Conflict

. It may well come to be seen in the future as an indicator of the beginning of the end. Earlier that same day, Britain’s highest court ruled PM Boris Johnson’s suspension of Parliament unlawful and in the evening, the US House launched an impeachment inquiry against President Trump. These are huge matters. They are not momentary crises. It is entire systems approaching existential breakdown – and not because of foreign adversaries but because of their own morally corrupt actions and policies – or system fatique: systems so worn out and tired (of itself, too) that they don’t have the energy needed for re-vitalization. The two most important Western leading societies in contemporary history – a former Empire and the present one – increasingly look like failed states, failed societies, and failing their own ideals and laws. What we see is a decay of morals, an erosion of democracy and...

By Pressenza New York September 18, 2019 Originally posted on Pressenza New York’s website on September 09, 2019 here On this show we speak with Alice Slater about the historical process of nuclear weapon treaties and the relationship between the US and Russia. Alice is the UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, sits on the boards of World Beyond War, Nuclear Ban US, and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, and is a member of the Global Council of Abolition 2000. She is on the NYC Working Group for the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) ‘s campaign to promote the newly passed treaty to ban the bomb. Alice is a member of the NYC Bar Association and has written numerous articles and op-eds for Pressenza. Political actions you can take to ban the bomb and cut down the war...

Iran Collage # 1 On August 21, 2019, Iran’s foreign minister, Dr. Javad Zarif, gave a speech at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI. Zarif spoke at length without a manuscript, in details and with references to facts and history of the region and the conflict’s history – based on a cohesive framework of theories, concepts and interpretation – which, taken together, places him in a category of his own among the world’s foreign ministers. The UN Security Council Resolution – 598 of 1987 – that Zarif refers to can be read here. One should indeed be grateful to SIPRI for having invited him. • Politically correct, tired routine coverage by the leading Swedish media Generally speaking, leading Swedish mainstream media have been promoting a negative view of Iran as well as Javad Zarif himself. The largest coverage has been about human rights in Iran, Iran as a threat...

The essay below is a modified version of the 2018 Annual Lecture of the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) of Queen Mary’s University London, given on March 22 of that year. Its original title was “Geopolitical Crimes: A Preliminary Jurisprudential Proposal.” The text of the lecture has been further revised since publication in the Spring 2019 issue of the Journal of State Crime.  Its major premise is that international criminal law has developed a framework for judging the criminal conduct of states with respect to armed conflict and in the relations of state/society relations, but is silent about even the most severe crimes of diplomacy. It is these ‘geopolitical crimes’ that are more responsible for inflicting mass suffering on civilian populations than are most of the forms of international behavior currently criminalized. I am aware that criminalizing acts of diplomacy is a revolutionary idea, but no less for that, deserving of commentary and debate....

Somebody once said that courage is when you do something today you wouldn’t dare doing yesterday. That is why I decided to express my opinion whereas normally I would choose – wisely – to restrain my lips. Have you ever had an opportunity to speak with your friends about migrants and mass immigration? Especially with your international friends living in different parts of the world and changing their residence like migrating birds? How do you explain your views if they differ from the usual, dominating or politically correct one? Or, how do you actually explain that you are against immigration without risking being categorized as a racist? During my latest visit to Switzerland, while conversing with a friend about many topics including politics, somehow we started discussing immigration. My friend’s opinion was that Swiss people may seem cold and distant, but in reality they are very open-minded and friendly to...

, marks for Europe. Comment Today is a tragic day for Europe, indeed for the world – but do the media highlight that fact on their front pages? Of course, they don’t. The INF Treaty has made Europe less insecure since 1987. But Russia and the US have accused each other of violating it. The bigger reasons for this tragedy are that a) there is a new Cold War in Europe and b) since other countries are now able to develop similar INF weapons – Inter-mediate range Nuclear Forces (INF) with the particular range mentioned in this movie – they want to have their hands free. And, one might almost say, as usual – the policies of the US have spearheaded today’s tragedy, particularly with the totally counterproductive and de factor offensive Ballistic Missile Defence, BMD, that Russia – legitimately – sees as a threat. Just listen to a man...

