April 11, 2019 It’s Friday, April 5, 2019, at 9 PM. An entertaining talk show, “Skavlan”. A dialogue between a prime minister and a special forces soldier who has no regret having kicked in doors and “killed a lot” in Afghanistan. He justifies himself by the most primitive and long-ago debunked theory about Good and Evil in this world. And […]
Jan Oberg Comment A US war game/scenario being reported by The Intercept is pretty revealing for the lack of even the slightest re-thinking of what the Global War On Terror (GWOT) is really all about. The US military’s game is about violence-for-violence, tit-for-tat. The main result from this – anti-intellectual – attitude and policy is that there are about 80 […]
With his speech today – half an hour ago – U.S. President Trump has taken a huge step into uncharted territories. (Here on video). One that implies a 60-75% risk of leading to a US attack on Iran. Behind him stands the hardline militarists whom he has himself appointed. Secondly, neo-conservative individuals and think tanks who have brought the world only a series of failed wars and unspeakable human misery since the invasion of Afghanistan. Third, the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC, that is outside real democratic control and pushes relentlessly for ever-increasing armament and wars and serves the public all kinds of weird, fake images of what threatens the US. Further, pro-Israeli and pro-Saudi lobby organisations and extremely wealthy individuals who buy political influence and thereby destroy the very foundations of democracy and free opinion formation. • Against these numerically tiny elites stand virtually the rest of the world, including NATO allies and the EU.
Does the U.S. have anything constructive and benign to offer the world anymore? In this comment on PressTV I list a series of arguments against these new sanctions which were passed by the US Senate two days later.
I read dozens of articles every day about various conflict zones, commentaries, war reports and – the few times it happens – possibilities of peace. I read about Syria in particular as I have since I visited Damascus and Aleppo in December 2016. It’s important that one does not, over time, develop the disease called “psychic numbing” – an excellent […]
Amnesty International lader i disse uger en bus udsmykke med et reklameslogan hvilket er blevet opfanget af Adweek Adfreak som “remarkable” markedsføring. Det er det skam – men af andre grunde end den der fremhæves i artiklen. Dette billede pryder også hele forsiden på Amnesty’s hjemmeside. Har Amnesty ikke lagt mærke til at Aleppo blev befriet for godt 7 måneder […]
Min klumme i Arbejderen den 7. juli 2017.
There should be a lower intellectual level to the statements by a US Secretary of Defence. There should be a debunking of the unethical behaviour that repeatedly state that there is only a political solution to Syria and continue to use only violence. There should be a discussion about international law here. There should be a discussion of what is […]
“The Debate” with Jim Walsh, MIT and Jan Oberg, TFF Lund, Sweden – May 30, 2017 Last night “The Debate” on PressTV was devoted to the future of European-US relations in the wake of the NATO Summit, President Trump’s words and omissions and the – historic – words, in particular, of Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately after. Undoubtedly, we are at a turning point in these relations in general and for the NATO alliance in particular. To discuss these issues – past, present and future perspectives – were Jim Walsh, senior research associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program, Massachusetts, and Jan Oberg, director of TFF, Lund. Thanks to PressTV’s excellently structured program and interviewer we touched upon a series of aspects and dimensions around which we found both agreements and slight disagreements – all in a sober tone fit for public education and personal reflection. We hope this debate will stimulate your own thoughts about the future of war, security and peace. We’d be grateful for your sharing it to media people, students and other academics as well as to decision-makers in the field that you may know. See it here – The Debate
This is TFF Live on Facebook – the live broadcast I do now and then because live broadcasts have a much larger dissemination than articles, images, texts and Youtube videos. You may find more here. I argue why I believe NATO belongs to the past and should have been dissolved when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolved in […]
Here I am with my friends Donald, Bibi, Sara and Melania… And speak a little about the stupidity of scapegoating Iran for everything, of giving Saudi Arabia even more weapons – and being bribed by it – of creating the preconditions for more warfare and about the fact that NATO is setting up shop in Kuwait and there are plans to have a Gulf NATO – something you can read much more about in my analysis Trump in Riyadh – A Gulf NATO to gang up against Iran and Syria. It’s a TFF PressInfo and you can subscribe to them too so they wing into your mailbox – very irregularly and not too often… write to PI@transnational.org – and they are free of course and many of the best things in life.
To hit Iran and Syria in the future? Why is Saudi Arabia already the 3rd or 4th largest military spender on earth? The Gulf Cooperation Council 10 times bigger than Iran? Is NATO setting itself up in the Arab world? And why is Denmark’s ambassador Ms. Merete Juhl in the United Arab Emirates the main coordinator of helping NATO expand into the Middle East=?
By Jan Oberg Proud to join “Middle East With Naskah Zada” at her program in New York and talking about the reasons that peace has become so ‘unpopular’. Touching also upon international law, the new Cold War and the increasing U.S. involvement in Syria.
Commenting on PressTV after President Erdogan’s and Putin’s meeting on May 3, 2017
Just a thought…
I had the pleasure and honour to comment on the Iranian defence minister’s views on the nuclear deal, on a nuclear-free Middle East, terrorism and more.
“The Debate” of April 16, 2017 on Iran’s PressTV between Richard Millett and myself is important to me. I think it will be for you too in the sense of clarifying two approaches and positions on Syria. Its focus is on the difference in media coverage of the terrible events in Khan Seykhoun and al-Rashideen but there is much more […]
TFF Live April 12, 2017 The secretaries of state, Tillerson and Lavrov meet today. We seem to enter a stage of what must appropriately be perceived as a frosty new Cold War. In the worst of cases this can lead to a new Cuban Missile Crisis. God forbid!
A quick comment – expressive of a slight frustration. It doesn’t even occur to the reporter – the Washington Post’s bureau chief in Beirut – that she is talking about international aggression. Can everybody just use Syria for whatever games they please? Welcome to follow me on my new public page.
