Conflict

No, these three themes are not directly related to each other, except that they were suggested to me /” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Schiller Institute in Denmark when she kindly invited me to participate in a longer interview. If you prefer, you may also listen to it as podcast and read it here.

March 1, 2022 This is a recorded lecture from 2015 by Professor John Mearsheimer. In the perspective of what has just happened with and in Ukraine, this is simply prophetic. Here is a rather complex set of intertwined arguments that makes an incredibly clear-headed analysis – and warning. No decision-makers listened and thus, we are where we are today. Mearsheimer is in many ways a classical Realist thinker. It’s indeed deplorable that that approach – combined with tremendous knowledge and great skills at conveying it all in a delightfully pedagogical manner – has become so rare and that those who operate US/NATO/EU politics these very days would hardly be able to understand what he is saying – and much less, take in his analysis. Because, as he also hints somewhere – “we” know better and “we” never did anything wrong! And, so: Why listen to knowledge-based critics? Now sit down....

This documentary by John Pilger hardly needs any introduction. It is eminently useful for public education about the history and the events in and around China that has fuelled containment for decades – elements of an understanding of the present Cold War on China that the US or NATO mainstream media will never convey to you. February 8, 2022 John Pilger – one of the most important journalists in international affairs – does not seem to have changed the settings for this documentary on Vimeo to permit embedding it, so go here to see it on Vimeo. Much more interesting materials on John Pilger’s homepage here.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO’s chief Jens Stoltenberg January 13, 2022 Jan Oberg To deceive, telling half-truths, or a complete lie is nothing new in politics, particularly security in politics. But until some 20-30 years ago, I would – perhaps naively – see it as an exception. Tragically – and perhaps to many readers’ surprise – it is now the rule. At least in U.S. and NATO circles, and that is particularly regrettably since The West professes to be a democratic system with specific values and even a moral leader to The Rest. Lying systematically about facts – historical facts – and other countries and cultures should be incompatible with The West’s perception of itself. But, today, it isn’t. Lies are widespread in so-called security politics when some militarist project doesn’t make any (common) sense to intelligent people, when the real motives have to be covered up and...

Collage © Jan Oberg 2021 Fredrik Heffermehl December 9, 2021 The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize honoured press freedom and – no surprise – was welcomed by the world press. As I listened to the announcement, on October 8, an old story from the Cold War kept coming back to me: A Soviet official had been travelling in the US for a couple of weeks. As he left, he remarked to his hosts, in puzzled bewilderment “How can it be that you have such perfect control, even with a completely free press?” He was right. Society makes one huge exception from democracy and press freedom: national security. The Military-Industrial Complex is in control, thoroughly disciplined media see it as a sacred duty to keep their own nation strong and united behind the flag and the forces. Nations are governed by fear that any doubt or deviation from military orthodoxy would harm...

Jan Oberg December 7, 2021 Imagine that the Nobel Prize in Literature is given to a book publisher or papermaker and the official motivation is that publishers or papermakers are preconditions for the writer writing and being read. Roughly, this is how the Nobel Peace Committee, reasons – unreasonably. Here’s how it legitimates that its 2021 prize goes to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov way outside the letter and spirit of Alfred Nobel’s will: “Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time. This year’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize is therefore firmly anchored in the provisions of Alfred Nobel’s will.” See? – “without papermakers and publishers, it will be difficult to successfully write good literature and be read…” I believe my readers easily grasp just how far-fetched...

I’m old enough to remember when you couldn’t do a speaking event related to war and peace without being asked numerous reasonable and not so reasonable questions about 9/11 (each accompanied by a stack of DVDs and flyers presented to you as a revelation from on high). There was a long period when you could count on the inevitable question about “peak oil.” Originally published at Worldbeyondwar.org I’ve been around enough to know that you can’t talk to peace-oriented people without a question about creating a Department of Peace, or to non-peace-oriented people without a question about good humanitarian wars against irrational foreigners who can’t be reasoned with, or to any group at all in the United States and some other countries without “What about Hitler?,” or to any self-selected audience at a peace-related event without the question about why the other people in the room are disproportionately old, white,...

November 8, 2021 Cyrus Janssen is an American expat who has lived in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Vancouver over the past 14 years. He is passionate about showing a true insight into China and loves sharing his travels around the world. He is a very knowledgeable and competent communicator of complex issues and Janssen’s Youtube Channel has no less than 171 000 subscribers at the moment – i.e. it’s much bigger than many local newspapers around the world. It’s one of many examples of why you are wasting your time if you spend all of it on mainstream, public service or prime time news – because there is so much more interesting and truly independent information and knowledge available in places such as Janssen’s. I recommend his Channel very warmly because you will really learn something important about China – and the US – when you spend a little time...

Translation of the Introduction to the New Edition of Arnold Toynbee’s Civilisation on Trial, translated into Persian by Farhang Jahanpour Farhang Jahanpour October 28, 2021 More than 45 years have passed since the publication of my translation of “Civilisation on Trial” by Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) – read the entire book in English here. When that translation was first published by Isfahan University Press in 1976 it was warmly received, and in a short time, more than half of the copies of the first printing had been sold. Unfortunately, a short time after its publication, with the start of the growing political tensions and clashes that led to the Islamic Revolution, the book was caught up in the revolutionary maelstrom. Since then, the book has never been republished. However, more than 45 years later, in view of the importance of the book and its relevance regarding some of the latest political...

A Critical Analysis Of A Report By The Newlines Institute And The Raoul Wallenberg Center On March 8, 2021, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington published a report, The Uyghur Genocide: An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention in cooperation with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal. It states that ”This report is the first independent expert application of the 1948 Genocide Convention to the ongoing treatment of the Uyghurs in China. It was undertaken by the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, in cooperation with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, in response to emerging accounts of serious and systematic atrocities in Xinjiang province, particularly directed against the Uyghurs, an ethnic minority, to ascertain whether the People’s Republic of China is in breach of the Genocide Convention under international law.” The Report – hereafter The Report – has been produced with the contributions of, and upon...

Introduction by Jan Oberg October 14, 2021 Here’s how Monthly Review presents itself: “Monthly Review began publication in New York City in May 1949. The first issue featured the lead article “Why Socialism?” by Albert Einstein. From the beginning, Monthly Review spoke for a critical but spirited socialism, independent of any political organization. In an era of Cold War repression, the magazine published pioneering analyses of political economy, imperialism, and Third World struggles, drawing on the rich legacy of Marxist thought without being bound to any narrow view or party line. The McCarthy-led inquisition targeted MR‘s original editors, Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman, who fought back successfully. Against these odds, the magazine’s readership and influence grew steadily, and in 1952, Monthly Review Press published its first title, I. F. Stone’s Hidden History of the Korean War. TFF has published Einstein’s article here. But what we want to highlight right here is the MR Volume...

Neta C. Crawford Listen to this article here September 24, 2021 The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 to destroy al-Qaida, remove the Taliban from power and remake the nation. On Aug. 30, 2021, the U.S. completed a pullout of troops from Afghanistan, providing an uncertain punctuation mark to two decades of conflict. For the past 11 years I have closely followed the post-9/11 conflicts for the Costs of War Project, an initiative that brings together more than 50 scholars, physicians and legal and human rights experts to provide an account of the human, economic, budgetary and political costs and consequences of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Originally published by The Conversation Of course, by themselves figures can never give a complete picture of what happened and what it means, but they can help put this war in perspective. The 20 numbers highlighted below, some drawn from figures released on Sept. 1, 2021,...