Sanctions

/10/jonathanpower2.jpg”> Just before former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday made his stunning criticism of the West that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it had engaged in “triumphalism”, I was in Moscow. Everyone I talked to said the West had set out to humiliate Russia (not to help rebuild it as it did in Germany after the Second World War). Gorbachev has long been the West’s pet political darling, (although the New York Times didn’t report this speech) – for undoing the straitjacket that enveloped Soviet society, for allowing the reunification of Germany and for being the major contributor to ending the Cold War. So the question is will the West listen to him now? Will it listen to his point that the expansion of NATO has made Russia feel threatened? Will it understand that there is a good reason why he and an overwhelming majority of Russians...

It should never have come to this horrible situation in Ukraine. The local population of Donetsk, Lugansk, Slavyansk and other eastern Ukrainian cities is living through a true nightmare. Residential areas are being bombed, shelled and burned. Non-combatants i.e. elder, women and children are lying dead in the streets. We’re talking about thousands of deaths. No water supply, no heating, no security – this is the grim reality for the population. 700.000 Eastern Ukrainians have already escaped from the war scene, most of them are living in refugee camps in Russia. It is worth noting that they have not fled to Kiev or elsewhere to the west. Surprisingly the Western media hardly pay any attention to the horrors in Eastern Ukraine. But that is not all. Ukraine is in total disruption socially, politically and not least economically and financially. Furthermore, the mental scars in Ukraine will continue for at least...

/10/janoberg.jpg”>[/caption] Lund, Sweden September 3, 2014 – 11:30 CET. As announced just a few minutes ago, the Ukrainian and Russian president have agreed to what the first reports call a permanent ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine. That’s indeed the best piece of news from that region. It places the NATO Summit in Wales this Thursday and Friday in a new light. The ceasefire must be solidified However, an agreement over a phone is only a beginning; the devil is in the details. Secondly, there is no mention – yet – of the East Ukrainian fighters are on board this agreement. Time for UN peacekeeping Third, a credible ceasefire should be monitored by neutral observers and competent people. The only ones who can do that is the UN peace-keepers – perhaps with some staff also from Russia and Ukraine.

TFF PressInfo 273 /10/janoberg.jpg”>[/caption] Lund, Sweden August 22, 2014 We are drifting towards a new Cold War. The reason isn’t substance because there is no reason we should not be able to live in peace in Europe – if we want and educated ourselves in handling problems. No, the reason is the woefully incompetent way in which politicians and media focus on violence and ignore the underlying conflict and civil means – yes yes, of course there are exceptions. Escalation doesn’t create peace Here is just one example – NATO S-G Anders Fogh Rasmussen and NATO’s supreme commander General Breedlove (funny name given his anything but loving views coming rather from a Strangelove …) in the Wall Street Journal. They tell you about all the escalation they have already done

Vi lever i en interessant tid. Og den er ikke kedelig. Mange faste forestillinger ændrer sig. Det slår mig, at EU politikere og ditto amerikanske ved meget lidt om både Rusland og verden. Som EU borger kan jeg med beklagelse konstatere, at EU ikke har nogen politik i forhold til Rusland. Og højstemt forargelse og at snakke amerikanerne efter munden tæller ikke som en egentlig politik. Hvilke forestillinger har EU politikerne haft om slutspillet i Ukraine? Hvilke forestillinger har de haft om virkningerne af sanktionerne? Hvilken viden og forståelse af hvilket land Rusland er, har de samme politikere haft? Det er som om dæmonisering af Putin har gjort det ud for en politik. Jeg opfordrer ikke her til at man skal elske Putin. Men jeg opfordrer for det første til at finde ud af, hvad man ønsker med Rusland og for den sags skyld også med Ukraine. For det andet,...

