The collective cynicism is ugly. The innocent Syrian people are now doomed. The author hopes that his predictions shall soon be proven wrong… Jan Oberg December 8, 2024 This article was published at 02:36, about 4 hours before the HTS terrorists occupied Damascus. • Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen reports tonight, December 8, 2024, that Russia, Iran, Turkey call for immediate end to hostilities in Syria. My cynical … Continue reading NATO countries, Russia, Iran abandon Syria, its people and leadership while Israel laughs
When Sweden applied for membership in NATO in panic and with only 47% in favour, the Swedes were told it was a defensive alliance for peace. Now, while trying to enter NATO and building 17 US bases, they are told to get ready for war because these pesky Russians are coming – like they were supposed to at any time since 1949 when NATO was … Continue reading Sweden prepares for war in the hands of calm hysterics
• The US military in 2019 was hiding Syria airstrikes that killed dozens of civilians The two attacks in 2019 led to the deaths of up to 64 women and children, a possible war crime The US military called the strikes ‘legitimate self-defence’, and said the victims could have been combatants as some, including at least one child, were armed We should thank the New … Continue reading Two everyday stories about the US’ ongoing militarist perversity and spiritual death
August 6, 2019 – Hiroshima Day Thought you might like to see a discussion I participated in at the invitation of PressTV in – non-nuclear – Iran. And, like me, you may have wondered why the Western world’s mainstream media largely ignore Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day? Well, I have a nasty mind: Because someone has let it be understood that there is no reason to … Continue reading Nuclear weapons states are terrorist states and these weapons are indefensible
June 1, 2019 I’ve never been “anti-American.” I work with (North) Americans every day at the Transnational Foundation and much of my academic training in both sociology and peace and conflict research has been heavily influenced by American scholarship. I am a great admirer of American culture and arts – from the Abstract Impressionists to Pop Art- and of American movies, music – Bob Dylan … Continue reading Time to stop visiting the United States
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 times – yes, times – … Continue reading Main creator of terrorism is US war on terror, not terrorists
Jan Oberg comments on NATO and the need for a much larger citizens-taxpayers movement against militarism since, for almost 70 years since 1949, NATO has failed miserably in creating the peace it says it aims at. In addition it is systematically violating its Treaty. Continue reading Why NATO is obsolete – some arguments
Since marketing, omitted and fake news have – to a worrying extent – replaced knowledge and ethics, why not celebrate that the media have omitted every mention of Hiroshima Day today?
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 concept developed by Robert Jay Lifton, a former TFF Associate.
I’m not going to discuss that article but would like to call your attention to this sentence – that Ignatius does not even dwell on:
One knowledgeable official estimates that the CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.
I fail to understand it. I read it again. I’d urge you to do likewise.
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 morally defensible in this case, … Continue reading Intellectual nonsense about Syria
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 1989. I also say a … Continue reading NATO should be dissolved – 8 arguments
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 … Continue reading Discussing Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia
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=? Continue reading US-Saudi Arabia’s endless militarism
“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 to it. I’ll keep on … Continue reading Syria – two perspectives illustrated
TFF LiveApril 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! Continue reading The US/NATO confrontation with Russia is dangerous
Here my 6th photo series from Aleppo – hashtag #keepfocusonaleppo.
Lund, Sweden – March 24, 2017
Can the almost total destruction of Eastern Aleppo be used constructively?
Only if we are willing to ask and dialogue about this:
• Why does the world go on investing US$ 2000 billion annually in warfare and US$ 30 in all the UN does – only to create destruction of people, places, past and future?
• How absurd, how meaningless – indeed how far must it go to destroy the West itself – before we learn to conflict intelligently?
•
I’ve see much destruction during my work in conflict zones the last 25 years. But nothingcompares with Aleppo and the destruction of Syria and its people.
