June 2020

This post is a slightly modified version of an editorial contribution to TMS – Transcend Media Service – June 22-28, 2020 Sanctioning the International Criminal Court, ICC Even Orwell would be at a loss to make sense of some of the recent antics of leading governments. We would expect Orwell to be out-satirized by the American actions to impose penalties and sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court, not because they are accused of acting improperly or seem guilty of some kind of corruption or malfeasance, but because they were doing their appointed jobs carefully, yet fearlessly. Originally posted on Richard Falk’s personal blog on June 26, 2020 here Their supposed wrongdoing was to accept the request for an investigation into allegations of war crimes committed in Afghanistan by military personnel and intelligence experts of the U.S. armed forces, the Taliban, and the Afghan military. It seemed beyond reasonable...

John W. Whitehead June 29, 2020 “In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization…filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love… What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another,...

June 29, 2020 Intro by Tom Engelhart to article by Andrew Bacevich Today, in the context of the Black Lives Matter protests, TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich considers the all-American version of “extreme materialism” that Martin Luther King called out more than half a century ago. And when it comes to the overwhelming urge to get one’s hands on the goods, among the looters of this moment two groups are almost never mentioned: the Pentagon and the police. Yet, in 1997, the Department of Defense set up the 1033 program as part of the National Defense Authorization Act to provide thousands of domestic police forces with “surplus” equipment of almost every imaginable militarized kind. Since then, thanks to your tax dollars, it has given away $7.4 billion of such equipment, some of it directly off the battlefields of this country’s forlorn “forever wars.” For items like grenade launchers, mine-resistant armored vehicles,...

TFF is proud to present yet another book by its Associate, John Scales Avery, who at the age of 83 remains an incredibly productive global thinker and author of books about our world’s essential problems, what causes them and what must be done. And all of Avery’s books are freely downloadable… The book is – Benefits of Equality – which presents evidence supporting the thesis that elimination of excessive economic inequality makes societies happier and better. It’s just out, 451 pages and freely downloadable Benefits of Equality Avery’s life work is presented beautifully by the online Wall Street International and by the Eqbal Ahmad Centre for Public Education. And his Collected Essays and others are published by another TFF Associate, Jørgen Johansen at Irene Publishing. Ideals of the Enlightenment The Age of Reason, or the Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas during the...

Pulling down statues may make us feel good but will not eliminate the root causes of racism and discrimination Part Two – Part 1 here The protests to the cruel killing of George Floyd and many others before him and even some after him have not remained confined to the United States or among black people alone, but have given rise to a global movement for change and an end to racism and discrimination. Many protestors in the United States have called for the toppling of the statues of Confederate generals and for the names of places and institutions named after them to be changed, while in many European countries demonstrators have called for the toppling of statues of those who are symbols of racism, imperialism and white supremacy. Clearly, toppling a few statues may give temporary satisfaction to those who have been the victims of racism, but is it...

Part One – Part 2 here The gruesome killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 25 May 2020 has given rise to an unprecedented campaign against police brutality in the United States, and in turn has acted as a fuse for a worldwide uprising against racism and inequality. Floyd’s killing triggered massive demonstrations in more than 350 cities in the United States and around the world, and has probably started a movement that goes well beyond the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and may prove to be a turning point in human history. What is remarkable is that those who have taken part in those massive demonstrations are not all black and ethnic people, but they have been joined by millions of white people who are ashamed of the legacy of slavery and are determined to help their fellow human beings to achieve the dignity and equality that...

Tomorrow the tanks will roll across Moscow’s Red Square. It is the day of the great parade to mark the 75th anniversary of the ending of the Second World War. In the West, it’s not that well-known a fact that the Soviet Union lost many more soldiers and civilians in the war than all the rest of the allies put together. Without the alliance of the West with Russia Hitler would undoubtedly have won the war. Ignorance is a common trait not only in the West but in Russia too. How many Russians today are aware of the sheer quantity of arms, munitions and even fighter planes and bombers shipped through dangerous northern seas by the US and Britain to Russia’s northern ports in order to help Stalin’s army and air force?   Flawed and ignorant thinking in both Russia and the West today dominates the discourse when the war...

