By Stephen Zunes
Category: AA ARTICLES BY ASSOCIATES
SABONA – from the Kindergarten to world politics
By Johan Galtung
Kongsvinger is a small town in Eastern Norway, close to Sweden, with a small dedicated group working in kindergartens, elementary and more advanced schools to convey conflict and social skills to children from one to twelve years old. Recently they presented their experiences for a very grateful audience of children, teachers and parents.
Enters a teddy-bear, a key ‘person’. Child 1 grabs the bear and beats Child 2 shouting, “He is mine!” The teacher reports: “Of course I could scold, saying beating is not allowed. But that is not good enough.” So I said, “He is neither his nor yours, but the kindergarten’s. You wanted to hug him? OK, but no beating. You could have asked”.Read More »
The case against war: Ten years later
By Stephen Zunes
Ten years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the Foreign Policy in Focus website in which I put forth a series of arguments against the Bush administration’s push for a U.S. invasion of Iraq prior to the fateful congressional vote authorizing the illegal, unnecessary, and ultimately disastrous war. At the request of the editors of The Nation – the oldest continually published weekly magazine in the United States – I wrote a version entitled “The Case Against War,” which appeared on their website September 12, 2002 and as the cover story of the September 30 issue. It became one of the most widely circulated articles in the magazine’s 147-year old history. Every congressional office received multiple copies.Read More »
Paradoxes of Turkish pride
By Richard Falk
I have been struck by the strange firmament of Turkish pride. In one respect, the nationalist and patriotic fervor of Turkish holidays confirms the enduring success of Kemal Ataturk’s great nation-building project after World War I. Huge Turkish flags are more prominently displayed than in any country I know, and Turkey has earned dubious notoriety for its criminal code provision that punishes insults to Turkishness, potentially including even imprisonment. Such a law has been used in a manner that encroaches upon freedom of expression, targeting even such cultural icons as Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafik, and undoubtedly intimidating thousands of others who hesitate to make any assertion that might be interpreted as offensive by the Turkish custodians of national pride. Read More »
Top ten of the great dictators
By Jonathan Power
Thankfully neither candidate for US president is threatening “a war against dictators”. If George W. Bush had been allowed a third term – as President Franklin Roosevelt was in the 1940s – then who knows where he and his Machiavellian vice-president, Dick Cheney, might have led us.
Not for them the observation of General Colin Powell, when he was the US military’s top commander, who said “I am running out of demons”. They managed to find demons all over the place and doubtless if they were in power would have found many more. According to the new issue of World Policy Journal there are at least 10 living dictators who have all the reins of power in their own hands, controlling not just government but the law and the media. The Journal ranks them according to these criteria plus the percentage of the national income spent on the military, the prison population per capita and length of time in power.
Surprise, surprise. Read More »
The Democratic Convention – Soviet-style and denial
By Johan Galtung
From Charlotte, NC-USA – 5 September 2012 [i]
The Democratic National Convention, DNC, floated into oblivion with no debate – Soviet style, hallelujah, amen – with no mention of overt wars with 5-6 Muslim countries; of covert wars by drones and SEALs-US Navy’s Sea, Air and Land Teams with many others; and the war on terror. Like the Republican National Convention, RNC, squeezing out Ron Paul, who argued for no bases, no wars, no support to Israel.Read More »
Sustaining peace after war
By Jonathan Power
When it comes to creating a peace in Afghanistan sufficient for the US and NATO to pull their troops out with some degree of confidence in the country’s future stability history offers conflicting lessons.
The mantra is that war-shattered states must be guided into a liberal democracy and a market-orientated economic system.
Yet there is much evidence that the process of political and economic liberalization can sometimes do more harm than good in states that have just emerged from civil war. Liberalization doesn’t always foster peace. Both democracy and capitalism are built on a paradox – the notion that societal competition can limit inter-communal competition and dampen conflict.Read More »
Attacking Iran: Disaster for the region and the whole world
By Johan Galtung
The Israeli attack seems imminent. Richard Silverstein circulates a leaked “shock and awe” strategy of Benjamin Netanyahu / Ehud Barak hard zionism to decapitate, paralyze Iran; and Alon Ben‑Meir (an expert on Middle East politics specializing in peace negotiations between Israel and Arab states) says Israel is not bluffing. Israel may prefer an attack with the USA (Romney? Obama after elections?), but may go alone. Some people believe the nuclear bomb story, others believe that the purpose is Israel as a Jewish state from the Nile to the Euphrates, also promoted by Netanyahu’s late father. The two stories do not exclude each other.
Iran is a Shanghai Cooperation Organization-SCO observer. An attack will trigger responses from the Russia‑China core. What Israel may gain in Saudi Sunni support they may lose in more important parts of the world, in diplomatic and economic relations. The SCO is huge.
There is also the real danger of a world war of NATO against SCO, with nuclear powers divided 4‑4; USA‑Israel being indivisible as they came into being in the same way: by taking somebody else’s land.
Iranian devastating responses will come before decapitation. Read More »
Passenger information: Open letter to my blog – with addendum
By Richard Falk
I have been disturbed by the recent exchanges of personal attacks in the comments section of my blog. I realize that the subject-matter, and my views, are controversial, and attract strong responses for and against. I have tried to be broadly receptive to this broad range of opinions, and have excluded only those that have no substantive serious content. From my perspective some of these views are quite extreme, and as such provocative and deeply objectionable to those who see things differently. This tension among readers of the posts, not surprisingly, is mainly in relation to the Israel/Palestine conflict, and relates to both my views and to those of some of those who take the trouble to submit comments.
I had the hope that the comment section could serve as a dialogic channel for the exchange of views, but I increasingly realize that this was an unrealistic wish.Read More »
Democratic leaders undermine Israeli-Palestinian peace and their own procedures
By Stephen Zunes
In a stunning violation of its own rules, the wishes of the majority of delegates at its national convention, and positions taken by the United Nations and virtually every country in the world, the Democratic Party leadership pushed through an amendment to its platform early during its proceedings on Wednesday, with barely half the delegates present and without allowing for any discussion or debate, stating that Jerusalem “is and will remain the capital of Israel” and should be “undivided.”
The language, as foreign policy analysts noted, is in “in direct opposition to longstanding U.S. policy on Jerusalem” that the status of the city should be determined by talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, both of whom desire Jerusalem as their capital, and that the city should not be unilaterally recognized as the capital of either Israel or Palestine until then. Read More »
TFF Associates Blog 2011-2017 