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Review Thirty-one year old Virgil Hawkins’ dissertation is a treasure of information and solid analysis at a time when the largest reforms of the United Nations since its establishment are being discussed. Although not his aim, Hawkins’s book could be said to make the case for the most important UN reform of all: learn from earlier mistakes and get engaged in the most important conflicts; take on the conflicts that cost many human lives and make, finally, the UN an organisation for all humankind not just for the few. The truth Hawkins tells us is this: the Council has failed miserably to respond to the conflicts that cost most lives and concentrated on minor ones – because of members’ narrow interest policies. Globalisation takes place in the economic and military spheres of international society – but there is not yet anything resembling a globalised ethics or conflict-management. Peace enforcement and...

Migrated from the TFF legacy site archive. War on Ignorance By Maria Ahmed, Bangkok Post Interview with Chaiwat Satha-Anand, TFF associate October 17, 2003 PERSPECTIVE – Sunday 28 September 2003 Bangkok Post Reforming Islam Conservative Muslims have so sidelined moderates and liberals that an Asian-style economic miracle is needed to break their grip on Islamic politics and religion Neither a lackey of the United States nor historically an oppressor of Muslims, Thailand nevertheless finds itself on the frontline of the War on Terror. The arrest in July of al-Qaeda suspect Hambali in Ayutthaya – and reports suggesting that the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network has over 100 recruits here – exposed the indiscriminate violence planned by Islamic extremists. Like football hooligans, Muslim terrorists are said to ruin the match for all the real fans, the mainstream Islamists who claim to be peace-loving democrats. But a recent Economist survey of Islam and...

Eller lær tallene 11-17-20 Sæt hælene i, 11.september-minde-propaganda-dampmaskinen er på igen – for at kue oppositionen mod USA’s krige og imperialistiske politik. De følgende punkter er tænkt som en hjælp til dig, så du kan bevare et sagligt perspektiv. Jeg tar dem op i dybeste respekt for de uskyldige mennesker der døde den 11. september 2001, og ligeledes for de uskyldige der døde ved angrebene på Afghanistan og Irak i den følgende krig mod terrorisme. Brug disse synspunkter – især hvis du er lærer, journalist eller på anden måde er en engageret medborger. Lær og husk: 11 – 7 – 20 Blot dette inden vi tager punkterne op. På hundredevis af foredrag, taler og interviewer i mange lande, har jeg spurgt publikum om de ved hvad d.11.september er. Selvfølgelig gør de det, og nogle nævner også det USA-støttede militærkup mod den folkevalgte regering under Salvador Allende i Chile 1973, for...

International Symposium fo PeaceHiroshima, 3 August 2003 Lord Mayor, Hiroshima City, The Asahi Shimbun, Ladies, Gentlemen, We are 58 years away from 0815 in the morning of 0608 1945 when that B-29 dropped “Little Boy”, and USA committed nuclear genocide on Hiroshima, and then on Nagasaki. The call for the abolition of nuclear weaponry is as urgent as ever given the nuclear politics of USA, North Korea, Israel, Iran and others. To understand better the causes, we have to ask again why USA committed this atrocity. The decision was not made by any single person but by a group so we are talking of collective motivation. Some of the motivation was probably built around a desire to bring the war to a quicker end and to impress the No. 2 contender for world power, the Soviet Union. But much naivete is needed to assume that all motivation is conscious, passes...

en hurtig patentløsning på Iraks uddannelsessystem Hvilken slags uddannelse vil Iraks børn få under den amerikanske besættelse ? Vi har hørt det igen og igen og vi ved det er en gammel sandhed: Vore børn er fremtiden. I disse uger fokuserer medierne næsten udelukkende på krigen, på militærfolk som “genopbygger” Irak (efter, at de har ødelagt det) og de fokuserer på politikken. Men sammen med sikkerheden er der intet aspekt af efterkrigstidens genopbygning, forsoning og udviklingen, som er vigtigere end uddannelsessystemet i bredeste forstand. Det fortjener bestemt større medieopmærksomhed end det får. Hvad den amerikanske besættelsesadministration gør i disse uger og måneder, har til hensigt at have en langsigtet indflydelse på det irakiske samfund – altså hvis de lykkes. Det er derfor naturligt, at jeg blev nysgerrig for nogen få dage siden, da jeg modtog en e-mail fra en ven, som spørger om jeg har set, at Washington-firmaet Creative Associates...