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. Continue reading Peace plan for Syria – first steps
TFF PressInfo # 405 Lund, Sweden – February 24, 2017Failed conflict analysis To analyse a conflict is as necessary as the diagnosis for the doctor: You either get to a solution/treatment or you don’t. If the diagnosis is deficient, you don’t. You instead risk killing the patient. And it’s deficient of you stare only at “evil” cells and blame the patient for a life … Continue reading Keep focus on Aleppo and global dimensions of Syria
A 30 min debate about NATO, Ukraine, Crimea, Yugoslavia, Syria the eternal enemy images and the – obsolete – philosophy on which NATO builds. Time for something new, I argue in the debate with former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defence under Reagon, Mr. Lawrence J. Korb who at the time was in command of 70% of Pentagon’s budget. Here in TFF PressInfo # 403 is … Continue reading Discussing NATO with a former U.S. Ass. Sec. of Defence
The occupiers denied children education. Now they get it. TFF’s first four photo series from Aleppo have been seen by 95,000 people so far and been featured in online magazines from Vietnam to California, among them a German site with a million visitors daily. Above is the fifth story. It’s about the terrible, systematic destruction of this UNESCO World Heritage site but also about an Aleppo businessman who turned … Continue reading School in an Aleppo factory
Fourth photo story from Aleppo: “Faces of Aleppo. Just out of 4,5 years of occupation hell” January 25, 2017 Unique photos from Eastern Aleppo in Syria when it was finally liberated on December 11-12, 2016. The people you see here have just come out to freedom from 4,5 years of the occupation by what can be called RIOTs – Rebels-Insurgents-Opposition-Terrorists – mostly the latter. And most … Continue reading Faces of Aleppo
Commenting with David Swanson, leading and sharp peace intellectual, on the inauguration of Trump – also about the legacy of Barrack Obama. For Iran’s international PressTV. Posted on TFF’s blog. Continue reading From Obama to Trump
The third photo story from the days of the liberation of Aleppo in SyriaUnique photos with text from Aleppo’s Jibrin reception center for people finally liberated in Eastern Aleppo December 11-12, 2016.Documentation of the fact that it was the Syrian authorities, the Syrian Army, Russian doctors, the Syrian Red Crescent and volunteering Syrian youth who took care of these destitute internally displaced people.In short, the … Continue reading Aleppo’s evil humanitarians
New year’s night, January 1, 2017 This girl had come out of Eastern Aleppo after four dark years of occupation by Western-backed terrorists – too many to name. People who for no reason had destroyed her home, her part of that beautiful city. Perhaps half of her life living in fear, perhaps having lost family members. I do not know. I met her on December 14 … Continue reading The little girl from Eastern Aleppo
The old years went – in as little a time as it takes to turn around and see who is tapping you on your shoulder. And it is the new, the next year.
I hope it will pass too – in as little time as it takes for me to turn my head and look forward again – because the face of 2017 doesn’t look good or kind to me.
Neither do the next ten or so years.
Beyond that the world will become a better place. If, that is, if we survive and don’t destroy it all.
The thing that has too pass – or pass away – is the United States Empire.
In a few years it will go the way Rome and all the rest plus the Ottoman, British and Soviet empires did. No empire lasts forever.
But before we go for it – a video from Beirut, December 2016:
Some indicators of Empire dissolution
The indicators, the cracks, in the Empire are there for all to see – the Americans and other Westernes will be the last and remain in denial for some time until the discrepancy between the self-image and the reality, the self-delusion, has grown too big. Like East Germany or Russia at in the early 1980s.
The rest of the world, the non-West sees some of these cracks quite clearly:
Have just published the second of a series of photo stories from Syria – “Humans in liberated Aleppo”. You can subscribe to this page for photo stories which ensures that you’ll get an email as soon as they are posted on my Exposure page. I’d be most grateful if you’d share this link too. And here is a little background to this photo story: Unique photos … Continue reading Humans in liberated Aleppo
Here a few comments on Erdogan’s recent attack on the West for supplying arms to the Kurds. Funny that Turkey’s president should accuse someone else for weaponizing a conflict. At the same time as Turkey does it and is also involved in two wars outside itself – Iraq and Syria – and one inside against the Kurds. In this short interview I seek to raise … Continue reading Imagine a Middle East with no weapons!
I’ve felt deeply touched by Johan Grimonprez’ brilliant and frightening documentary “Shadow World” which is based on Andrew Feinstein’s book with the same name. I want to share it with my readers and here is all about the book and the movie. It was shown in November 2016 by Swedish Television with Swedish text but is due to be taken down a couple of month later. It will … Continue reading “Shadow World” – on your tax money
October 26, 2016 Yet another example of how tension build up in this New Cold War situation – instead of doing what we did during the first Cold War: trying confidence-building measures. Today too BBC announced that the US will deploy – permanently – 300 US soldiers to norther Norway, a break with Norway’s policies since it became a NATO member. And Reuters brought the … Continue reading NATO-Russia games
Last night I had the opportunity to discuss nuclear weapons with an experienced, high-ranking security analyst who has been both a military, a scholar, an assistant secretary of defence, presidential adviser, a corporate man and now a think tank member, Lawrence J. Korb. We were discussing the issues touched upon in this and this article. I would assume that the debate – facilitated by Iran’s PressTV in … Continue reading U.S. nuclear policies – two world views
Hillary Rodham Clinton was nominated last night by the Democratic Party as its candidate for the U.S. Presidency. She may well win on November 8.
What a tragedy for Western democracy that the leader of what is still called the free, democratic world cannot produce better candidates than Trump and Clinton through a disgustingly commercialized and corrupt political process where candidates like Jill Stein – did you ever hear of that candidate? – doesn’t have a chance because she cannot mobilize the funds.
As a European intellectual with a life-long commitment to peace and democracy, I find little reason to celebrate.
And why the total focus on a few individuals at the top but not the structures that will run them both, such as the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex (MIMAC); the cancer in many societies, including Russia, that President Eisenhower warned the world about in his farewell speech already in 1961?
How short the media memory! Hillary Clinton’s nomination celebrated all over the mainstream press as a victory for the party – preventing it from splitting – and for all women.
