Category: Conflict and war

TFF PressInfo # 391: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI, at 50. Now change name to SIMSI

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By Jan Oberg

Is there a new cold war? And what steps can be taken by whom to reduce tension and make peace?

Indeed highly relevant issues in an era of European history where the characteristics of a new Cold War are becoming ever more significant. And a good intellectual way to celebrate an important research institute’s 50th Anniversary, namely SIPRI – Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Now, what was this SIPRI supposed to be 50 years ago as the brainchild of, among others, brilliant visionary sociologist and social democratic politician Alva Myrdal who later became Sweden’s disarmament ambassador, wrote an impressive book on disarmament and security and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982?

If you go to its entry at Wikipedia, it is very clearly spelled out in 1966 (my italics):

“A Swedish Royal Commission chaired by Ambassador Alva Myrdal proposed in its 1966 report to establish an institute, later named the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI. The Institute’s research should seek to contribute to “the understanding of the preconditions for a stable peace and for peaceful solutions of international conflicts” and the Commission recommended that research be concentrated on armaments, their limitation and reduction, and arms control. The Commission also recommended that SIPRI work be of “an applied research character directed towards practical-political questions [which] should be carried on in a constant interchange with research of a more theoretical kind”.”

However, here is today’s research programs of SIPRI – also from Wikipedia:

• The SIPRI Yearbook
• Euro-Atlantic Security and Arms Control
• Armed Conflict and Conflict Management
• Non-Proliferation and Export Controls
• Chemical and Biological Warfare
• Military Expenditure and Arms Production
• Arms Transfers
• IT Projects: “Facts on International Relations and Security Trends” and “An Internet-Based Early Warning Indicators System for Preventive Policy”

The character of this program is pretty obvious:

SIPRI studies wars and arms and very little, if at all, peaceful solutions to international conflicts and the – theoretical – conditions of a stable peace.

So here are Read More »

TFF PressInfo # 389: Ukraine as the border of NATO expansion

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And why Russia doesn’t have to be a threat to the West

By Jan Oberg

TFF Series ”The New Cold War” # 7

If the Ukraine conflict is the centerpiece of the new 2nd Cold War, it is essential to ask: What really happened? What did NATO countries do to cause it? What did Russia do to cause it?
And – if you live in the West, in particular: Did we really have to end in this situation given Russia’s significant weakness over 25 years?
This article argues that the superior West could have played its cards differently and it’s time for self-critical soul-searching and just a little living yourself into the shoes of the other.
If peace rather than war is your true aim.

There was a beginning and a framework

The Ukraine conflict has a 25-years history. Instead of dissolving NATO, the alliance was expanded. Relieved from there being a Soviet Union and a Warsaw Pact, the alliance went as fast it could to do all it wanted. Remember, a series of WW III scenarios has been written in which that war would start with some uncontrollable event in Yugoslavia. Now it could be chopped up – freely and without risk. Serbia was bombed and Kosovo carved out without a UN mandate whatsoever (1999).

How did they think about that in the Kremlin at the time, one must wonder?

Clinton literally did not give a damn about all the promises made to Soviet leader Gorbachev by US leaders such as Bush, James Baker and German leaders including Hans-Dietrich Genscher. (Yes, they were not written down but confirmed by those involved and present).

He began the expansion of NATO in 1994 – in Georgia (see what I refer to elsewhere in this series). All around a Russia on its knees Americans were placed in the offices of prime ministers, defence and foreign ministers – I saw it myself in former Yugoslavia – and met CIA people in Croatia disguised as humanitarian workers. And had a long conversation with the representative of the US in Tblisi in 1994. Historical moment!

The bad Christians, the Orthodox, were the Serbs and Russians and Greeks – all should be antagonized and the good guys in Yugoslavia were those who had been on the fascist side in WWII – the leaderships in Croatia, Muslims in Bosnia and the Kosovo Albanians. The Serb minority that had lived 400 years as a minority in the Croatian republic were, in the common Western discourse, invaders masterminded by strongman Slobodan Milosevic – whom Clinton without hesitation called the new ’Hitler of Europe’.

