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.”
Keeping 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 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 MoreTo get the best deal possible and transform NATO’s military withdrawal into a peaceful Afghanistan, President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken and Ambassador Khalilzad will need to persuade Russia and Pakistan to give practical support to their withdrawal agreement, while obtaining the tacit agreement (or neutrality) of China, India and Iran. President Ashraf Ghani is a nice fellow, but he is not part of the solution.
Read More“Weapon management” is something every American should be able to understand and approve. [In Afghanistan] we moved from “disarmament” into “management,” which meant registration of legal firearms, verification of an owner’s good reputation, checks on safe ammunition storage, etc. While every hunter may need a gun, no hunter needs a “weapon,” which is for war.
Read MoreThe Nonzero Newsletter by Robert Wright criticizes David Sanger at the New York Times for orienting the US-China meeting towards a specific aggression interpretation of China’s actions. While it is clear that China flexing its muscles in the seas around its coastline, any world map of US and Chinese military bases would show very easily that it is the US that has surrounded China, and not the other way around.
Read MoreThe NYT is sympathetic to this tragedy, but the authors miss a lot of context. They accuse the United Nations of using people who were “woefully unprepared” (that is the journalists’ judgment) for their task of investigating human rights abuses in DRC. I thought it would be useful for us all to share some of these experiences and to explain the context which – naturally enough – a couple of well-meaning journalists might not be able to “feel” or understand.
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