Category: Pro-peace & proposals

Controlling ISIS without bombing

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By Jonathan Power

A Western viewpoint (courtesy of Aubrey Bailey): “Some of our friends support our enemies, and some of our enemies are our friends, and some of our enemies are fighting against our other enemies whom we want to lose, but we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win.

If the people we want to defeat are defeated they might be replaced by people we like even less. And all this was started by us, the West, invading a country to drive out terrorists who weren’t actually there until we went to drive them out”.

Those are the conundrums that President Barack Obama and his Western and Arab allies are facing in trying to defeat ISIS.

Well, if the saying that “My enemy’s enemy is my friend” is an Arab one then the West has its: “When you are in a hole stop digging”.

The hole digging has been going on since President Jimmy Carter, persuaded by his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, provided sophisticated armaments to the Mujahidin fighting the invading Soviet army in Afghanistan back in the 1980s. Not surprisingly the arms of the Mujahidin fell into the hands of the resurgent Taliban which protected Al Qaeda.Read More »

Vi skulle have gjort noget af dette i stedet for krig…

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Af Jan Øberg

Jan Oberg

Åbn øjnene for muligheder istedet for “Øje for øje”

Princippet om øje for øje vil en dag gøre hele verden blind – som Gandhi, der den 2. oktober fødtes for 145 år siden, så klogt sagde.

Det er imidlertid dét princip den danske regering, et stort flertal i Folketinget og efter sigende 62% af den danske befolkning nu følger når Danmark går i krig for 5. gang på 15 år.

Danmark bomber sammen med de store NATO-lande USA, England og Frankrig og så nogle arabiske småstater. Ud af 193 lande i verden!

Som kritiker af en militaristisk – men ikke aktiv – udenrigspolitik får jeg ofte spørgsmålet hvad Danmark (jeg siger ikke ”vi”) i stedet skulle have gjort.

Svarene forudsætter dels en anden måde at tænke på og en vis uddannelse og dels nogle konkrete ideer, der skulle kunne implementeres.

Her er nogle hurtigt nedfældede svar på de to dimensioner – ingen rangordning, tingene er alle vigtige:Read More »

May peace prevail on earth – not only on Peace Day but every day

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By Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung

What a good idea, this day! To reflect, take stock, to enjoy peace, to deplore non-peace.21 sep day of peace

And the first reflection is this: peace is the normal condition of humanity, just like health. There is so much plain, simple, decent behavior around, so much mutual aid, a helping hand, companionship, friendship, good neighborhood when bad luck strikes at its worst. And we sense mutuality, unquestioning reciprocity; not always but mostly.

Go to an airport, stay close to where they come out, arrival, and are met by their nearest–watch the embraces, the warmth, the eyes glittering, the smiles, laughter. There we are. Harmony, resonance–with the occasional deep, joint sadness, sorrow; something has struck.

Go to a restaurant, not too stiff, formal–more ordinary eatery. And you see it again, the pleasure, food, drinks, togetherness, the shared pleasure – the jokes, the smiles.

Most of the time – then some incident, issue arises.Read More »

A hard fist inside a velvet glove

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By Jonathan Power

Despite Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and Southern Sudan the world is a lot more peaceful than it was at the end of the Cold War and shows no sign of returning to the bad old days when there were some 25 wars going on every year. Now it is down to about a dozen.

The task today is to keep that number going down – a difficult job when the outbreak of conflict in Syria, Libya and Ukraine have turned the graph upwards a few notches for the first time.

Protagonists in political quarrels tend to push the non-violent activists to one side – as they have done in Syria, Libya, Gaza and Ukraine.

This is not a good tactic as these situations have clearly shown. In Syria whole parts of cities have been reduced to rubble. Likewise in Gaza. In Ukraine this is starting to happen.

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan argue that the prospects for civil resistance to bring about political change are commonly undersold.Read More »

Flaws in US Thought – And Some Remedies

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By Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung

Kuala Lumpur, September 8

Obama faces a “three-headed monster” (INYT 5 Sep 2014): Russia-Ukraine, ISIS, and Asia with a US “pivot”. Show NATO strength in Eastern Europe; crush ISIS (Colin Powell’s 9/11 remedy for Al-Qaeda); 60% of US force and “all but China” treaties in Asia-Pacific.

It is not going to work.

Not with Obama-Biden-Kerry, nor with McCain; be it one monster with three heads or three with one each. There is no way in which Donbass will become a peaceful, integrated part of a unitary two-nation Ukraine; the Sunni-Arab world will find ways to integrate and undo Sykes-Picot; and no way in which one Asia-Pacific will choose USA over China. They want both, as the PM of Malaysia, Najib Razak, expresses it so well; eulogizing both.