Illustration by Craig Stephens, South China Morning Post By Christopher Black July 26th 2019 On June 4th the Chinese government issued a travel alert for Chinese tourists thinking of visiting the United States, a day after it issued a similar advisory to Chinese students thinking of studying in the US over concerns for their safety and security. Chinese in the US are reporting harassment and interrogations by US immigration authorities and many now have the impression they are not welcome in the US. Originally posted on Global Research on June 10, 2019 here The Global Times, speaking on behalf of the government stated, “The Chinese people find it difficult to accept the fact that they are being taken as thieves. The US boasts too much superiority and has been indulged by the world. Due to its short history, it lacks understanding of and respect for the rules of countries and laws...

By Gordon M. Hahn July 25, 2019 NATO expansion has contributed to the causal matrix of two wars: the 2008 Georgian-South Ossetiyan/Russian Five-Day War and the ongoing Donbass civil war. The West’s April 2008 promise that both Georgia and Ukraine will become NATO members encouraged Georgian nationalism and Saakashvili’s war in South Ossetiya and consequently led to Georgia’s de facto loss of its South Ossetiyan as well as Abkhaziyan territories. Originally published on Gordon M. Hahn homepage – while Poroshenko was still president. Similarly, NATO expansion encouraged the rise of ultranationalism in Ukraine, especially western Ukraine, and the ultra-nationalist-led February 2014 Maidan revolt, leading to Ukraine’s loss of Crimea and civil war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. NATO expansion now is poised to help re-start the Donbass civil war or spark a larger Ukrainian civil war (and/or similar conflicts involving Moldova and its breakaway republic of...

I make no claim to approach this book with an open mind. Making a fuller disclosure, I acknowledge with some pride that I have endorsed Justice for Some even before it was published, and my blurb appears on its back cover. Beyond this, two months ago I took part in a book launch at George Mason University where Noura Erakat is on the faculty. My effort in this review is not to make a calm appraisal of the book’s strengths and weaknesses, but rather to celebrate it as a major scholarly contribution to the critical literature devoted to resolving the Israel/Palestine struggle in line with the dictates of justice rather than by a continuing reliance on muscular weight of subjugation as augmented by geopolitics. And, accordingly, to seize this opportunity to urge a careful reading of Justice for Some by all those interested in the Palestinian struggle as well as those...

March 26, 2010, and July 3, 2019 Why Johan Galtung (born 1930) decided to devote his life to waging peace through research and action. Galtung who is one of the world’s most prolific and innovative social scientists – for instance, the author of more than 160 books and a global lecturer, mediator and professor – has been a TFF Associate since 1986 and has been published hundreds of times at TFF’s old and present site. He is also one of my two mentors in peace research – the other being Håkan Wiberg – says TFF director and co-founder, Jan Oberg.

By Dr. William R. Polk June 27, 2019 Exclusive: Many Americans and Westerners are baffled by the violent rage expressed by many Muslims, but the reasons for their anger are real, deriving from a “deep history” of anti-Islamic wars and colonial exploitation of the Middle East, as ex-U.S. diplomat William R. Polk describes. Originally published by Consortium News on August 15, 2015, here The issue of terrorist attacks on America has been so politically sensitive that most commentators have simply wrapped themselves in the flag and closed their eyes and ears. Yet, even in fairy tales, ostriches were never saved by burying their heads in the sand. It is not a good defensive posture and it wouldn’t be wise for real-life Americans to behave like make-believe ostriches. If we want to be safe rather than sorry in the dangerous world we now inhabit, we need to be clear-headed, logical and informed. Those...

Andrew Ross’s Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel, Verso, 2019. On May 10th Andrew Ross came to University of California, Santa Barbara for a discussion of his extraordinary book, Stone Men, offering the audience a lively presentation enlivened by a Powerpoint array of informative pictures. I took part in a conversation with Andrew that was held prior to giving the small, yet intense, audience an opportunity to participate with questions. Andrew expressed the most startling aspect of Stone Men in these words:“..it would be no exaggeration to say that the ‘stone men’ of Palestine have built every state in the region except their own.” (3) Originally published on May 13th, 2019 on Richard Falk’s blog here His very readable text mainly adopts a somewhat narrower focus, concentrating its efforts on the particular role of Palestinian workers and the rich stone quarries of Palestine in the physical evolution of the Israeli state, not only establishing its architectural...