June 2016

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...

The long awaited Chilcot report (5 years) on the Invasion of Iraq will finally be released on 6th July, 2016. The Report is to be welcomed and the hope expressed that this inquiry will tell the truth of what happened to the Iraqi people and clarify the UKs involvement, through an official Government recognition of facts of the wars, sanctions and invasion of Iraq and for transparency, accountability and reparation to be paid to the Iraqi people by the UK Government who participated in these illegal and immoral genocidal wars. The story of what was done to the Iraqi people by UK and Western allies is shocking and deeply disturbing. The two wars, the imposition of economic sanctions, causing the slow deaths of thousands of people, were indeed crimes against humanity, war crimes, breaking all international obligations and conducted with no respect for human life or the Iraqi people’s rights....

The vote turned out like the two referenda held in Norway in 1972 and 1994. And much for the same reason: Protestant break with Rome – Catholic, imperial – Henry VIII made himself head of the Anglican Church in 1534. Religion was not the only reason, there are Protestant Nordic members of EU, closer to the continent and closer to Russia. World history, a short while after Pope Francis – Patriarch Kirill also made world history, bridging the Catholic-Orthodox 395-1054 gap. The Disunited Queendom is now London with surroundings; England. The implications are enormous, for UK-GB and the British Isles in general, for EU and Europe in general, USA and the world in general. The US Trojan horse decided to leave the EU on 23 June 2016. UK-GB and the British Isles in general: Goodbye United Kingdom, UK, we may get United Ireland, UI, instead. Goodbye Great Britain, GB, we...

/06/24/eu-referendum-how-the-results-compare-to-the-uks-educated-old-an/”>here. Interestingly, the whole art world supported Remain – and now fear for the effects of Brexit on Britain’s cultural development. An EU that has failed to create a new, better way of doing politics, merely growing its original democratic deficit – so, lack of real democracy. An EU that has had a woefully inadequate, cynical response to a refugee crisis caused by leading EU member states’ warfare – so, (mis)management and lack of leadership. Significantly, the leading Muslim Association of Britain, MAB, supported Remain with the argument that ”Exit from the EU runs the risk of perpetuating rifts in British society, which would increase levels of hate crimes against British Muslims.” So, Islamophobia. A general sense (but sometimes denial) of insecurity about the future all over the Western world,

Take the candidate debate about nomination and election, focused on Trump’s buffoonery and Sanders’ ineligibility. Hillary?–on using a private account. Few words wasted on her foreign policy of massive belligerence, warfare. In the tradition, Zoltan Grossman [i] documents: 151 military interventions from Wounded Knee in 1890; and in spite of the war fatigue expressed by Trump, Cruz, Sanders – even by Obama. And US reality? John Pilger [ii]: “Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any American president”. The Wall Street Journal (30 May 2016) had a full page on the new Navy railgun projectiles with ultra-speed that can penetrate any armor. No peacefare; no sign of conciling trauma, of solving conflicts. Take foreign policy. C. W. Freeman Jr.: “The End of the American Empire”; Noam Chomsky: “How Imperial Violence Backfires–Lessons from the Middle East”, Zalmay Khalilzad: “De-Ba’athification was a recipe for disaster” (english@other-news.info, 13 Apr, 19...

The West leaves, a multi-polar world comes Jan Øberg Part 1/3

they are now on the defensive. ISIS has lost nearly half of the Iraqi territory it held. (i.e. an area about half that of the UK). It has lost much of its oil infrastructure. It is taking lots of casualties. In Syria it is fighting on two contradictory fronts – the regime in Damascus, supported by Iran and Russia and against the non-Islamist rebels, supported by the US and the Arab states. Meanwhile the flow of foreign fighters on which it has depended is slowing up and large numbers are returning home. Funding is drying up. This indeed is why Mateen, the lone wolf, is so important to ISIS. ISIS spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, has asked ISIS sympathisers to stay where they are. “The smallest action you do in the heart of [your] land is better and more enduring to us than what you would do if you were with...

Is there a democratic recession? No, not an economic one. Rather one of the voting kind. In other words is democracy going backwards? It is not. Democracy remains resilient. Authoritarianism is being held at bay, despite recession in Russia, Turkey and China. “Democracy may be receding somewhat in practice, but it is still globally ascendant in people’s values and aspirations”, writes Larry Diamond in a new book, “Democracy in Decline”. In fact Diamond’s positive conclusion is less positive than I believe the facts say. By and large democracy is not receding. One problem in the measurement debate is that we expect too much. From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s the number of democracies in the world rose from around 45 to an astonishing 120, well over half of the world’s population. How can we reasonably expect all these to succeed?

Except for a dark shadow, all is normal in the land of Japan. The local levels function very well with diligent Japanese working together to lift them up. Except for those with nuclear power plants, particularly one of them, on the coast, hit by a tsunami. Except too for rural communities laid waste, people aging, leaving, empty villages, hit by having to import rice instead of cultivating it. Ride the trains, walk the streets with the Japanese; as brisk and busy as ever. A little older, more canes, fewer bicycles, more cars, better streets and roads, cars run faster. In addition, a little fatter, sharing aging and putting on weight with developed societies all over. Missing are older ladies on bikes navigating the narrow streets with elegance, skirting pedestrians by a centimeter or two–bikes ride on sidewalks in Japan not on the streets–heads high, unperturbed. Not missing are school classes...

By Farhang Jahanpour Today (16 June 2016), Jo Cox, the 41-year old Labor MP, was killed after she was shot and stabbed in her constituency in Yorkshire. A 52-year old man was arrested in the area. The suspect was named locally as Tommy Mair. There is as yet very little concrete information about him or his motives, and it is too early to jump to a conclusion and link his dastardly act with the referendum, but some eyewitnesses have said that before shooting Jo Cox twice, Mair shouted “Britain first”. Clearly, he is a deranged individual, but if he uttered those words, it is possible to conclude that the assault was connected with the referendum. The fact remains that the assassination of such a strongly pro-EU MP is a big shock, a major loss and of course the source of great grief for her husband and her two small children....

/06/15/the-heat-nato-war-games#utm_sguid=155260,43357f6d-09a8-927c-abd1-8d4fdafed861″>here.

The second article in the TFF Series on The New Cold War George Orwell, the author of “Animal Farm” and “1984”, was the first person to use the phrase “Cold War” in a 1945 newspaper article, written just after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He argued that “the surface of the earth is being parceled off into three great empires, each self-contained and cut off from contact with the outer world, and each ruled, under one disguise or another, by a self-elected oligarchy. He counted the US and Western Europe as one, the Soviet Union as the second and China as the third. He concluded that, “the atomic bomb is likeliest to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a peace that is no peace”. I think he got it nearly right – or so it seems as a new Cold War erupts...