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Krig er intet alternativ For mange af os er krig som metode til at løse politiske problemer noget utænkeligt, uciviliseret, forældet. Som Gerhard Schröder sagde i sin begrundelse for at modsætte sig angrebet på Irak: krig må aldrig opfattes som en brugbar politisk metode. Denne holdning præger hele fredsbevægelsen og udtrykkes f.eks. i mange af de over 100 slogans, som findes på en enkelt demonstration for fred i San Francisco i januar 2003: War is stupidNot in my nameBig boys use wordsWar is simply not healthyThis war is wrongBasta, enough Eller, mere alvorligt: put an end to war, or war will kill mankind. Men vi må nu tænke det utænkelige, for krigen er virkelig og den nærmer sig alt for hastigt. Konsekvenserne er dystre. En FN-rapport forudsiger flere hundrede tusinde op til 500.000 døde i krigens første faser. Angsten er der allerede blandt Iraks børn og Amerikas mødre, og derefter lidelser, meningsløs...

The United States is by circumstance and design an emergent global empire, the first in the history of the world. Prior empires have had frontiers and boundaries, although occupying large expanses of territory, and exerting control from a distant center that due to available technologies of communication and transportation were further away in time than is any part of the global from Washington. In purely temporal terms, the American Empire is thus smaller than earlier great empires associated with China, the Ottomans, the Persians, the Austro-Hungarian, and the overseas empires of the British, French, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese. It is important to appreciate the consequences of an empire of global scope. Such an empire, to the extent that it is established and sustained without significant resistance, raise a special challenge to world order. Over the course of modern history, in particular, stability in international relations has been maintained primarily by...

The war against Iraq has already begun after passing the deadline given by the President of the American empire. Some three hundred thousand men and women, using the most advanced weapons in the history of war, are attacking Iraq, another country, aiming to change its political leaders and regime. In the past few nights, thousands of missiles set Baghdad alighted, sending “shock and awe” to the regime waiting to be “decapitated” by the sword of the empire. At the time of this writing, the US-led ground forces continue their activities, some at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers from Ancient Baghdad. According to figures given by both sides, the number of lives lost from the attack have been strikingly low as a result of the advanced technology of killings used. It goes without saying, however, to assume that as war continues, number of civilian casualties will rise. Saddam...

Kriget har sin egen logik. När så stora krig pågår för fullt blir fredsmarchernas “Stoppa kriget” tyvärr orealistiskt- vill säga, medmindre USA kommer att sitta fast eller barbariet blir så vidrigt och kriget sprida sig så en förhandlat vapenvila måste förhandlas fram mellan många parter. George W. Bush och Saddam Hussein har satsat allt på vad jag förmodar kan bli bådas sista kraftmätning. De lyssnar inte på folkopinionen, de lever isolerade i sin egen värld utan mycket kontakt med verkligheten eller empati med andras lidande. Dessutom står i detta kriget ofantligt stora statliga intressen på spel för såväl USA och övriga västvärlden som för Irak. Det kan bli det mest konsekvensrika kriget sedan 1945. Men i de kommande månaderna blir det viktigt att ständigt dokumentera krigets allmänna meningslöshet, inhumanitet och diktatur. Vi måste hela tiden visa hur kriget självt och dess resultat står i motsats till de officiellt framförda motiven...

“There will be another war, a second war of civilisations.” It is with those terms that I had predicted the current situation in a declaration that I had made on October 6, 1990 on Radio France International. And today I am stating it again “yes, the second war of civilisations has already begun.” What does a war of civilisations mean? How does one determine the dimensions of such a confrontation and evaluate the mechanisms and means that the belligerents intend to exploit in order to attain their objectives? There are many sayings that history has classified in the proverb category or simply in the category of the imagined words that sum up the wisdom of the Peoples through the expressive strength of popular language and its everlastingness in the collective memory through the different centuries. There is a saying in Morocco that reflects the present situation in the world: “I gave him...

“Det finns något anarkistiskt då det gäller hur människor reagerar på våld. Irakierna runt mig stod och tittade, liksom jag själv, då väldiga eldtungor slog ut från de övre våningarna av Saddams palats, långt upp i himlen. Märkvärdigt nog fungerade elnätet fortfarande och runt om oss slog trafikljusen om mellan rött och grönt. Affischer fladdrade i vinden från chockvågorna och belysningen fortsatte att flöda över de offentliga byggnaderna. Över oss kunde vi se täta rökridåer driva över Bagdad, vita av explosionerna, svarta av de brinnande målen. … Så rapporterar Independents legendariske journalist Robert Fisk i lördagens tidning (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=389497). Han sammanfattar missilernas budskap: “… att USA måste lydas. Att ingenting får stå i dess väg, varken EU, FN, Nato eller något annat.” I senaste numret av den franska månadstidningen Le Monde Diplomatique uttrycker sig den indiska författarinnan Arundhaty Roy på liknande vis: “Vad kan vi göra? … Vi kan visa fram George Bush...

