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Defence of self or of hegemony
Have you heard of “perception management”? Simply put, it means persuasion on the basis not of facts but of lies (or suppression of facts). During the 1980s, Reagan decided to “kick the Vietnam syndrome“, a condition from which the US public was suffering, sick to the heart of the horror and shame of the Vietnam…
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The tightening of the screw
Europe is currently undergoing a tightening of the screw. As most of you will have learnt from either Milton Friedman or Naomi Klein or both, crises (e.g. the 2008 financial crisis, Covid, the war in Ukraine, etc.) will be inexorably exploited by the powers-that-be. Result: the poor will become poorer, the rich richer. This is…
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Libya again
Why, you may be asking, am I writing about Libya when everybody else is writing about Iraq? And that brings me straight to the rather surreal aspect of this ignominious war, which some countries, not least my own, waged against a country that was, from the 1990s on, one where even you or I might…
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Look back in horror –Libya 2011
In 2011, NATO bombed Libya to Kingdom Come. Blasting a well-functioning country off the map was not – I repeat, NOT – in compliance with UN Security Council resolution 1973 (Incidentally, no less than five countries, including Germany, abstained from voting on that occasion). The said resolution authorised action to “protect” civilians. …. take all…
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The press again
I would like to direct your attention to a brief article in Responsible Statecraft that sums it all up pretty well. That article is here. I think the writer states his case so succinctly, that there is really nothing more to add.
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A brief look at gold mines
Gold mines are worth gold, and wars are fought for them, as we know. See, below, a famous photo of a gold mine. See more of Sebastião Salgado’s photos of the mine Serra Pelada. The above photo and the others on the same site are not from 1895 or even 1905 or 1925 or 1955.…
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Pipe me a Tune
For a year now I’ve been wondering why the Norwegian authorities are so rabid about the Ukraine war. I mean, their faces don’t turn scarlet when they talk about the de facto genocide of the Palestinian people, the torture going on in Egyptian prisons or the suppression of women in Saudi Arabia. But Russia, now,…
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The cost of war
One of the first victim’s of war is, as we know, “truth”: Freedom of the press and freedom of information get throttled. This applies to Russia, and it applies in equal measure, if more subtly, to the West. One of the latest sequels in the “Twitter Files” is about Hamilton 68, which: was and is…
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In short
The Doomsday Clock Not really much to add to that. Congratulations, Mr Stoltenberg, you’ve really made your presence felt.