US Empire

On Sunday the German vice-chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, publicly accused Saudi Arabia of financing Islamic extremism in the West and warned that it must stop. He said that the Saudi regime is funding extremist mosques and communities that pose a danger to public security. “We have to make clear to the Saudis that the time of looking away is over,” Gabriel told the newspaper, Bild am Sonntag in an interview. At last some Western leaders are grasping the Saudi Arabian nettle. For too long the country has been given a clean pass. Saudi Arabia’s oil and massive arms purchases have made Western politicians mute for decade upon decade. But now, with clear evidence that Saudi Arabia has allowed rich Saudis to fund first Al Qaeda and more recently Islamic State (ISIS), Western leaders are waking up to what their expediency has tolerated and allowed. Thanks to Wikileaks we know that Hillary...

The process has now gone full circle, from Sykes-Picot Agreement negotiated from 1915 to 16 May 1916, about control of the Ottoman Empire, when beaten, to England now joining France in bombing Syria. “Violence In and By Paris” two weeks ago was wrong about England wanting to stay out: the House of Commons on 02 Dec 2015 voted 397 to 223 for bombing; 56 Labor MPs for, only 7 Conservative MPs against. Russia played a minor role in Sykes-Picot as now also in bombing maybe mainly the opposition to Assad. As Robert Savio points out, “They all fight to the last Syrian.” The likelihood of an atrocious Paris 13 November type violence in London went up many points. And Russia had a civilian plane bombed. The USA is as addicted to bombing as a hammer to a nail, not only to use allies and train locals. James A. Lucas, “The...

För Fredsrörelsen på Orust Ordförande och TFF Associate Till Försvarsdepartementet 103 33 Stockholm Re: Yttrande om promemorian om Samförståndsavtal med Nato om värdlandsstöd. DS 2015:39 PM om värdlandsavtal Fredsrörelsens organisationer har sent omsider fått ta del av denna promemoria. I hast vill nu Fredsrörelsen på Orust avge detta yttrande. Det förtjänar att påpekas att den samlade fredsrörelsen i Sverige har genom en mer än hundraårig tradition av intresserad efterforskning och fördjupning i frågor om konflikter och konfliktlösning uppnått en fördjupad kunskap, oftast förmedlad av kända fredsforskare som Johan Galtung, Håkan Wiberg, Jan Öberg och av dem som vid svenska universitet inbjudits till talrika seminarier, alltså internationella profiler som nämnde Galtung, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, och böcker av Daisaku Ikeda, Howard Zinn och andra. En överväldigande bevisning finns om att militära medel inte förmår lösa konflikter. Konfliktlösning och bestående fred måste eftersträvas och förverkligas med fredliga medel, avspänning, samarbete m m...

TFF Associate Med den uttalade avsikten att underminera Vladimir Putins ställning i Ryssland har Natostaterna och övriga EUstater systematiskt förtigit Kievregimens vägran att följa de avtal den själv skrivit under. Istället har Ryssland anklagats för dubbelspel och erövrarambitioner. Utvecklingen ser ut så här*: 1. Ukraina förhandlar med EU om ekonomiskt samarbete, vilket skulle innebära att bryta samarbetet med Ryssland. När president Janukovitj av sina ekonomer fick veta vad detta skulle kosta landet, avstod han från att underteckna det framförhandlade EU-avtalet. 2. Detta utlöste Maidanprotesterna, från grupper i västra Ukraina, vilka länge velat ansluta landet västerut. Dessutom deltog Janukovitjanhängare. Skottlossning utbröt från hus omkring torget, med okända skyttar. Detta tolkades som Janukovitjs ansvar. 3. Janukovic och Maidanledarna framförhandlade 21 feb 2014, tillsammans med Frankrikes, Tysklands och Polens utrikesministrar och en representant för Ryssland ett avtal, som gick ut på följande: a. Ömsesidig demobilisering av väpnade grupper. b. Omedelbart arbete med författningsändringar,...

French president Hollande has declared war – war on terror, George W. Bush style. Like September 11, 2001 wasn’t a war, Paris November 13 wasn’t a war. It was a criminal act. The war on terror has been an exceptionally stupid war. In the years before 9/11 about 400 people died worldwide by terrorist attack. The Global Terror Index informs us that 32.600 died in 2014 – 80 times more! And, still, the only answer everywhere is: More war on terror. The only – intelligent – exception is Italy whose PM has announced that Italy is going to counter terrorism by investing billions of Euros in culture, art and creativity – showing the world what civilisation is. Politicians and the mainstream media seemingly try to make us believe – as if we were uneducated – that we in the West are the main victims and innocent victims at that. We...