For possible solutions or ways out see below; first a focus on the head of the US monster with a heavily flawed brain. Of course there are many US voices on top, heated discussions; however, policy, action produced by thought, comes as if from one brain to show unity.

However, the flaws are also many, producing and reproducing bad policies: Read More »

The big crises – NATO and demonstrators both fail

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By Jonathan Power

September 2nd 2014

Violence should have had its day. Look at its non-achievements: The US/British/French invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. The upheavals of the “Arab Spring”. And now Ukraine.

Will we ever learn its limitations?

In Iraq outsiders’ violence overthrew the dictator Saddam Hussein who for all his faults provided stability, safety on the streets, food, a falling infant mortality rate and universal health services. What did it substitute beside the worthwhile job of killing off Saddam?

Mayhem, tens of thousands of deaths of innocents, fear of the street, shortages of food, upheavals in the health services and schools. And an ongoing instability, not least the opening given to ISIS.

In Libya, Read More »

TFF PressInfo 276 – Ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine: Now withdrawal by Russia, the UN in and NATO out

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By Jan Oberg, TFF co-founder

Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden September 3, 2014 – 11:30 CET.

As announced just a few minutes ago, the Ukrainian and Russian president have agreed to what the first reports call a permanent ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine.
That’s indeed the best piece of news from that region.

It places the NATO Summit in Wales this Thursday and Friday in a new light.

The ceasefire must be solidified
However, an agreement over a phone is only a beginning; the devil is in the details. Secondly, there is no mention – yet – of the East Ukrainian fighters are on board this agreement.

Time for UN peacekeeping
Third, a credible ceasefire should be monitored by neutral observers and competent people. The only ones who can do that is the UN peace-keepers – perhaps with some staff also from Russia and Ukraine.Read More »

USA-Israel vs. Arab-Muslim Worlds: What Happens?

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By Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung

Kuala Lumpur, International Islamic University of Malaysia, 19 Aug 2014

Nothing good. But let us have a look at it in the standard peace studies way: Diagnosis – analyzing, Prognosis – forecasting, and Therapy – remedies, even solutions.

“Israel-Palestine” is the discourse Tel Aviv-Washington prefers. They have all the strong cards: overwhelming military power, political veto in the United Nations Security Council, the economic upper hand in interlocking economies – not just oil cash from Saudi Arabia-Qatar–and the idea of working for a solution with Washington as “mediator” – only the U.S. can bring the two together, gently or roughly–toward a sustainable peace.

A great distance from reality is needed to believe in that spin.

USA and Israel are interlocked by a much deeper tieRead More »

TFF PressInfo: Support Richard Branson’s Ukraine dialogue initiative

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TFF PressInfo 273

By Jan Oberg, TFF co-founder

Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden August 22, 2014

We are drifting towards a new Cold War. The reason isn’t substance because there is no reason we should not be able to live in peace in Europe – if we want and educated ourselves in handling problems.

No, the reason is the woefully incompetent way in which politicians and media focus on violence and ignore the underlying conflict and civil means – yes yes, of course there are exceptions.

Escalation doesn’t create peace

Here is just one example – NATO S-G Anders Fogh Rasmussen and NATO’s supreme commander General Breedlove (funny name given his anything but loving views coming rather from a Strangelove …) in the Wall Street Journal.

They tell you about all the escalation they have already done Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Leadership change needed in Israel

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By Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung

Lund, Sweden August 15, 2014

Like so many, like millions, this author’s heart is bleeding for the killed and bereaved in Gaza – so disturbingly similar to the Warsaw ghetto in 1943 and Warsaw 1944. With Arab and Western governments doing nothing; like the Red Army in 1944.

But the latter was heading for Berlin. And the West uses Ukraine as a distraction, trying to hit Moscow.

Like Rabbi Michael Lerner, my non-Jewish heart is also bleeding for Judaism and the Israel that could have been.

The present regime is a traitor to both, driving into the abyss.

Yet they have parliamentary and democratic, voter, support? Except that parliaments are not infallible, democracies can be wrong; even more so if the people think they have a divine mandate.

England, the mother of parliaments, once thought it had; colonized 25% of the world and is now hanging on to the “united kingdom”.

The USA still feels covenanted to the Lord but is lording over less and less; Japan suffers from similar Sun Goddess delusions.

So does the present Israeli regime, but there is enough sanity left.

By “pathology” it is meant not only the megalomaniac-paranoid component but the deficient sense of reality. Particularly:

Pathology 1: The delusion of victory being feasible.Read More »