Do you want to know who the Americans running Iraq really are? Continued from Part 2. ORHA, the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance L. Paul Bremer and General Jay Garner and a team of some 300 retired military men, diplomats and functionaries from numerous government agencies have been "recruited" or "appointed" by the Bush administration and, especially, by the Pentagon to administer postwar Iraq through the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance that comes under Pentagon. Here are the backgrounds and profiles about some of them. Interestingly, there are very few questions asked in the free press about this completely undemocratic, ambiguous method to take over a country and shape its future. JAY GARNER Governor – Co-ordinator Retired US general, pro-Israel from the defence industry, with a past job in Northern Iraq, supposed to be the highest authority Sometimes called the new "viceroy" of Iraq, Retired Lieutenant General Jay...

The Unconquerable World June 17, 2003 The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People. By Jonathan Schell. New York: Metropolitan Books (Henry Holt and Co.). 412 pp. $27.50. Ever since his earliest days as a writer, more than three decades ago, Jonathan Schell has had an uncanny ability to depict public preoccupations in an arresting manner. His superb journalistic coverage of the Vietnam War for The New Yorker later published as The Village of Ben Suc, remains to this day the best battlefield account of the war, and a classic in its genre. But Schell’s worldwide fame was established back in 1982 with the publication of The Fate of the Earth, an eloquent disquisition on the unsustainability of the nuclear arms standoff at the core of the cold war. As with all his work Schell has a special gift for articulating the most urgent concerns of the...

Continued from Part 1. DONALD RUMSFELD, PAUL WOLFOWITZ & RICHARD PERLE Secretaries.Ideologists with their own Special Plans. Masters of a war meaning peace and other “Newspeak” With the illegal war on and occupation of Iraq, the first two personalities need no further introduction. They are Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secreary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz. Then there one of the leading architects of the whole Iraq imbroglio, “The Prince of Darkness”, Richard Perle of the American Enteprise Institute and of the Defense Policy Board. It’s objective is to “serve the public interest by providing the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary for Policy with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning major matters of defense policy. Nine members of the Board have ties to defense contractors. Further, Perle is well-connected to the international media world through Hollinger Digital Inc., the media management and investment arm of Hollinger International Inc. whose online newspapers and holdings include The Daily Telegraph in London and Jerusalem...

Migrated from the TFF legacy site archive. Millennial Message Three truths – the future matters, nuclear weapons are evil and life is a miracle By David Krieger, president Nuclear Age Peace Foundation http://www.napf.org & http://www.wagingpeace.org TFF associate We are at the beginning of a new century and millennium. If there was ever a time for reflection, this should be it. In the spirit of Ernest Hemingway, who said that he always wrote about the truest things that he knew, I would like to make three points that I believe are true, obvious, and seriously under-appreciated. The future matters First, the future matters. Life is not only for today. We are linked to all that has preceded us and to all that will follow. What we do today will affect the future. If we live only for ourselves, we cut off possibilities for the future. If we think only about ourselves,...

Losing all three wars on Iraq There are basically three wars or struggles in the Iraq conflict. There is the war the media is waging for the hearts and minds of people. Second, there is the military war and the promised removal of the Iraqi regime. And, third, there is the war to control and run post-war Iraq and live up to the official motives of bringing freedom, democracy, welfare and prosperity to its 24 million citizens. War # 1: The public relations war The public relations war is aimed at the hearts and minds of people around the globe. It attempts to demonise the Baghdad regime while contrasting it with the noble, altruistic goals to be achieved by the war. Heads of state and governments that were in favour of war have promoted these aims through propaganda, public relations campaigns, psychological warfare, etc, in an effort to sell the...

Da Sikkerhedsrådet i 1991, i kølvandet på Golfkrigen, besluttede om inspektioner og sanktioner, må det have lidt af nogen grad af hybris. Irak skulle straffes for invasionen af Kuwait – og Irak invaderede Kuwait og det var tåbeligt og ulovligt at gøre. Sanktioner skulle sætte pres på regimet og, håbede man, få folket til at vende sig mod ledelsen. Så hårde som sanktionerne var, var de beregnet for kun at skulle gælde i kort tid, den tid det formodedes at tage at finde og ødelægge Iraks masseødelæggelsesvåben. Krigens vindere dikterede vilkårene. Irak, taberen, skulle adlyde betingelsesløst. Ophævelsen af sanktionerne blev gjort afhængig af afleveringen til sikkerhedsrådet af en rapport, som fastslog, at alt, hvad der kunne anvendes til fremstilling af kerne- biologiske eller kemiske våben, var fundet og ødelagt, at der ikke var noget af den slags tilbage nogetsteds i Iraq. Her er den fælde, som forårsagedes af sejrherrernes hybris....