Ukraine was – and remains – what its name says: the border areas (like Krajina in Croatia). This is where NATO can establish itself as little as Chruschev could get away with deploying nukes in Cuba – considerably further away from the US, but anyhow.

Imagine – with a little bit of empathy (not necessarily sympathy) how Washington would react if today Putin’s Russia was 12 times stronger militarily than the alliance-free US (NATO dissolved 25 years ago) and tried with his alliance of 27 other members to make Canada or Mexico the 29th member. Perhaps most people in the US and Europe would have some sympathy for the negative reaction of Washington. Rand remember, Trump wants to build a wall to Mexico…

The main reason, it is stated again and again, in the Western press, NATO and other political circles is: Ukraine and Crimea. The lie about Putin’s aggression on Ukraine is told so many times that it is becoming the truth. Just see these two recent articles by Newsweek as two of hundreds of articles.

Here’s the chosen story in politics and media alike

The narrative is simplified beyond recognition and goes like this:

Putin (there is always just one top guy in Western eyes and it is one leader at the top like Milosevic, Mohamed Farah Aideed, Saddam Hussein, Moammar Khaddafi, al-Assad) is a bad guy and you know that because out of the blue his suddenly annexed Crimea. By that he changes the borders of Europe and then he gets his disguised soldiers into Eastern Ukraine – a Ukraine that we, in contrast to Bush Senior, care very very much about today.

We care so much about it that Read More »

The Future of Europe: The capacity to integrate, for dialogue and to generate

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By Maired Maguire

“War is illegal and immoral, it has to end and it can be ended.’

Speech at the international meeting “Thirst For Peace”, Assisi September 18-20, 2016. Promoted by Community of Sant Egidio and Diocese of Assisi and Franciso Families.

Dear Friends,

I am happy to be here at this International Meeting and I would like to thank our hosts, for their invitation to attend. I have always been inspired by the lives of St. Francis and St. Clare, whom I believe are Icons of Christian Gospel Peace and Nonviolence.

Francis the man of action, steeped in empathy and love for all, and Clare a woman of prayer, whose love of God led her into the depth of mysticism and peace.

Francis and Clare lived in a time of violence and war, yet they choose to live the nonkilling/nonviolence of Jesus. Francis as a youth fighting in his local military, knew well how to wield a sword, yet he choose to follow the command of Jesus to Peter, when he told him to put up his sword and healed the Soldier’s ear.

He left the military to live in poverty and service, and together with Clare, and his followers refused to take up arms. Francis and Clare, in the midst of much feudal violence, choose to follow the Christian nonviolence manifesto ‘the Sermon on the Mount’.

For many people in Europe and the world, challenged by growing violence and injustice, the lives of these two great 13th century Saints gives us hope and inspiration.

Pope Francis, following in the steps of St. Francis, gives us all hope as he challenges us to work for the abolition of the death penalty, ending poverty, the arms race, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction, etc.,

However, I believe we need a clear renunciation of the ‘just war’ theory (a phoney piece of morality in the words of the late Fr. John L. McKenzie) and I add my voice to those appealing to Pope Francis for an Encyclical on Peace and Nonviolence, calling Christians to rejection militarism and war and to follow a Peace theology in keeping with the teachings of the Nonviolent Jesus.

This would give great Spiritual leadership not only to Europe but to Humanity.

I believe Europe todayRead More »

The Global Right and Left and Immanuel Wallerstein

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By Johan Galtung

Immanuel Wallerstein is unique. Nobody else has presented such a coherent theory of what he calls the modern world-system, from “the long 16th century” up till today; essentially capitalist. There are ups and downs during those four centuries. He is very much at home in the economic Kondratiev cycles–A for up, B for down, but not that much down–and in the political-military hegemonic cycles of the would-be hegemons in the same period.

Read Immanuel Wallerstein and become wiser.

He warns against the Global Right “Lampedusa tactic” of “changing things so that they remain the same”. And insists on Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for the Global Left–but sees the French Revolution more as normalizing change than as people’s sovereignty. Like faith in the middle classes: they are actually helping the Global Right, when in minority they are enlarged by the majority working classes, when in majority they neglect the working class minority left behind.