LONDON – This war, if it happens, won’t leave the world as it found it. And this is true not only for the Muslim world but for Europe and America too. The irritations that seem a constant of American-European relations the last few years have become almost a battle zone. If the academic studies were not so convincing on the subject that democracies never go to war with each other one could perhaps imagine in the foreseeable future a state of armed hostilities between the rival camps. Certainly the common mood all over Western Europe is that we don’t want to be part of the great transatlantic alliance anymore, if it means that every couple of years we have to follow America to war. In the crucible of the preparations for war European citizens have forged their own common foreign policy. Europeans have never been so aware of their common identity...

LONDON – This war, if it happens, won’t leave the world as it found it. And this is true not only for the Muslim world but for Europe and America too. The irritations that seem a constant of American-European relations the last few years have become almost a battle zone. If the academic studies were not so convincing on the subject that democracies never go to war with each other one could perhaps imagine in the foreseeable future a state of armed hostilities between the rival camps. Certainly the common mood all over Western Europe is that we don’t want to be part of the great transatlantic alliance anymore, if it means that every couple of years we have to follow America to war. In the crucible of the preparations for war European citizens have forged their own common foreign policy. Europeans have never been so aware of their common identity...

Mediekriget är högintensivt dessa dagar. Buggade USA FN-delegaters telefoner? Varför använde sig brittisk säkerhetstjänst av en studentuppsats när det gällde att presentera bevis för krig? Sören Sommelius är konfunderad. “Kriget startar på torsdag” , utropade Expressen över löpet och förstasidan i fredags med de största svarta bokstäverna. Många andra svenska medier deltar också skamlöst i att piska upp krigspsykos. Ändå är det som sker i Sverige en viskning jämfört med de krigstrummor som mullrar i USA. CNN erövrade sin position vid förra Golfkriget. Det senaste halvåret har kanalen haft “breaking news” i dramat “Showdown Iraq” mest varje dag. Än värre är Fox News, en amerikansk kanal som via satellit kan ses i Sverige. Fox spelar skamlöst på människors rädsla. Man uppmanar befolkningen att inrätta speciella inplastade skyddsrum i sina hem och på arbetsplatser. “Experter” uttalar sig om hur man ska förhålla sig vid ett biologiskt eller kemiskt anfall på USA (från...

Kofi Annan was certainly correct to repudiate President Bush’s contention that unless the Security Council lends support to American warmaking, it will follow the League of Nations down the path to futility. Indeed, the greater danger to the UN is to go along with the US demands or even to respond to the impending war with calculated indifference. It should be remembered that the League failed primarily because of its impotence in the face of aggressive warmaking by Japan, Italy, and Germany during the 1930s that led to the subjugation of such weaker states as Manchuria, Abyssinia (later Ethiopia), and Czechoslovakia. In the end, the UN will rise or fall to the extent that it opposes uses of international force that are in violation of the UN Charter, whether these uses are by large countries or smaller ones. It is not the moment to commend the UN uncritically for seeming...

LONDON – A rare shake of the dice has given three African countries- Angola, Guinea and Cameroon, 20% of the vote on the UN Security Council. In effect, if cleverly used, this gives them a swing vote, enough to convince the U.S. and the U.K. that they are not going to garner the nine votes necessary to approve an attack on Iraq and perhaps trigger chaos and upheaval across the Islamic world, but contra wise, if they vote the other way, enough to convince France, Russia and China that a veto would be an isolated one, whose only lasting legacy would be a UN from which America and its large financial resources could well withdraw. No wonder the Africans are not enjoying the pressure that history, events and chance have thrust upon them. Yet good may well come of the test. For Africa’s own self-esteem, it is a badly needed boost...

As citizens of a democracy, it is our duty to ensure the lawful behavior of our federal, state, and local governments. And to this end, let us be very clear. Whether wise or unwise, a US-led war against Iraq without the approval of the UN Security Council and without convincing evidence of an immediate threat to the territory and people of the United States would be unlawful. It would be unlawful as breach of our solemn obligations under the UN Charter, a treaty to which the United States is a party and the closest thing we have to a world constitution. We dare not forget former President Ronald Reagan’s indictment of the Soviet Union as “an evil empire” not least because, he said, it could not be trusted to uphold its Charter commitments and other treaty promises. Because it would constitute a breach of our treaty commitments, a US-led war...