The United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution strongly condemning the escalating violence in Burundi. It paves the way for the UN to send in thousands of blue-helmeted peacekeepers. The resolution, which was passed unanimously, condemns the wave of killings, arrests and human rights violations. It requests that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reports within 15 days – i.e. on Friday the 27th – on options for increasing the UN presence in Burundi. There are fears of a Rwandan-style genocide in Burundi, which like Rwanda has a long history of tribal distrust and, on occasion, hatred, although there are many intermarriages. At least 240 people have been killed there since protests began in April. Since independence from Belgium in 1962 it has been plagued by tension between the dominant Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority. The ethnic violence sparked off in 1994 made Burundi

Atlanta, Georgia, USA The atrocity in Paris seems to trigger the word “terrorism” with a higher frequency than ever, in the media, from the politicians. Doing so, they sign their intellectual capitulation: trust me, I am not going to try to understand anything. Watching politicians on 56 US TV channels in Georgia there was not a single word analyzing why?; like underlying conflicts and traumas. Nor conciliation and solution. Only a description of what? – the horrible violence. And what to do: more violence, war. With a question mark though: Will it work? The whole Western world was living up to the old French saying – Cet animal est très méchant, quand on le bat, il se defend. (That animal is very vicious, when you beat it, it defends itself). Look at centuries of French/Arab-Muslim relations and find one-way beating, killing, conquest, colonialism, exploitation, France using them in wars against...

Prefatory Note: What follows is a modified version of the Morton-Kenney annual public lecture given at the University of Southern Illinois in Carbondale on November 18, 2015 under the joint sponsorship of the Department of Political Science and the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. The Failure of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East While focusing on the ‘failure’ of American foreign policy in the Middle East it is relevant to acknowledge that given the circumstances of the region failure to some degree was probably unavoidable. The argument put forward here is that the degree and form of failure reflected avoidable choices that could and should have been corrected, or at least mitigated over time, but by and large this has not happened and it is important to understand why. This analysis concludes with a consideration of three correctible mistakes of policy. It is also true that the Middle East...

The Barbarians are not at the gate. There is no need for a rush to war as the French president, Francois Hollande, suggests. The Americans did this after 9/11 and raced into Afghanistan with the intention of eliminating Al-Qaeda. They failed and they are still in Afghanistan – America’s longest war ever. They have become bogged down in fighting Afghani movements including the Taliban. Some of the Taliban may have hosted Al Qaeda for a while, but accounts suggest they weren’t happy about it. They certainly don’t today. In Harvard University’s magazine, “International Security”, Professors Alexander Downs and Jonathan Monten report they have studied over 1000 military interventions over many years. It is very rare that there has been success. Bogged down, bogged down. These two words should resonate in every Western (and Russian) leaders’ head. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Libya. (Also Russia in Afghanistan and in Chechnya). There...

Written before the violence in Paris. Answer: Nowhere, because Europe does not exist. On the axis of five stages of positive peace, the process came to a standstill at stage 3. They made miracles out of stage 1– cooperation for mutual and equal benefit – and were good at stage 2 – empathy with each other, your problems are also mine, your solutions are also mine. And then the long march through the corridors of institutionalization, stage 3, solidifying; from French-German cooperation to the ever changing treaties for an ever deeper European Union. And then it stopped. Stage 4 – fusion of the member states into one Europe – is not there and will not come for some time. But stage 5 – transmission to others who learn region-building from EU achievements and mistakes – works. What went wrong? In daoist terms, there were strong forces for a holon, a...

By Jonathan Power The US has done a daring and – some would say – dangerous thing. Towards the end of last month it sent a destroyer to sail within 12 nautical miles of two man-made islands claimed by China in the South China Sea. China was outraged. The Blogosphere went wild with nationalist denunciations of American attempts to encircle their country. The press wasn’t much quieter. It’s all about control of the seas, not about who owns the islands, but it is laced with a good deal of bad behaviour on both sides. As with Taiwan China reaches into the past – as President Xi Jinping did recently – to justify a present day claim. In fact the past is a little murky. Besides, it has been overtaken by the UN Law of the Sea, of which China is a member. This makes clear that China has no right...

We have war and peace, theory and practice. And deeper down cultures of war and peace, notions of what the world is or could be. The latter is not necessarily peace, could also mean removing obstacles to war. Timothy Snyder, “Hitler’s World” (NY Review of Books, 24 Sep 2015) and Greg Grandin, “The Kissinger Effect: The relentless militarism of the national-security state and its perverse justification begin with Henry Kissinger” (The Nation, 28 Sep 2015) are both on that line. Hitler’s World derives from Darwinist struggle for niches, with survival of the fittest. His niche is not the whole world but what is needed to feed the German people, and here Ukraine plays a major role. The food chain is key to the image, with humans on top, eating animals and plants, but not eaten by them. So also for the human species, divided in races with the Aryan race...