TFF PressInfo # 559

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Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden – March 20, 2020

This little girl’s face expresses both sorrow and hope.

It’s been with me ever since I took the picture at the liberation of Eastern Aleppo in December 2016 after 4,5 years of terrorist occupation.

These days, it is 9 years ago, violence broke out in Syria. The underlying conflict with the West is much older. Our leaders and media are still so peace illiterate that they don’t know the distinction between conflict and violence.

I’ve seen no mention in the Western mainstream media of Syria. While COVID-19 has so far claimed about 10.000 lives worldwide, 400.000 have died in Syria.

Today, it is 17 years since US President George W. Bush used shock and awe on Iraq – began the physical, economic, cultural, environmental and political destruction of Iraq.

If at all mentioned today, no one asks: What on earth was it we – including small rogue states like Denmark – did?

And today Iran (and other countries) celebrate New Year, Nowruz.

While there are huge internal problems in Iran – government based on religion and corruption to mention just two – with what right does the US inflict collective punishment of its 85 million innocent citizens through its cruel sanctions, the tightest in history. In Iraq, 13 years of sanctions killed about 1 million people.

How many will the US and the EU kill in Iran – without much media attention?

About these kinds of things, you hear nothing in Western media.

But on a daily basis you do get hand-wringing reports about human rights elsewhere – namely where it fits the strategies of Washington, NATO countries, CIA, State Department and Pentagon.

The West will commemorate when it believes it was itself hard and innocently hit – first and foremost of course “9/11”.

But did you ever hear about 10/7 (the attack on Afghanistan in 2001) or 3/19 (attack on Libya in 2011) or abut 3/20 (attack on Iraq in 2003)?

The West is now a predominantly destructive – also self-destructive – system. It’s own crimes and mass violations of human rights and international law shall be forgotten.

And that’s what we have the free media of democracy for.

In short, Luke 6.42:

“How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

The Transnational is a unique reservoir of knowledge and peace perspectives on these conflicts – predictable fiascos as they all are.

Having been around since 1986, TFF’s network of world renown Associates is not that easily fooled. We see it as our duty to remind people about the deliberate, convenient, hypocritical amnesia of the West: Take the plank out of your eye!

Show that you prefer
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Recent articles, videos and magazines on The Transnational

Browse the new articles here – search Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc. here

“Bootprint – Militarism and Environment“– a collection of resources, TFF’s new – second – online magazine

The first TFF online magazine is

“The Transnational Peace Affairs”

Umberto Eco’s list of 14 common points on Fascism is an example of the latter. Although eclectic, it’s relevance today should not be underestimated.

It’s wrong to rubbish China

How to be an Ecosattva

Capitalism’s malicious work

How the US helped create Al Qaeda and ISIS

The Terrorism-Industrial Complex (TIC)

The world must end Washington’s illegal economic war

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TFF’s “Transnational Peace Affairs”

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with a touch of peace

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Peacefully yours

Jan Oberg

Peace & future researcher + ‌Art Photographer

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Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
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It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
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Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...
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Jan ObergPhD, director, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFFLund, Sweden October 2, 2026 This is my full original manuscript. The Chinese Academy of Social Science, CASS, makes two publications out if it. 1. China’s Five-year plan emphasized the capabilities of basic research and original innovation. It is regarded as the goal of the future social development, which, as required, should be significantly enhanced. Can you comment on the importance of original innovation in research and academic study? I believe it is easier to define “original innovation” in the natural sciences than in social sciences. The breaking points of what constitutes something new, or innovative, are not quite as sharp in the latter. But in both fields it is about opening up something that was closed, unseen, unexplored before – making manifest what was earlier latent. Innovations come in many forms and shapes – naming something that was not...
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The agreement is catastrophic both because of what it says and what it doesn’t mention. It reduces further the major asset of security policies: Freedom of action. Jan Oberg TFF director September 25, 2026 A couple of hours before the agreement was signed on September 22, 2026, I published the following 13 hypotheses about what it would most likely contain on TFF Substack (in English). I was wrong on only the first point. Contrary to what Trump had written on his Truth Social platform, it does not appear to come into force immediately. In fact, it turned out to be worse than even I had anticipated. After these hypotheses now come a number of reflections in light of what the agreement actually contains, and does not contain, as well as the way in which it has generally been presented by major media outlets and by the public-service broadcaster DR. My...
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Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...