Category: USA

Ukraine, a frozen conflict

JOLeave a comment

By Jonathan Power

It’s two years since a mass of demonstrators brought down the centrist government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

We don’t hear much about Ukraine these days, mainly because the foreign journalists, not having too much to do – and often being freelance and therefore only paid by the number of lines they get printed – have gone home or to other hot spots.

Most of the news these days comes out of the Washington-based IMF that repeatedly warns that the economy of Ukraine teeters on the brink and that corruption remains so deep and widespread that it is difficult, to say the least, to get good economic decisions made. Often the government appears to be checkmated by an unsympathetic parliament where the representatives of the oligarchs, who prefer the status quo, wield their power.

To compound the problems – which will surely continue even if Russia, the EU and the US find a common political and military solution – fighting in the east has now resumed. Fortunately, the main truce, agreed at Minsk a year ago by the heads of government of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, is maintained and these short flare-ups tend to happen every couple of months.

Winding the clock back to two years ago, the demonstrators in the Maidan,Read More »

Human Rights – A permanent challenge

JOLeave a comment

By Johan Galtung

Concluding Remarks, Colloque, Université Catholique Lyon, 5-6 Feb 2016

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 10 December 1948 – the two Conventions of 16 November 1966 are international law – was edited by a committee of Men; Older, White, Bourgeois, Lawyers, French: MOWBLF!

Nothing about women’s and children’s rights; wait till the 1980s.

The perspective focuses on individuals, not collectives, peoples.

There are no rights to access to toilet, nor to sexuality: well-mannered bourgeois do such things but do not talk or write about it. Art. 27.2 even protects remuneration for professionals like themselves.

The “human rights=legal claims” discourse defines underdog goals but is silent on topdog goals: status quo. Their justification: “If they rise, they will treat us the way we treated them”. Revenge. In a conflict discourse, all parties have to be heard, for solutions.

But the legal discourse is DMA–Dualist-Manichean-Armageddon; two parties, rights vs wrongs, final battle in the Supreme Court. No accommodation to legitimate concerns of the losing side. The winner takes all.

And they were French. What does, or did, that mean? Read More »

Time for an original US foreign policy

JOLeave a comment

By Jonathan Power

There are three schools of thought in American foreign policy- two you have heard about and a third that is relegated to the background.

The first and arguably the most prominent is the neo-conservative.

These people, in the days of the Soviet Union, were the rabid anti-communists who wanted to beat the Soviet Union into the ground with vastly increased spending on defence. Today they are the ones who supported the extreme right wing agitators who overthrew the middle-of-the-road president of Ukraine, Wiktor Yanukovich. They supported President George Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and want President Barack Obama to intervene in Syria.

The second is the liberal.

Liberals have always wanted to seek nuclear arms limitations with Moscow. They wanted an end to apartheid in South Africa. But many of them also believe in directly interfering in a country that is carrying out inhumane policies. They persuaded President Barack Obama to intervene in Libya’s civil war which left a political mess that has become a haven for ISIS. Some of them have argued for intervention in Syria’s civil war. They also, in tandem with the neo-conservatives, successfully persuaded Obama to pursue an anti-Russian policy in Ukraine.

Then, third, there are the “realists”.

People like the late greats: George Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr and Walter Lippmann. In many ways Obama is a realist, although not consistently. He has succumbed to both liberal and neo-conservative advice.

The realists don’t get much airtime. Their advice is usually pushed aside Read More »

On NATO S-G Stoltenberg’s wish for dialogue and NATO’s 2015 report

JOLeave a comment

By Jan Oberg

February 9, 2016

Commenting on NATO S-G Jens Stoltenberg’s wish for dialogue with Russia – a bit odd after all the other provocative initiatives he has spearheaded the last good year or so.

I felt like saying something more general about this outdated paradigm – and why it is dangerous for us all – referring also to the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955.

You may also see it as my statement countering the NATO Annual 2015 Report which lacks every intellectualism, theoretical/conceptual clarity, empathy, peace thinking and – naively – equates military build-up with ‘security’.

Mrs. Clinton’s hard line foreign policy

JOLeave a comment

By Jonathan Power

We in the world outside the US don’t have a vote in the US presidential election in November. But that doesn’t stop most of us having a strong opinion on who should win. Very few non-Americans would vote Republican – and probably not 51% of Americans.