Right now Wallerstein sees capitalism in crisis with no remedy – of which I am not so sure – and the US hegemony also in a crisis with no remedy – a view I share – as the fall of an empire with local elites killing for them; now they have to do most of the killing themselves.

The Global Right, in power for a long time, is now faltering. Time for the Global Left?

Or, does Zizek’s brilliant formula “the left never misses a chance to miss a chance” apply?

Wallerstein offers six Global Left proposals:Read More »

TFF PressInfo # 388: The War On Terror – A predictable fiasco

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By Jan Oberg

This coming Sunday marks the 15th anniversary of what could be called the most counter-productive, if not stupid, war in modern history: The War On Terror. Today that war is much much more dangerous to the world’s future than the terrorists it is allegedly supposed to hunt down. And it has caused thousands of times more suffering, death and destruction – at least a million innocent people killed.

It’s not a war on terrorism but on terrorists and that is as smart as trying to fight all diseases by killing patients. It’s a war fought without any consideration of the one big question: Why did they do it and why do they do it? Media and politics only asking: Who did it? How was it done? Where? How to respond?

Without an intelligent, comprehensive diagnosis of 9/11 it could only go wrong. And it has.

The next problem was that ‘terrorism’ was suddenly defined by states as anything non-state that threatens society and states. Governments and the UN (which consists of them) conveniently omitted terrorism as a term for what states do and have done on a regular basis and on a much larger scale. Such as the nuclear balance of terror.

About 400 people were killed annually and worldwide before 9/11 according to US State Department statistics – reporting of that stopped in 2004 when figures soared after the War On Terror gained momentum. However, according to the 2015 Global Terror Index – the number is now 32,000 – and the far majority killed outside the West. So, the problem has increased exactly 80 times(!)

And the Western leaders who continue this war has no idea about how to stop it or do something more productive and intelligent to the world. Primitive tit-for-tat and disproportional responses has substituted what was once called statesmanship.

And it was predictable that it would be a fiasco!

Many both inside and outside the U.S. came up with Read More »

Vem kan tro på historien om Nine Eleven?

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Av Ola Friholt

Det är nu 15 år sedan den ödesdigra dagen 11 september 2001. Sedan dess har kriget mot terrorismen utvecklats och krävt minst två miljoner liv och lika många psykiskt och fysiskt skadade, allt enligt en utredning från USAs läkarsällskap, ”Physicians for Social Responsibility” (med 50 000 medlemmar och medlem av Läkare mot kärnvapen).

Resultatet av kriget mot terrorismen är dessutom negativt även för väst. Idag har attentaten och offren i väst mångdubblats.

Lika anmärkningsvärt är att medborgarnas fri- och rättigheter i väst dramatiskt har urholkats. Kontrollen uppifrån är närmast total med avlyssning utan praktisk begränsning.

Hemliga fångläger med tortyr av godtyckligt fängslade har avslöjats i Polen, Tjeckien, Kosovo och Egypten, utöver de öppet erkända på Guantanamo, i Afghanistan och Pakistan. Ett sextiotal personer har suttit på Guantanamo i fjorton år utan rannsakan och dom från USA, som förr kallats ”Världens största demokrati”.

Den 11 september kan alltså kopplas till urholkning av demokratiska fri- och rättigheter, utomrättsligt dödande i stor skala, godtyckligt fängslande, officiellt påbjuden tortyr m m. Till detta kan läggas intensifierade rustningar och nya krig på bekostnad av fredlig dialog och konfliktlösning. Sveriges regeringar har följsamt godtagit både den officiella bilden av händelserna den 11 september 2001 och dess såväl militära som civila konsekvenser.

Det är ingen tillfällighet att avlyssningsstationerna på Lovön och Lerkil hör till världens största och att rymdforskningsstationen Esrange i Kiruna förmedlar satellitdata till USA/Nato för deras krigföring.

Och Sverige deltog i förmenta antiterrorkrig i Afghanistan och Libyen.

Det finns anledning att omvärdera hela utvecklingen under femton år och ifrågasätta själva den åberopade grunden för denna utveckling: raserandet av World Trade Centre.