But how can people – women in particular – really believe in such genderism: that she will be a better president for the US and the world because she’s a woman? Hasn’t the world learnt anything from the inverse racism:that Obama would be a great presidentbecause he is black?
How blind the media to militarism, war and other violence: Not one media focuses on the Clinton’s well-documented fascination with violence and war.
It’s time to refresh the memory of the Clintons:
Bill Clinton’s record
From 1994 BC broke all promises made by his predecessors and other Western politician to Gorbachev about “not expanding NATO an inch”. He started out in Tblisi, Georgia. I happened to be there, spoke with the U.S. representative to the country and got a sense what was coming. Later too in Yugoslavia.
There is a straight line from that fatal arrogance to today’s Second Cold War in Europe, Ukraine having – predictably – to be the this-far-and-no-longer country of that mindless and reckless expansion that should never have happened.
Here is my take on the July 15 coup in Turkey – why it happened the way it did and what is the least unlikely hypothesis – followed by some examples of regional and international consequences this coup is bound to have. And it ends: NATO comes across as a very tired alliance that should have been closed down or re-invented itself 25 years ago … Continue reading Turkey’s coup – Another example of the West’s disintegration
Commenting on PressTv on July 22, 2016 after yet another tragedy in the Mediterranean. But how much did the media cover that in comparison with the Nice tragedy – and Hollande’s killing of 120 innocent civilians as revenge for Nice (which at the time was not known to have any connections to ISIS or similar). Continue reading EU’s so-called refugee crisis – and what should and must be done
Jan Oberg comments on Iranian PressTV (July 19, 2016) some 11 minutes into this program. “The War On Terror is history’s most stupid and counterproductive. If the terrorism problem has increased about 80 times since 2001 we should be intellectual and decent enough to ask ourselves: What are we doing wrong? Nobody asks this question and it will end us up in hell.” Continue reading The horror in Nice and elsewhere
See this 24 min documentary on Al-Jazeera. Here is an example of what it tells you: “Like 10,500 other French Muslims, Halim has a “Fiche S”, or S-Card, attached to his police record. This designates him as a person “representing a threat to the security of the state”. I wonder what long-term consequences this sort of thing will have? Hardly any good … Continue reading The French eye-for-an-eye policy
Published on July 8, 2016, the day of the NATO Summit in Warsaw. It’s the 5th in the TFF Series “The New Cold War” Russia and NATO have offensive capacities and MIMACs (Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex) but NATO’s is a much larger potential threat to Russia than the other way around Why does an alliance with such an overwhelming superiority shout and scream and see ghosts on … Continue reading Fearology and militarism – But the real enemy is us
The third article in the TFF series on The New Cold War
We are witnessing a remarkable increase in tension between the US/NATO and Russia these years – and it can not only be explained by whatever we choose to think happened in Ukraine and Crimea. We find a totally new effort on both sides to use social and other media to tell how dangerous “they” are to “us”. There is a clear tendency to “fearology” – to instill fear in the citizens on both sides about the capabilities and intentions of the other side.
We find deeply concerned articles about the possibility of war between the two parties – a quarter of a century after the Berlin Wall tumbled.
Why is the new tension rising in Europe between US/NATO and Russia so manifestly dangerous and – with the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis worse than during the First Cold War?
On a series of indicators, the political Western world – US/NATO/EU and Christian (Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic with sects) – is becoming weak relative to other players in the global society.
The West has engaged in a series of wars that turned into very costly fiascos – from what followed from Sykes-Picot which turned 100 in May 2016 over Vietnam to the destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.
The West is still the largest economic bloc and the 28 NATO members cover about 70% of the world’s mind-boggling US $ 1700 billion military expenditures. Africa as a continent, BRICS countries – China in particular – are making progress, also in fields where the West has failed; for instance, China has lifted 400 million Chinese out of poverty in a couple of decades. The wealthy West has done nothing of the sort over centuries but produced a grotesquely, perversely unequal income distribution.
On June 15, 2016 I participated in a discussion with Mike O’Hanlon from the Brookings Institution on CCTV America – China’s international TV station in the U.S. with up to 75 million viewers. The discussion was lead by Anand Naidoo.You can watch it here. Continue reading NATO’s confrontational policy
For instance EU and other Western mainstream media. But we are getting out! The European Union is about to sign an agreement with non-EU Turkey to get rid of a large part of its refugees – by paying around € 6 bn to Turkey. Amnesty International and many others have pointed out – in strong words – that this agreement violates basic provisions of international … Continue reading If the EU becomes a criminal Union some don’t want you to know
Something is rotten in the State of Denmark and the world will increasingly see it. It’s an unpleasant combination of Islamophobia, militarism and a peculiar ethical and intellectual self-destructive obedience to US/NATO all wrapped up in a pseudo-humanitarian flag. It’s important that intellectuals criticise the policies of their native country and not only and politically correctly criticise that of others. In the case of Danish … Continue reading Denmark to attack in Syria – too
