalist: we are right, they are wrong. It’s based on the flawed assumption that policies can be based on a) dictating to friends and foes alike that they are either with us/U.S. or against us/U.S., and b) ignoring every type of listening, consulting and consensus-building policies with rightfully concerned parties, including its closest friends. So, regrettable...

19 februari 2003 Av ett TT-meddelande i Skånskan den 24/1 2003 framgick, att USA:s sändebud för krigsbrottsfrågor på Balkan, Pierre-Richard Prosper, ska fördubbla sina ansträngningar för att gripa den bosnienserbiske ledaren Radovan Karadzic och den militäre befälhavaren Ratko Mladic, båda åtalade vid Haag-tribunalen. Prosper har sagt, att de båda efterlysta måste gripas senast den 31 mars, annars kommer Republika Srpska, att gå miste om ekonomiskt stöd. Serberna på Balkan lever genom USA:s demonisering och sanktioner, i extremt fattiga områden i Bosnien eller i regelrätta fångläger i Kosovo. USA fick Europas stöd för att bomba Serbien. Återuppbyggnadsstödet till de serbiska områdena har varit minimalt och har ständigt använts till utpressning, främst av aggressorn USA, men även den svenska regeringen har villkorat den utlovade hjälpen till Republika Srpska och gör det fortfarande. I Kosovo bor nu bara en spillra kvar av den ursprungliga serbiska befolkningen. De kosovoalbaner som flydde under bombningarna har alla kunnat...

Krig förvandlas inte till fred av ett FN-mandat Regeringar, redaktörer, kommentatorer och till och med de som verkar för att stödja Förenta nationerna uttrycker för närvarande som sin uppfattning att ett krig mot Irak är, eller kommer att vara, godtagbart om Förenta staterna och andra “går tillbaka” till FN:s säkerhetsråd och får ett “FN-mandat” innan de går till anfall. Men detta är ett felaktigt resonemang och skulle kunna medföra att FN som fredsorganisation upphör att existera. Om man anser att det planerade kriget innebär eller medför en kränkning av folkrätten, blir det inte mer folkrättsenligt av ett sådant mandat. Om man anser att kriget är moraliskt felaktigt eller orättfärdigt gör inte ett sådant mandat att det blir riktigt eller rättfärdigt. Om man anser att kriget inte har något att skaffa med konfliktlösning utan måste placeras i kategorin angreppskrig, förvandlas inte kriget till klok politik genom en resolution &endash; som oundvikligen...

Et FN mandat laver ikke krig til fred. Regeringer, journalister og kommentatorer, ja selv FN-sympatisører udtrykker for tiden den opfattelse at en krig mod Irak er eller vil være acceptabel, hvis USA og andre “går tilbage” til Sikkerhedsrådet og får et “FN-mandat” før man går til angreb på Irak. Men det er en vildfarelse, der kunne indebære enden på FN som en fredsorganisation. Hvis man har den opfattelse, at krigen er eller medfører et brud på international ret, så gør et sådant mandat den ikke mere lovlig. Hvis man mener, at krigen er moralsk forkert eller urimelig, så gør et sådant mandat den ikke mere rigtig eller rimelig. Hvis man mener, at krig ikke har noget at skaffe med konfliktløsning, men udgør en aggression, så vil en resolution – der uundgåeligt vil være et resultat af en studehandel mellem de fem permanente sikkerhedsrådsmedlemmer (kernevåbenmagter) og de øvrige 10 medlemmer –...

Governments, editors, commentators and even supporters of the United Nations currently express the view that a war against Iraq is, or will be, acceptable if the United States and others “go back” to the Security Council and obtain a “UN mandate” before they attack. But, this is false logic and could spell the end of the UN as a peace organisation. If you think that the planned war is or entails a violation of international law, such a mandate does not make it more legal. If you think that the war is morally wrong or unfair, such a mandate won’t make it right or just. If you think that war has nothing to do with conflict-resolution but must be categorised as aggression, a resolution – inevitably the result of horse-trading among the Five Permanent (and nuclear) Security Council members and the other ten under the leadership of Columbia – does...

I tal och TV-program om Irak och senast under utrikesdebatten ger utrikesminister Anna Lindh uttryck för åsikten att sanktionerna inte är en orsak till det irakiska folkets lidande. Det är däremot Saddam Hussein. Ministern säger att Irak ju får importera livsmedel och mediciner. Från riksdagens talarstol hävdade hon t ex att cancerbekämpande utrustning fritt kan importeras, men bara går “till eliten.” Utrikesministern förklarar att sanktionernas negativa effekter är en följd av regimens felaktiga prioriteringar. Undertecknade har vistats i sammanlagt en månad i Irak. Vi har besökt sjukhus och talat med läkare och sjukskötare, t ex på Mor Och Barn-sjukhuset i den helt nedgångna staden Basra i söder och med österrikiska läkare som arbetar i staden. Vi har talat med patienter och med föräldrar till döende barn. Vi har sett barn med leukemi vars behandling har måst avbrytas i brist på medicin. Vi har talat med koordinatorn för FN:s humanitära program,...

