TFF Blog

Or fake à la Falbe: Public service choosing ‘US intelligence’ to protect both the US and Denmark? Jan Oberg April 13, 2023 Ages ago, I was born in Denmark, and I still hold a Danish passport. Quite often, I visit the homepage of the Danish Broadcasting Company – Danmarks Radio (DR). It is public service, regulated by laws passed by the Danish People’s Parliament – “Folketinget.” I sadly admit that there is an element of masochism in my visits to DR. In the particular fields of news reporting on global affairs, security politics and peace/war, this public service’s long-term trend has been down in quality and out of relevance. Sometimes I visit it only to see how biased the coverage of a certain event or decision in the mentioned fields is. I have often written an admittedly wry comment on social media or on my online home and blog, Jan...

The story of the BRICS countries and their accelerating role in world affairs. Jan Oberg March 31, 2023 We bring you this 13:45 minutes video from US-based Sino Sphere on YouTube about BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Watch it with your colleagues, friends or family and ask yourself why you hear so little about these tremendously important countries and changes in world history. Among many other facts, you’ll learn that BRICS is now economically bigger than the G7 countries… Recommended reading and viewing About BRICS Deutsche WelleA new world order? BRICS nations offer alternative to West Silk Road BriefingThe BRICS Has Overtaken The G7 In Global GDP China’s GovernmentBRICS 2022 China The New Development Bank, NDB (formerly BRICS Development Bank) – including a fine short video presentation.

Unknown cartoon from the Internet Jan Oberg March 31, 2023 The thing NATO and EU countries persistently deny when talking about the war in Ukraine is – yes, exactly – NATO’s expansion. But that is the conflict basis that caused Russia to start a war on Russia. This very precise formulation is not an endorsement of that war – I wrote against it on February 25, 2022. Only fools believe that an explanation is the same as legitimisation and endorsement. The underlying conflict – not the violence that grows out of it, is always the key to peace. Peace comes from dealing with the conflict and finding a solution. It is not called war resolution; it is called conflict resolution. Like the doctor doesn’t just look at the point of pain but goes deeper and asks: What is the cause? What is the problem? So do people who are professionals...

Erni & Ola Friholt TFF Associates March 23, 2023 In 1904, in the run-up to World War I, with the Triple Alliance on one side and the Entente on the other, the Principal of the London School of Economics, Halford Mackinder, gave a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society. The title was ‘The Geographical Axis of History’. Mackinder explained that world power could not, as in the past, be won by controlling the seas, which had been the main route for Portugal, Spain, Holland, France and Britain to their colonial empires, which had lasted some 400 years. Now, he argues, it is about controlling the interior of the Euro-Asian landmass, to which he also counted Africa. This huge land mass he called an island, the World Island. Its heartland lies in the plains and forests of Asia and is so vast that it could only be ruled from its peripheral...

Jan Oberg March 21, 2023 Letter from a soul-sister stranger for peace One autumn day in 2022, a mail winged into TFF’s inbox from a woman in the United States. Here first some excerpts; the first sentence reveals a sense of being in a larger world. ” I hope you’re feeling all right, even though it’s difficult to feel that way now. I’d like to send you this letter that I’m sending to as many people that I can think of. Given the urgency of the international situation I figure it’s no time to be shy. Here it is! Hardly a soul responds to me, but I was hoping maybe you would. Peace will never arrive if people are not able to listen to the other side’s perspective. Peace will never arrive if people on one side of conflict tell half-truths and lies to paint the other side as only...

All photos © Jan Oberg Writing this, I must admit that my rage and pain build up inside, still twenty years later. Below, see what TFF and I wrote back then and why we were, simply put, making better predictions on a shoestring budget than the US and other NATO decision-makers on multi-billion-dollar budgets. Like other wars and interventions, this was no “mistake”. It was an unavoidable consequence of Western MIRE – Militarism, Imperialism, Racism and Exceptionalism. The West has learned nothing. Militarism is now its main cohesive force into its manifest destiny: Decline and fall. President George W. Bush announcing that he has just started the war on Iraq. Listen carefully! All the arguments and aims he presents were either false, mistaken or outright lies. And sanctimonious. Jan Oberg March 19, 2023 TFF’s fact-finding missions and scattered memories Permit me start out with a quotation from the British Stop...