After all President Barack Obama won two elections and has not given the Democrats a bad name. Many of us are being pulled towards Senator Bernie Sanders, a social democrat, who is giving Hillary Clinton a run for her money. But to be honest, once the primaries in the southern states start to roll, he is likely to be marginalized by Mrs. Clinton.

She will probably win the election for president.

Like it or lump it we’d better get used to a more right-wing and confrontational foreign policy.

Most of the time she was a good and faithful servant to Obama while his secretary of state but behind the scenes in internal White House discussions she would often argue against the president’s instincts and policies.

She was against Obama’s support for the Arab Spring in Egypt. She had long been close to Read More »

Around the world: Problems and remedies

JOLeave a comment

By Johan Galtung

Let us have a look, and see what can be done.

[1] Economies. NYSE is falling; China is consuming, with problems; the West blames China, not itself, for all. The truth is over-reliance on one commodity, oil-gas, hitting vulnerable economies doubly. Steep fall in price: $120-130 to $30-20, close to 1973 from $1 to $10. Steep fall in demand for that globally toxic product; a sign of rationality (but, the other globally toxic product, derivatives for speculation?) The currencies of oil-producers tumble. stocks fall; in Norway to the tune of half the state budget in three weeks (Finansavisen 21Jan 2016).

And over-reliance on trade with vulnerable economies.

Remedies: To become less vulnerable, through [1] more self-reliance nationally and locally, indeed for basic needs like food, [2] fully-fledged economies with primary-secondary-tertiary-quaternary (care for people and nature) sectors. Simple, sustainable rules.

Beyond that: import-export, but with a wide range of countries.

[2] Inequality: The Master, Atkinson’s, analysis of the catastrophic consequences, both high up and low down, is the best. Spiritual aspect is hopelessness, apathy with no project low down; high up ego-centrism devoid of solidarity as project. Sick societies. In 2010 388 persons owned as much as half of humanity, in 2014 80, end 2015 62 (Oxfam).

Remedies: Lift the bottom up, FDR New Deal, welfare states, the Chinese way. Publish the ratio CEO:workers earnings; make above 10:1 illegal, punish, boycott. More cooperatives with CEO-workers rotation.

[3] The third industrial revolution: robotization. Frankenstein’s monster is coming. Another consequence will be massive unemployment.

Remedies: Humans, sapiens-faber-ludens, are creative, productive and playful. We are all three. But we may need life-long guaranteed income for all, covering all basic needs. Humans will reconquer the production, wrestle it from unnecessary-unwanted robots, and enjoy life.

[4] Davos. There they are, those who brought us these problems. Read More »

In Brazil the future can work

JOLeave a comment

By Jonathan Power

“Brazil has a great future, and always will”, said Charles de Gaulle, the president of France in the 1960s. In truth it is not difficult to be cynical about Brazil. It is a large land of both great potential and many lost opportunities- and yet whenever I visit it, as I have regularly over 40 years, I find the positive changes are immense.

In my time I have seen growth rates year after year of 10% or more. I have seen the transformation of favelas- shanty towns- into solid working class housing. I have seen infant mortality rates plummet. (To capture the flavor of the lives of the poor a must read is the new top prize-winning novel, “Quarenta Dias” (Forty Days), written by Valeria Rezende, a nun.) And under Brazil’s last president, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, leader of the Workers’ Party I have seen the almost unbelievable- capitalist economic progress and socialist social progress storming ahead hand in hand.

Right now Brazil is in the middle of the kind of economic crisis profligacy, bad economic management, a sudden loss of export markets for its commodities and inflation have brought a number of times before. But this is perhaps the worse fall in economic progress since the 1930s. To compound Brazil’s problems is the Zika virus, which is spreading at a fast rate.Read More »

Sweden soon at war? Yes, perhaps, if in NATO

JOLeave a comment

By Jan Oberg

It was a few days ago when Swedish Army chief, Major-General Anders Brännström stated in a (leaked) internal document that ‘Sweden could be at war within a few years.’

This is, of course, nothing but ‘fearology’ and very bad judgement. He may be a great soldier but a victim of his own system’s bizarre threat perceptions – always pointing as they do to the Russians.