Ifrågasättandet av den officiella beskrivningen av den händelsen började nästan omedelbart. Idag finns en hel litteratur som smular sönder den bild som är officiellt accepterad i väst. Vad var det som egentligen skedde, och vem låg bakom?

Betydande analyser gjordes av Andreas von Bülow, tidigare minister för teknologi och forskning i Helmut Schmidts regering i Tyskland, med boken ”CIA och 11 september” (2003) på Alhambra förlag. Professor David Ray Griffin har publicerat flera böcker, på svenska ”Motsägelser om 11 september”, Alhambra 2008, och ”WTC 7 och dess mystiska kollaps”, Alhambra 2010. Dessutom omfattande analyser på Internet, t ex Wood & Reynolds: ”The Star Wars Beam Weapons and Star Wars Directed Energy Weapons” (2006) och D A Khalezov: ”911thology: The Third Truth about 9-11” (2013), 1092 sidor.

För en sunt tänkande människa ter det sig orimligt att makthavare skulle kunna bedriva en politik som drabbar det egna folket. Ändå är detta vardagsmat sedan århundraden, med nittonhundratalet som eländets höjdpunkt. Då offrades långt över 100 miljoner liv även av ledare som kallade sig demokratiska. Det ansågs självklart att utkämpa världskrigen så som de utkämpades.

Likaså krigen för och emot kolonial befrielse och krigen för kontroll över råvarutillgångar och marknader. Och sedan årtionden dör cirka hundratusen människor varje dag i sviterna av världens orättvisor utan att särskilda insatser görs för att förhindra det.

De senaste åren har destabilisering och förstöring av stater stått på stormaktsprogrammet under uppenbart falska förevändningar men utan att väcka förvåning. Ansvariga är främst USA och England under medverkan av övriga Nato. Detta hindrar inte att majoriteten av Sveriges politiska partier och riksdagen liksom regeringen alltmer närmar sig Natomedlemskap, utan att gå in i den debatt som borde vara självklar i en demokrati.

Att ledare är beredda att offra tusentals av sitt eget och andra folk för tvivelaktiga mål är således väl belagt.

Det finns all anledning att tvivla på de förklaringar en stormakts ledare ger.

Den 11. 9. 2001 sägs alltså 19 muslimska flygkapare ha flugit in i World Trade Centres två högsta skyskrapor och därigenom fått dem att rasa till grunden. Read More »

NATO:s nya, mer aggressiva kärnvapenpolicy

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By Gunnar Westberg

Formuleringen “”NATO:s nya, mer aggressiva kärnvapenpolicy” har två grunder, nämligen de nya vapnen och de nya formuleringarna av doktriner.

Jag föreslår att vi, när vi talar om NATO och kärnvapen, använder formuleringar liknande den första meningen. Vill man förklara sig ger andra meningen ett svar. Men det är under alla omständigheter bra om man har tillgång till nedanstående argument:

De gamla B61 var symboliska vapen. De skulle, enligt ofta upprepade försäkringar, inte användas. De var en pant på att USA inte skulle överge Europa vid ett sovjetiskt/ryskt anfall. USA har föreslagit att dessa vapen skulle tas bort, men öst-europeiska NATO-medlemmar och framför allt Frankrike (!) har starkt reagerat emot.

De nya vapnen är B 61-12. Denna bomb skiljer sig från tidigare versioner av B61 som var ”gravity bombs”, d v s föll fritt från bombplanet. B 61-12 är styrbart och har därför en träffsäkerhet inom 30 m radie. B 61-12 har en variable laddning på 0,3-340kt. Bomben förefaller vara kapabel att penetrera mer än 3 m vanlig jord innan den detonerar. Effekten på djupet blir därför flera gånger större än en bomb av motsvarande laddning skulle ge utan penetrerande förmåga.

B 61-12 blir alltså ett effektivt vapen mot vissa underjordiska mål. Bomberna har sannolikt en plats i nya, ännu inte offentliga doktriner om kärnvapen-användning, i motsats till avskräckning. Read More »