Collage © Jan Oberg 2023 A list to be updated if and when Jan Oberg March 16, 2023 The human right to freely seek information is laid down in the American Convention on Human Rights from 1968. Article 13 states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought and expression. This right includes freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds.” The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 states in Article 19 that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 states in Article 19 that: “1) Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference. 2) Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression;...

CGTN – China Global Network Television March 8, 2023 It will soon be nearly half a year since German, Danish, and Swedish independent secret investigations on the Russian gas pipelines explosion led to no conclusions. One month ago, American Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh published his report which implicates the U.S. government and answers all the questions in full detail, but western mainstream media has been largely silent in covering this important update. Why? Has there been political pressure from the U.S. government to downplay or ignore the story? This week’s Headline Buster investigates the reasons for the collective silence of the “respected” western media. Join CGTN’s Liu Xin. The participants are Brandon Blackburn-Dwyer, Max Blumenthal and Jan Oberg, TFF. Enjoy! If not starting immediately, scroll to 1:10…

The US has started raising concerns about possible Chinese military support to Russia. On Feb. 20, China, Russia and South Africa begin joint naval exercises off the coast of the latter. The BRICS countries will soon meet to decide on the admission of new members. This commentary attempts to link these three news items into one bigger picture. Concerns Both U.S. Secretary of State Blinken and Vice President Harris have recently expressed concern about possible covert Chinese military support to Russia. Harris added that this would thwart the U.S. goal to weaken Russia. These statements are in line with the US trade war against China and, therefore, not really surprising. However, both politicians should be smart enough to realize that it is pointless to attack China more and more economically, and on the other hand, expect China to support the US in its fight against Russia. So, why are we...

The Illegality of NATO: Violation of the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles John Scales Avery February 27, 2023 In recent years, participation in NATO has made European countries accomplices in US efforts to achieve global hegemony by means of military force, in violation of international law, and especially in violation of the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles. Former UN Assistant Secretary-General Hans Christof von Sponeck – also a TFF Associate – used the following words to express his opinion that NATO now violates the UN Charter and international law: “In the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, the Charter of the United Nations was declared to be NATO’s legally binding framework.” However, the United Nations’ monopoly of the use of force, especially as specified in Article 51 of the Charter, was no longer accepted according to the 1999 NATO doctrine. NATO’s territorial scope, until then limited to the Euro-Atlantic region, was...

Beyond Russia, NATO/EU policies will prove morally wrong, unrealistic, dangerous and self-destructive. Jan Oberg February 23, 2023 Introduction: 1 year of violence on top of 30 years of conflict: Too much wrong thinking The world’s focus is on the war. On February 24, it is one year since Russia launched its so-called special military operation. Much more important is to focus on the underlying conflicts – because there exists no war or other violence without root causes. The focus on war, by definition, won’t lead to a solution or wider, sustainable peace – like feeling the pain in a patient without diagnosing where it comes from can never lead to healing. Unless you ask: What is the problem, the conflict, that stands between the conflicting parties – NATO and Russia – it will end with escalation until one of the sides feel that the nuclear button is the only way...

Jan Oberg February 20, 2023 This comment was written and video created for and published by China Daily on February 20, 2023. The daily also used it for a special feature with three experts, which you may read here. It has also been published by The Citizen in India. Whatever other reasons that a war is raging in Ukraine, one major reason is that we live in times characterised by the increasingly dangerous – perhaps fatal – combination of intellectual-moral disarmament and military re-armament. Militarism is now the main factor holding the West NATO/EU world together. It’s a religion and NATO its church. In different ways, militarists argue that their side was historically innocent and are justified to do what they do now; NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg even states that NATO is not a party to the conflict. Secondly, they argue that they must win, meaning others must lose. The latter...