As I explain here, this is part of a much larger picture – and it isn’t good. The statement – that is not and has not been backed up by any analysis – ought to be enough for general Brännström to be replaced.

But that is something both mainstream media and scholars are too diplomatic to suggest. Had he stated something about Sweden being drawn into a war if it were a NATO member it would certainly have caused quite a media debate and discussions about his qualifications.

TFF PressInfo # 358 – Denmark, Decency and Decay (2/4)

JOLeave a comment

By Jan Oberg

Or, where there is a will, there is a way

The first part of four here

2001 – the ‘war on terror’

The war on terror was initiatied after 9/11 – Afghanistan 10/7. Denmark went along without thinking. The idea came from Washington, so what was there to think about?
At the time about 400 people were killed in international terrorism per year; today the Global Terror Index informs us that 32.000 people are killed in terrorism. It must be the stupidest war in modern time and the majority of the victims are found in the Middle East, not in Europe and not in the US.

But we bomb – and create more terrorism. And more refugees. Politics having become anti-intellectual and devoid of ethical considerations, few connect the dots. Fewer see Denmark’s own co-responsibility for causing the problems and even fewer see the moral responsibility of taking care. No, steal their belongings.

Iraq

It was prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen of the liberal Party, Venstre (meaning left but it’s neo-liberal right) whose government made Denmark an occupying power in Iraq over four years (2003-2007). By any standards the most serious foreign policy blunder of Danish foreign policy since 1945.

Asked recently on Danish television how he felt about the tragic situation in today’s Iraq he answered that – well, we stretched out our hand to the Iraqi people but unfortunately they didn’t take it.

No remorse there, Mr. Always Right. But quite a statement when you are a non-convicted war criminal having joined a project that killed about 1 million Iraqis during war, occupation and 13 years of sanction. The Danish politicians and people are still, it seems, unable or unwilling to understand the dimensions of this blunder – which is one reason they also don’t understand today what it means to be a refugee.

Muhamed carictures

It was under his leadership – or lack if it – the Muhamed caricatures became a diplomatic disaster. He refused to meet with Muslim leaders in Denmark and also ignored a letter of concern from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the global voice of Muslims with 57 member states and 1,6 billion people.

Probably no one in the PM’s and foreign minister’s office had a clue what the OIC was.

But he did know who Khadaffi was when later, rewarded for his good deeds by the US and catapulted to S-G of NATO, he spearheaded the coalition member states’ violation of the very limited UN mandate, their destruction of that country and the killing of Khadaffi.Read More »

TFF PressInfo 357: Denmark, Decency and Decay (1/4)

JOLeave a comment

By Jan Oberg

Or, where there is a will there is a way*

Once again Denmark appears in the international community and media for the wrong things, this time for a law package with three main, draconian anti-refugee laws. One legalises stealing – that’s what it is – valuables owned by refugees upon arrival if they exceed US$ 1450; the second cuts down on the already meagre daily benefit and the third extends the family reuinion period from 1 to 3 years.

81 MPs voted yes, 27 No, 1 abstained and 70 MPs were absent. The main argument is that Denmark wants to “signal” that asylum seekers should go elsewhere. Otherwise marketing-conscious politicians have overlooked that there are millions upon millions out there who are not asylum seekers and they get an extremely bad impression of Denmark. Like they did when Denmark put ads in Middle Eastern newspaper some time ago to deter potential refugees.

The three laws – of which the first clearly provokes memories of what the Nazis did to the Jews – are just a peak point in a long (mal)development of Denmark’s foreign policy. It can be characterised by incremental absence of ethics, solidarity, compassion, empathy and sound human judgement – all concepts outside the domain of ‘real’ politics – combined with increased interventionism, militarism and lofty contempt for international laws.

By passing these laws, the country’s parliamentarians – with a few exceptions – have soiled the image of the country abroad even more and for a very long time ahead, one must fear.

It is not unreasonable to assume that terrorists will pay attention to this development which is de facto targetting refugees which are almost 100% Muslims.

Many Danish citizens including myself now recognise that ‘Dane’ rhymes with ‘Shame’. This trend in Danish policitics doesn’t happen in our name.

Once upon a time

Denmark used to be known and appreciated around the worldRead More »