Terrorism

Commenting on PressTv on July 22, 2016 after yet another tragedy in the Mediterranean. But how much did the media cover that in comparison with the Nice tragedy – and Hollande’s killing of 120 innocent civilians as revenge for Nice (which at the time was not known to have any connections to ISIS or similar)?

/07/19/475897/horror-Nice”>Iranian PressTV (July 19, 2016) some 11 minutes into this program. “The War On Terror is history’s most stupid and counterproductive. If the terrorism problem has increased about 80 times since 2001 we should be intellectual and decent enough to ask ourselves: What are we doing wrong? Nobody asks this question and it will end us up in hell.”

What follows are preliminary reactions to both the BREXIT vote and the world according to Trump, but also a commentary on the related alienation of large segments of the public that are being badly served by both the established elites and their demagogic adversaries. The failures of neoliberalism, the successes of digitization, the scourge of random violence, and more broadly, the dilemmas posed by late modernity are among the root causes of this global crisis of legitimate governance, which is deepened while being mishandled by unprecedented ecological challenges, extremely irresponsible geopolitical leadership, and a variety of ultra-nationalist backlashes against the encroachments of economic globalization. Imagining the World After the Cold War After the end of the Cold War there were various projections that tried to anticipate the likely future of the world in broad interpretative strokes. Three of the most influential conjectures by three prominent American authors received attention in...

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...

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...

Margot Wallström har utropat en feministisk utrikespolitik för Sverige. Inom den tecknades nyss ett värdlandsavtal med Nato, världens utan jämförelse starkaste militärallians. Avtalet permanentar flera gånger årligen återkommande militärmanövrer i stora delar av vårt lands luftrum, på landytan och i territorialvattnen. Sverige bekostar nödvändiga infrastrukturan-läggningar. Militärmanövrerna samtrimmar svensk militär med Nato. Den underförstådda motståndaren är Ryssland, ständigt utpekat som aggressivt och hotfullt. Med den förklaringen flyttar Nato ständigt fram sina positioner mot Rysslands gränser. Eftersom Ryssland känner sig hotat utvecklas ett spel som leder till ökad spänning och krigsrisk, vilket i sin tur ger anledning att upprusta båda sidor. Kapprustningen tar resurser från det civila samhället och skapar oro även där. Närmast ska det torkdrabbade Gotland utrustas med nya anläggningar, vapen och manskap. Kapprustning med ständigt nya vapen har bara ett slut: fattigdom och krig. I denna situation önskar Sveriges regering förhandla fram ett förbud mot kärnvapen, det vapen som...

Jeju Peace Forum, Kwangju National University, Seoul; South Korea Like the Israel-Palestine conflict, the world has gotten tired of it, “what, the two Koreas still unable to sort it out”? Also, like Israel-Palestine, the USA is in it; making the situation complicated. Never has the situation been so tense after the end of the war in Korea more than 60 years ago. Not only because of the nuclear bomb with missiles in North Korea, and the hawkish pro-nuke reaction in South Korea and Japan, but because of no moves forward to solve the underlying conflict. And where is that conflict? Not between North and South Korea, but between North Korea and USA that after 140+ years of victorious warfare had to accept armistice, not victory, in Korea. Conflict means incompatible goals. Travel to Pyongyang and find that their goals are peace treaty, normalization of relations, and a nuclear free Korean...

Antwerpen & Alfaz We are dealing with mass migration, basically into EU, and European nationalisms, many in favor of exits from the EU. Why this mass migration, maybe to the point of Völkerwanderung, mainly into EU – but then what kind of EU? – and why the European nationalisms now found one way or the other in many member states? The forecast for migration from Africa into Italy in 2016 is about 100,000; 28,000 already arrived in the first quarter, with 1,000 drowning in the Mediterranean (INYT, 6 May 2016). Big numbers. They knew the risks they were taking, so the push away from Africa and the pull towards Italy, and beyond, must have been considerable. Better think in terms of 50 million migrants over 50 years, from regions considered uninhabitable to inhabitable regions. There seem to be five major causes underlying this basic world asymmetry: Slavery, four centuries, depriving...

When the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, the Irish Military, Government Members, and many Irish people gathered in Dublin, on Easter Sunday 27th March, 2016 to remember the Easter Rising of l9l6, some of his challenging words were addressed to the young generation. He encouraged them ‘to imagine and to dream‘ and he said ‘we wish them well as they make music and continue to dream’. The Leaders of l9l6 had political hopes and dreams. President Higgins said ‘For the leaders of l9l6, their political hopes and aspirations for what a free Irish Republic might be, were linked to a rich Irish culture which they cherished and promoted. Within that vision, their ancient Irish language and culture, informed by our history and migration, was central to everything for which they hoped and fought.’ I believe the men of l9l6 had a democratic right to their dreams of Irish self-determination...

havde Folketinget 2. behandling af forslaget om også at bombe og indsætte specialstyrker i Syrien. Jeg mener at sagen er fundamentalt vigtig for Danmark, danskerne og vor fremtidige rolle og ‘image’ ude i verden. Desuden finder jeg at beslutningsgrundlaget, mediedækningen og den offentlige debat giver anledning til den største bekymring. At gå i krig er den vigtigste beslutning en regering kan tage og en befolkning bakke op om. Men det er som om dette at deltage i krig stort set rager både ministre, folketingsmedlemmer, journalister og befolkning en forårsblomst. Med en vis fortvivlelse skrev jeg derfor 6 artikler med forskellige temaer og producerede en video, der også foreslår hvad vi kunne gøre i stedet. Jeg ville have disse ting sagt og spredt inden beslutningen blev taget. Herunder findes de én for én som jeg har skrevet dem med en lille kommentar til publiceringsprocessen, som også i et vist omfang vidner...

The Telegraph’s Raf Sanchez in Jerusalem. The only other media carrying the story is Russia Today and Vigilant Citizen and MintPress News also carries the story and offers a wider background What is this about?A new coalition? So the usual Western media filter, meaning it must be interesting. And it is a quite sensational story: Saudi Arabia and Israel are up to a nuclear mischief against a country that has just been prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons by means of a huge legally binding document, UN Security Council endorsement and extremely tight monitoring mechanism. What’s it about? It’s about Israel’s defence minister Moshe Ya’alon saying in public at the recent Munich conference that Arab states are “not willing to sit quietly with Iran on the brink of a nuclear bomb”. He thinks that Iran was liable to break the agreement as their economic situation improves with the lifting of international...