Billedet af Rusland i de vestlige medier er i dag næsten mere dystert end under den kolde krig. Mange tror, at russerne lever i fattigdom og ufrihed i evig angst for Putins rædselsregime, præget af få censurerede medier. Rusland skulle angiveligt være ved at falde sammen og borgerne længes efter de friheder, som vesten kan tilbyde. Putin skulle angiveligt være nervøs for, at den ukrainske ’demokratiske’ revolution skulle sprede sig til Rusland. Derfor skal vi i vesten entydigt støtte Kiev regeringen og den ikke-parlamentariske opposition i Rusland. Mange vestlige politikere mener, at vi økonomisk skal isolere Rusland. EU og USA fokuserer i disse tider på at straffe Rusland og

Quality research leads to better predictions One criteria of quality research is that it predicts the future better than incompetent research. Because TFF is independent of governments and coroporations it doesn’t have to take political considerations or exclude certain theories, concepts or values. This free research enabled it over the years to make fairly precise predictions about for instance former Yugoslavia, the Iraq war and East-West relations. In 1998 – 16 years ago – we warned that NATO’s expansion would lead to future problems with Russia. Read it here. NATO should never have been expanded We backed this prediction up with 46 arguments and argued that so many other things would be wiser than containing Russia from the Baltic republics to Georgia – a strategy pursued by Bill Clinton in contravention of all promises given to the Soviet Union/Russia at the end of the Cold War about ten years earlier....

“This is not war – it’s a massacre”. The slogan has appeared on placards at demonstrations around the world, calling for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza. The ‘Dahiya doctrine’, named after the suburb of south Beirut where it was first applied, is in operation: an attempt to turn the population against an armed group – Hamas, in this case – by destroying civilian infrastructure. That is why the civilian death toll – including children – has mounted so rapidly. Pitted against Israel’s hi-tech killing machine are rockets with all the efficacy of a peashooter. These are indiscriminate by nature, and firing them therefore also constitutes a war crime. It can be of little comfort… Continue reading at Transcend News Service here. Here is a background to the case from 2012

Tragic misuse of a tragedy The government of Ukraine as well as the separatists, NATO/U.S. and very many leading Western mainstream media seem all to know who has caused the tragedy. Putin believes it was caused indirectly by the West. Given the fact that very few, if any, people or institutions can know who did it with enough details, data and precision to accuse anyone, the MH17 tragedy has been misused to an extent that can itself only be termed tragic. The misuse is tragic because it is a catastrophe for close to 300 people, their relatives and friends. Silence – of both verbal and military weapons – and empathy would have been appropriate. Anyone pointing fingers and calling it a terrorist act at this point is irresponsibly or should present convincing evidence. Secondly, the blame game makes the necessary road to peace and security even more difficult. An All...

Comments by Hans-C. von Sponeck Former UN Assistant Secretary General, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq & TFF Associate Hearing at the UK House of Commons, London Intro 1. HoC/HoL have repeatedly held Iraq hearings as have British NGOs such as CASI (Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq) and Stop the War Coalition/UK. In Europe these are considered models for responsible public action. 2. My contribution at this hearing is not about the crimes of dictatorship or the details of Iraqi suffering. For both well researched data is available. The objective of my participation is to make two detailed observations about externally-driven Iraq politics during the period 1990-2014. Observation 1 3. Today’s tragic Iraq reality can only be understood if the additive impact of the years before and the years following the US/UK Governments’ illegal invasion and occupation is fully taken into account.

Note Published below is a letter prepared by the European Coordination of Committee and Associations for Palestine (ECCP) and endorsed by John Dugard, Michael Mansfield, Eric David, and myself; it urges adherence to guidelines relating to corporate and financial activity with unlawful economic activities in Israel and occupied Palestine, and is guided by principles similar to the BDS campaign; it is notable that today the Presbyterian Church by a close vote (310-303) voted to divest itself of shares in three corporations engaged in legally and morally objectionable activities in Israel. There is a growing momentum associated with this new nonviolent militancy associated with the global solidarity movement supportive of the Palestinian struggle to gain a just peace, including realization of rights under international law. European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP) On 24-26 June, 37 European companies from 11 EU Member States will travel to Israel as a...

/10/janoberg.jpg”> Lund, Sweden – May 29, 2014 In a speech by the President of the United States of America – read by millions in all corners of our world in minutes – rest assured that every single word has been weighed with utmost care. With this in mind, Obama’s speech can be analysed as both offending to the rest of us and – exceptionally – weak. It caused no enthusiasm among the future army officers he spoke to and no enthusiasm among leading Western media. I will argue that • Intellectually and morally the speech doesn’t have the basics – full of contradictions and imbued with unbearable self-praise. • While there is a recognition of ”mistakes” such as ”our” war in Iraq and a potential step-back from interventionism, there is neither an adequate analysis of the past nor of what the future may need in terms of leadership. • Little...