October 2008

The most important thing to understand about nuclear weapons is this: these weapons do not and cannot provide physical protection to their possessors.  Please let this thought sink in.  The second most important thing to understand about these weapons is that they are weapons of genocide writ large or, as the philosopher John Somerville has labeled them, weapons of omnicide, capable of the destruction of all.(1)   These weapons put at risk the future of humankind and most life on earth.  Please also let this thought sink in. The third most important thing to understand about nuclear weapons is that they are in the hands of human beings with all their frailties and fallibilities, and, as such, these weapons are disasters waiting to occur.  Please let this thought sink in as well. How the new U.S. president understands the functions, limits and dangers of nuclear weapons will guide his approach to U.S. nuclear policy,...

October 28, 2008 Jonathan Power LONDON – John McCain, we all know, after being shot out of the sky, was captured by the North Vietnamese, imprisoned and tortured. We know too that few of us would have had the guts or the tenacity to put up for so long with his trials of pain and sorrows. But do we know – for the journalists have failed to ask and he has omitted to mention – who he killed from the sky, how many, and how does he feel about that deep inside when he has to reflect alone and make his peace with God? Or does he think, rather than allowing God to choose which side, if any, He is on, that America itself can make that decision? These conundrums don’t seem to weigh a tenth of an ounce in the American election. But they should. How we treat other...

LONDON – The non-violent tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are pushing at an open door. Even the Pentagon has begun to look at their value in situations of conflict and political impasse. In the news today is the essentially non-violent struggle of the opposition in Zimbabwe to push aside the dictatorial regime of Robert Mugabe. Despite all the provocations of the police and the army the opposition (unlike in Kenya) has turned the other cheek and in doing so won over almost 100% of the foreign opinion that counts. Exiled Iranian opposition activists are studying and training in the techniques of non-violent conflict, emulating the success of the recent movements for change in the Ukraine and Serbia. One shouldn’t be surprised by this turn of events. The twentieth century is rightly described as the bloodiest century of mankind. But it was also the most creative in terms of...

Jan Øberg I was among a handful of people worldwide who criticised the Nobel Committee’s choice of former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and characterized it as a scandal I had two main reasons. I consider his work as “peace mediator” – a term used repeatedly – in Kosovo incompatible with peace and with Alfred Nobel’s three criteria, but I deliberately did not mention his work in Aceh or Namibia of which I have no knowledge myself. Kosovo and other parts of former Yugoslav have been something I have tried to understand since my first visit there 34 years ago. Independent Kosovo is the result of a military-based conflict management or, rather, mismanagement. It militates against two of Nobel’s criteria in that it has not lead to fraternity between peoples and it has not reduced armaments in the world. Kosovo declared itself independent in February this year (probably...

LONDON – One small step forward by North Korea and the U.S ; one large step for mankind. The political fight to persuade North Korea to halt its nuclear bomb making activities seems at last, in the dying days of the Bush presidency, to be entering a serious phase. The U.S. has finally bowed to the North Korean request to remove it from the U.S. list of sponsors of terrorism- which will enable the renegade state to become eligible for international loans and sundry other economic benefits- in return for the North agreeing to re-allow inspections to verify a North Korean promise to freeze its nuclear activities, as it undertook last year and then withdrew from. After nine years of erratic U.S. policies- met by equally erratic and bellicose Nort h Korean ones- the negotiations have ended up almost where they started following the highly fruitful diplomacy of the Clinton Administration...

, said the way to U.S. involvement in Vietnam was to declare victory and get out. Having declared victory in 2004 and not got out, it is too late for President George W. Bush or his successors to do that now. But Aiken had a riposte for that contingency too. A few years later, when it was impossible to declare victory, he was asked how to get out of Vietnam. “In ships”, he replied. Both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are moving towards the only solution that will work – leaving. In Iraq, surely this is what Barack Obama, if president, must do, despite all the heavy advice trying to persuade him to drag it out until……until a miracle happens and the killing stops, the legal system functions and the ‘democracy’ works. But the killing in this very disturbed society will go on for decades. U.S. tallies of the...

6. oktober 2008 Av och om den norske jurist Fredrik Heffermehlog hans sensationelle bog About Fredrik Heffermehl’s sensational analysis ofthe misuse of the most prestigeous peace prize ever Lige inden dette års fredspris offentliggøres publicerer den norske jurist, Fredrik Heffermehl, en sensationel analyse af forholdet mellem Nobels testamente og de valg den norske Nobelkommité faktik har gjort. Der er ringe sammenhæng, mener han, og påpeger at fredens forkæmpere for længe siden er blevet berøvet den mest prestigefyldte pris på området. The intention behind Nobel´s Peace Prize has sunk into oblivion, the Norwegian parliamentarians he entrusted with the award of the prize have taken it over and made it their peace prize. Since the end of WWII in 1946 well over half of the peace prizes have failed to respect elementary principles on the interpretation of wills. This is asserted by Fredrik S. Heffermehl, a Norwegian lawyer, in a new book, Nobel´s...

Australia’s new Labor government hit the ground reviewing. A swag of initiatives – the historic apology to Aboriginal people, scrapping the previous government’s workplace laws, signing up to Kyoto – were implemented straight away, having been long in the gestation. The rest is still, to some extent, up for grabs. So we’re all now being given the chance to have our say. How should Australia spend its military budget, and for what purpose? How should we relate to the Association of South East Asian Nations? Key planks of foreign and defence policy are being opened up for public consultation, with hearings on the new Defence White Paper touring all the state capitals. It might betoken a touching faith in the value of dialogue: our ability, as Australians – as human beings – to exchange firmly founded opinions and, in the process, fashion for ourselves a shared sense of what is...

LONDON – As said Mr Micawber: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds, nought and six, result misery.” If you can get past the Dickensian way of counting then there is a message for the U.S. today. It no longer has the financial wherewithal to do what it wants to do. If Barack Obama wins the election he has pledged to bring in a major reform of the health services and he has promised to cut the tax rate for the middle and work ing classes. He wants to expand the war in Afghanistan. If John McCain wins he wants to keep in place the tax breaks for the rich, fight to “victory” in Iraq, expand the war in Afghanistan and challenge Iran in such an assertive way that it could well lead to another war. There is no...