Peace

NATO has just announced a plan to send troops to the alliance’s eastern flank, close to the Russian border. NATO says it is attempting to deter potential Russian aggression. The UK, the US, Canada and Germany will lead four battle groups to be based in Poland and the Baltic states. Diplomats say the troops will be a deterrent to Russian aggression by acting as a “tripwire” that would trigger a full response from the alliance if necessary On Sunday the foreign minister of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, condemned Western “sabre-rattling and war cries”. He said, “Anyone who believes the symbolic tank parades on the Alliance’s eastern border will increase security is wrong”. Apart from the appalling fact that the West is contemplating all out war against Russia there is the plain fact that it has expanded NATO in contravention of the solemn understandings given the Soviet Union at the end of...

During the years since the end of the Cold War, Peter Handberg – a writer and translator – has travelled many times in the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He has visited many sites where nuclear weapons were kept at the time, ready to destroy the world. Handberg has also spoken to military officers who once watched over these instruments of Armageddon. He has written an important book on the subject, Undergångens skuggor (Shadows of Doom). The book is not translated but a documentary film is planned. He has just led a group of people from Sweden to some of these bases, abandoned since 1987. We were about ten physicians from the Swedish section of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and ten others – historians, people with an interest in the Baltic states, etc.. I learnt three important facts, from the book and be visiting...

The third article in the TFF series on The New Cold War We are witnessing a remarkable increase in tension between the US/NATO and Russia these years – and it can not only be explained by whatever we choose to think happened in Ukraine and Crimea. We find a totally new effort on both sides to use social and other media to tell how dangerous “they” are to “us”. There is a clear tendency to “fearology” – to instill fear in the citizens on both sides about the capabilities and intentions of the other side. We find deeply concerned articles about the possibility of war between the two parties – a quarter of a century after the Berlin Wall tumbled. Why is the new tension rising in Europe between US/NATO and Russia so manifestly dangerous and – with the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis worse than during the First...

The long awaited Chilcot report (5 years) on the Invasion of Iraq will finally be released on 6th July, 2016. The Report is to be welcomed and the hope expressed that this inquiry will tell the truth of what happened to the Iraqi people and clarify the UKs involvement, through an official Government recognition of facts of the wars, sanctions and invasion of Iraq and for transparency, accountability and reparation to be paid to the Iraqi people by the UK Government who participated in these illegal and immoral genocidal wars. The story of what was done to the Iraqi people by UK and Western allies is shocking and deeply disturbing. The two wars, the imposition of economic sanctions, causing the slow deaths of thousands of people, were indeed crimes against humanity, war crimes, breaking all international obligations and conducted with no respect for human life or the Iraqi people’s rights....

The vote turned out like the two referenda held in Norway in 1972 and 1994. And much for the same reason: Protestant break with Rome – Catholic, imperial – Henry VIII made himself head of the Anglican Church in 1534. Religion was not the only reason, there are Protestant Nordic members of EU, closer to the continent and closer to Russia. World history, a short while after Pope Francis – Patriarch Kirill also made world history, bridging the Catholic-Orthodox 395-1054 gap. The Disunited Queendom is now London with surroundings; England. The implications are enormous, for UK-GB and the British Isles in general, for EU and Europe in general, USA and the world in general. The US Trojan horse decided to leave the EU on 23 June 2016. UK-GB and the British Isles in general: Goodbye United Kingdom, UK, we may get United Ireland, UI, instead. Goodbye Great Britain, GB, we...

/06/24/eu-referendum-how-the-results-compare-to-the-uks-educated-old-an/”>here. Interestingly, the whole art world supported Remain – and now fear for the effects of Brexit on Britain’s cultural development. An EU that has failed to create a new, better way of doing politics, merely growing its original democratic deficit – so, lack of real democracy. An EU that has had a woefully inadequate, cynical response to a refugee crisis caused by leading EU member states’ warfare – so, (mis)management and lack of leadership. Significantly, the leading Muslim Association of Britain, MAB, supported Remain with the argument that ”Exit from the EU runs the risk of perpetuating rifts in British society, which would increase levels of hate crimes against British Muslims.” So, Islamophobia. A general sense (but sometimes denial) of insecurity about the future all over the Western world,

Take the candidate debate about nomination and election, focused on Trump’s buffoonery and Sanders’ ineligibility. Hillary?–on using a private account. Few words wasted on her foreign policy of massive belligerence, warfare. In the tradition, Zoltan Grossman [i] documents: 151 military interventions from Wounded Knee in 1890; and in spite of the war fatigue expressed by Trump, Cruz, Sanders – even by Obama. And US reality? John Pilger [ii]: “Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any American president”. The Wall Street Journal (30 May 2016) had a full page on the new Navy railgun projectiles with ultra-speed that can penetrate any armor. No peacefare; no sign of conciling trauma, of solving conflicts. Take foreign policy. C. W. Freeman Jr.: “The End of the American Empire”; Noam Chomsky: “How Imperial Violence Backfires–Lessons from the Middle East”, Zalmay Khalilzad: “De-Ba’athification was a recipe for disaster” (english@other-news.info, 13 Apr, 19...

The West leaves, a multi-polar world comes Jan Øberg Part 1/3

they are now on the defensive. ISIS has lost nearly half of the Iraqi territory it held. (i.e. an area about half that of the UK). It has lost much of its oil infrastructure. It is taking lots of casualties. In Syria it is fighting on two contradictory fronts – the regime in Damascus, supported by Iran and Russia and against the non-Islamist rebels, supported by the US and the Arab states. Meanwhile the flow of foreign fighters on which it has depended is slowing up and large numbers are returning home. Funding is drying up. This indeed is why Mateen, the lone wolf, is so important to ISIS. ISIS spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, has asked ISIS sympathisers to stay where they are. “The smallest action you do in the heart of [your] land is better and more enduring to us than what you would do if you were with...

/06/15/the-heat-nato-war-games#utm_sguid=155260,43357f6d-09a8-927c-abd1-8d4fdafed861″>here.

The second article in the TFF Series on The New Cold War George Orwell, the author of “Animal Farm” and “1984”, was the first person to use the phrase “Cold War” in a 1945 newspaper article, written just after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He argued that “the surface of the earth is being parceled off into three great empires, each self-contained and cut off from contact with the outer world, and each ruled, under one disguise or another, by a self-elected oligarchy. He counted the US and Western Europe as one, the Soviet Union as the second and China as the third. He concluded that, “the atomic bomb is likeliest to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a peace that is no peace”. I think he got it nearly right – or so it seems as a new Cold War erupts...

Kyoto, Japan An East Asia of 6 states, 5 from the 6-Party Talks + Taiwan. The 6 in East Asia divide into South Korea-Taiwan-Japan in the US-led alliance AMPO+ (USA-Japan Security Treaty+); North Korea; China-Russia with others in SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization). AMPO+ with US “nuclear umbrella”, the other two may acquire nukes; North Korea with nukes; and SCO with two nuclear powers. Put it all together: A nuclear arms race. Arms races may deter, but often end with wars. Wars mean trauma for losers and glory for winners. PTSD – post trauma stress disorder – may lead to thirst for revenge, and PGED – post glory exuberance disorder – to thirst for more glory. War, war, war. Worse than ever since WWII. East Asia badly needs another approach. As a minimum, the four tasks in the TRANSCEND peace formula: the negative peace of conciling traumas and solving conflicts; the...