In this blog I write about world affairs, presenting a view of the world free from NATO propaganda.
Peace Anthropology and Development Anthropology and History are the tools with which I analyze international affairs, as part of a world-wide web of people working for peace through Transcend, UNIDIR and other agencies. Terrorism? This is largely political propaganda: my EPES Mandala Consulting group specialized in “terrorism” and far more people die each year from road accidents or from the flu, than from terror attacks. A lot of news is fear-mongering and most comes from a small number of corporate and government sources. Investigative journalists are a threatened species.
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”
A different leader would have saved the hostages, negotiating without bombs in favor of peace. Instead, Netanyahu has opted for destruction and genocide: and I agree with the governments of South Africa, Brazil, and others that genocide is what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza.
Read MoreThe war-mongering, and profit and revenge-driven calls for Russia to be defeated, are based on the mistaken assumption that the theater of war—including nuclear war—can be limited. This was not, however, the case in either the First or Second World Wars.
Read MoreThe evidence suggests that inside the Israeli State Apparatus, there are people who wish to destroy Gaza and use famine as one weapon of war. The killing of aid workers is a deliberate policy of these people, aiming to disrupt the flow of aid.
Read MoreNetanyahu has lost the support of most of the world.
Now we are all witness to his IDF drones bombing aid workers, killing the dedicated volunteers devoted to alleviating the famine Netanyahu has created in Gaza. These aid workers could have been my friends or members of my family.
Read MoreGenocide is genocide, whoever commits it.
We were horrified by the deaths of 1200 Israelis on October 7th, and we cannot be anything other than horrified by the deaths of >30,000 Gaza citizens at the hands of Israel.
Read MoreWhile the Hamas attack against Israel in October 2023 was appalling, brutal, savage, and unacceptable, the Netanyahu response has been worse. Hamas created a criminal, disgusting massacre. Netanyahu created war.
Read MoreA sustainable peace needs to be rooted in the particular community itself. Each conflict and each peace process is different and specific to the people involved. Unarmed civilian protection draws on the peace infrastructure that exists within all communities.
Read MoreHow can I stay silent when American bombs, dropped by Israeli planes, are flattening the city of Gaza and killing Palestinian children? Of course, the October 7th attack by Hamas on civilians dancing, or living in their houses, was horrendous. But the Jewish law “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” produces nothing but a world filled with blind and toothless people, all hating one another.
Read MoreWar is never a win: both sides always lose.
Associated Press (AP) reported May 17th that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have agreed to separate meetings with a delegation of leaders from six African countries to discuss a possible plan to end the war in Ukraine, South Africa’s president said Tuesday.
Read MoreKeeping the peace is not what turns on military leaders. American generals have new weapons they are longing to try out on the battlefield. You should not be giving these people a platform, Mr Kristof. You should be talking to the Peace Makers, and providing a platform to people who seek to end the war.
Read MoreErnst Friedrich Schumacher (1911 –1977) was a German-British statistician and economist who pushed for human-scale, decentralized and appropriate technologies. We live in a world that took the exact opposite route. Big operators are encouraged to swallow their rivals: this concentration of economic power being facilitated by the venal politicians that the corporations finance. Corporate consolidation has led to obscene concentrations of power.
Read MoreThis war crime has been extensively reported by The New York Times, Al-Jazeera and other media. The question now arises whether the IDF will be sanctioned for a war crime, or whether NYT and AJ journalists will be arrested for revealing that a war crime was carried out by a close U.S. ally.
How will Israel and the U.S.A. respond to news reporting of this War Crime?
Read MoreOutside the Pentagon, the rest of us want peace and THERE IS A BETTER WAY: A Europe Collective Security Alliance (ECSA) offers stability to central Europe and recognition of Russia’s genuine and justified fears concerning the security of its frontiers.
Read MoreI am appalled by the non-stop, one-sided anti-Putin propaganda that the American and British media are throwing at us. These are the same people who pushed us to massacre tens of thousands of innocent people in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. They created civil war in Libya and have destabilized the countries of the Sahara.
Read MoreOne of the people who represents this American rush to perpetual war is Victoria Nuland, a person whose policy failures under Bush and Cheney and Obama make her uniquely unqualified for her current job as Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the State Department. Why are America’s political elites never held accountable for their failures? Is it because they work for unaccountable Globalist finance?
Read MoreTaking international law seriously requires looking at the world in a particular way. And this view of the world is very different from the view presented to Americans by their foreign policy establishment
Read MoreWho does not think that Ukraine is a Buffer State between the EU and Russia?
This blog post contains three articles:
Prof Richard Sakwa saying “Putin has a point in Ukraine” January 2022
My own article saying that Ukraine is important as a Buffer State” - 2015
Prof John J. Mearsheimer saying “Don't Arm Ukraine” from the same 2015
Read MoreTutu emphasized that western justice tends to be retributive: punishment = vengeance for what was done wrong. “The African understanding, “ he wrote, ”is far more restorative: not so much to punish, as to redress or restore a balance that has been knocked askew.”
Read MoreWhat could I do to counter this ludicrous cycle of unending conflict? I decided to create an annex for my APF evaluation, to put on record what CONFLICT is really all about. Here it is: it contains an official EU definition of conflict management and prevention published it the referenced report. Please use it, dear reader! And please do not believe that violent conflict is permanent and unending. Peace is possible. Violence is not inevitable!
Read MoreThe precedent the US government is trying to set with its persecution of Julian Assange will, if successful, cast a chilling effect over journalism which scrutinizes the US war machine, not just in the United States but around the world.
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