LONDON – The United States is rushing full tilt at Iraq when, as Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister said a few days ago, “we haven’t finished the first job [in Afghanistan]; we can’t see the end of it”. He puts his finger right on the sore point: where is Osama bin Laden whom President George Bush is meant to be “smoking out”, the overriding foreign policy objective until the diversion of Iraq suddenly appeared (or was concocted)? Just to be mischievous the current issue of Prospect magazine, the leading British political monthly, muddies the waters even more. What if China chose this moment, when America is preoccupied with Iraq, North Korea, and Afghanistan and supposedly bin Laden to launch an attack on Taiwan? This could be the perfect moment to strike and regain the renegade island for the motherland whilst the U.S. has its hands full. After all since 1972...

Lecture at the Social Summit in Porto Alegre, January 2003 The ceaseless bombing and imminent invasion of Iraq by the USA and allies, particularly the UK, is one more step in the geo- fascist march toward world hegemony. It is “fascist” because of ruthless use of blunt state power, only “geo” as long as some US democracy is left. Serving a three-point agenda – oil, bases and Israel – other points have been brought up to legitimize war. But these points can all be solved by governments, building on successful governmental diplomacy after the Second World War. A Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Middle East, CSCME, modeled on the Helsinki Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, CSCE, 1973-75. The initiative was taken by a small country, Finland, the veto making the UN inadequate. Today Germany could take the imitative, or, even better, the EU. Participants would be...

We are on the brink of a war that will undoubtedly be disastrous for the people of Iraq, and likely even more so for the people of the United States. Listening to President Bush’s rhetoric, one has the feeling that it is Hate Week in Orwell’s 1984.  Surely, Saddam Hussein is a dictator who has committed atrocities in the past. Surely, the American people can be aroused to hate Saddam. These are the buttons that are being pushed by Bush and his militant advisors who are eager for war.  As Bush raises shrill charges against Hussein, US troops take up their positions on his orders surrounding Iraq. According to Bush, “Saddam has the motive and the means and the recklessness and the hatred to threaten the American people.” But exactly what motive could he have? Self-destruction? The desire to see himself and his country destroyed? On the contrary, his motivation seems...

LONDON – Let’s assume we are all hardliners. Let’s assume the worst about North Korea. But don’t be too surprised, as we analyse the situation as card-carrying hawks, if we end up in the same position as President Bill Clinton when he was thinking of bombing North Korea’s nuclear installations at the time of the last big crisis in 1994 and conclude that we have no choice but to heed the advice of the doves. Victor Cha is a professor at Georgetown University, a North Korean specialist and a hawk. He has always believed the worst about President Kim Jong-il. Everything he says and writes is charged with an acceptance of worst-case scenarios. He takes nothing the North Koreans say or do at face value. He is suspicious of the regime’s apparent desire to be friendlier to South Korea, assuming that this is a tactical manoeuvre rather than a strategic shift....

The fast-emerging global socio-political and scientific scenario is an eloquent reminder of the speed with which the forces released by science and technology and aided by human greed has dismantled almost at one stroke all humanity hitherto believed invincible. Nothing is sacrosanct now. The geopolitical compulsions and the mad frenzy of both developed and developing nations, to appropriate for themselves all what they can lay their hands on, reminds us of the haste and anxiety seen among the nocturnal thieves to plunder completely and decamp with the booty before anyone wakes up in the house. It appears that a kind of colonial instinct also guides modern man in all his activities. Only the label changes, the bottle and the decoction continue to be the same. The Major Challenges It appears that among the major challenges of the twenty-first century will be : i) Taming the monster of violence and keeping...

LONDON – The continental Europeans, Germany and France in particular, made a grave tactical mistake last week in making it clear to Washington that they felt the UN inspections were working and that the inspectors should be given a lot more time. They appear to have undermined one of two people who have some chance of bending President George Bush’s ear on the subject of going to war- Secretary of State Colin Powell. (The other is British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.) They should do some homework- and not depend on filtered reports from advisors- and read for themselves Powell’s autobiography. Colin Powell’s deepest roots are not in Harlem where he was born but in Jamaica from whence came his parents. He remains the quintessential outsider. His music is calypso and reggae, not Motown and soul; his favourite drink is Appleton’s rum, not beer or whiskey and comfort food for him is...