With its traditionally cruel approach to other human beings, the US has now imposed new sanctions on Syria – that is, for all practical purposes, on the Syrian people. Haven’t they suffered enough in their double cage – that of the al-Assad leadership and, worse, that of the US and Western allies’ attempts at regime change since 2006? My answer is: More than enough. The US should be ashamed of itself for maintaining such a sadistic approach by means of almost 8000 sanctions on 30+ countries – most of them not leading to anything politically, only to the suffering of the people. Cuba since 1962, Syria and Iran since 1979, to mention a few. I am happy to speak about this stupid policy on Iran’s equivalent to BBC, PressTV. The (self)censorhip today is such that no Western mainstream media would dare interview me with that critical attitude to the US....

June 16, 2020 The war in Syria, now in its sixth year, has been ferocious and deadly. In 2016, the death toll was estimated at 400,000. In Iraq, the fight against the Islamic State (IS) has destroyed cities and displaced around 3.3 million people. Yet beyond the immediate consequences of these conflicts, the environmental degradation in both countries could have a far-reaching impact. Originally posted on Fanack.com on December 16, 2017 In a country at war, preserving the environment is not usually a high priority. However, it is a key issue that must be addressed before rebuilding begins. According to Living under a black sky, a report published by the Dutch peace organization PAX in November 2017, Iraq was severely affected even before the [IS] attacks in 2014 by the legacy of three wars and climate change, resulting in weak environmental governance and more frequent droughts. ‘Since then, you can also add illegal oil refineries, spills and fires, as well as...

June 15, 2020 Nick Turse 27 Feb 2020 –Last month, about a dozen al-Shabab fighters infiltrated the perimeter of a military base in Manda Bay, Kenya. One of them took aim with a rocket-propelled grenade, firing at a U.S. surveillance plane and touching off an hourslong firefight. When it was all over, the two American pilots of that plane and a U.S. soldier were dead, two other U.S. military personnel were wounded, six surveillance aircraft and helicopters were destroyed, and parts of the airfield were in flames. Originally posted on Transcend Media Service on March 2, 2020 Where there are U.S. bases, there is the potential for such attacks, because bases are not just launching pads for offensive military operations, but targets for them too. Since 9/11, the U.S. military has built a sprawling network of outposts in more than a dozen African countries. The Intercept has obtained U.S. military documents...

Perspective and proportion are everything in this Pandemic of Fear that now consumes our attention and our daily lives. With very rare exceptions the media ignores this. As I write there have been world-wide 436,005 deaths from coronavirus. But a remarkable, barely noticed, 4,137,712 have recovered. In comparison, the number who died last year from AIDS/HIV is 770,000. In its worst year – 2004 – it claimed 1,600,000 lives. The number who died from alcohol consumption last year was 3 million.  Smoking claimed 8 million deaths last year. The number from malaria was almost the same as deaths from Corona – 416,000. The number who died in motor accidents was 1.4 million. Traffic injuries are now the top killer of people aged five to twenty-nine. The screamers must stop or at least get a hold of themselves – except in countries like India and Brazil where the Coronavirus is in...

Världen efter Corona – konstruktivt Hur kommer världen att se ut de närmaste årtiondena?Vilka val har vi? Hur kan fred och rättvisa fortfarande bli möjliga? 11:e juni 2020 Jan Öberg I maj höll jag en internationell föreläsning i två delar om förändringarna i världsordningen och om hur framtiden kan bli bättre för oss alla. Den var på engelska. Jag har nu spelat in en svensk version, dock med viss anpassning här och där till svenska förhållanden och en svensk publik. Det är en föreläsning som var tänkt att hållas i Henåns Kulturhus för Fredsrörelsen på Orust, Nordens bästa. Men den fick ställas in med anledning av Coronan. Här har du den i två delar – som den också finns på på TFF:s Vimeo-kanal: Del 1 Del 2 Stort tack om du kan hjälpa sprida budskapet eller återanvända föreläsningen i dina sammanhang – t ex i seminarer, undervisningsförlopp eller på din...