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Photo credit: The International Criminal Court.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Last year the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) released a report which for the first time explicitly named U.S. military forces and CIA operatives in secret prisons as possible war crimes culprits for the alleged use of torture and rape. Because the American soldiers were based in Afghanistan which is an ICC member the ICC has broad jurisdiction over crimes committed by combatants on Afghan soil.

(However, since the U.S. is not a member it can't be prosecuted for alleged crimes committed in non-member ICC countries – for example in Iraq or Syria. It can also refuse for any of its citizens to be prosecuted on its own soil.)

OPINION

Photo: A South African woman working on one of South Africa’s commercial farms. Credit: Australian Govt, Licensed under Creative Commons 2.0a

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Zimbabwe messed up its land reform. Now South Africa has decided to give a great push to its slow moving land reform. We'll see if it can avoid Zimbabwe's mistakes.

President Donald Trump tweeted that he'd asked his secretary of state to look into "farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of white farmers” in South Africa. That sounds more like what happened in Zimbabwe 25 years ago than what is going to happen in South Africa today, albeit the killings were not on a "large-scale”.

OPINION

Photo: Memorial to the victims of the Río Negro massacres in Guatemala. CC BY 2.0

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

Over the years, as a foreign affairs columnist of the International Herald Tribune, the author has made four visits to Guatemala.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In 1981 on the editorial page of the New York Times I wrote a column showing that the mass atrocities against the Indian population of Guatemala were carried out under the direct orders of the then president, Fernando Lucas Garcia. His former vice-president, Francisco Villagran Kramer, had given me information that was incontrovertible evidence of the murders.

I also showed how close was the relationship, financially and militarily, between the Guatemalan government and U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s government.

OPINION

Photo: Sweden's third largest city Malmö, All sorts of wild ideas are now floating around about murder and rape. One of wild ideas now floating around is that because of immigrants the murder rate has gone up over the last two years. Photo source: Wikimedia Commons.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The arrival in Sweden of 163,000 refugees, mainly Syrians, in 2015 – making for a higher proportion of Sweden's population than almost any other European country – has been used by the far right to drum up broader fears about immigration. A recent spate of shootings, grenade attacks and burnt-out cars has made many Swedes feel afraid of what is going on. This is despite international surveys showing it's the best nation at everything from economic competitiveness to doing good for humanity to achieving happiness.

OPINION

Photo: A young boy runs with his tyre past buildings damaged by air strikes in Saada Old Town. Credit: Giles Clarke/OCHA

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The evidence that has come out from the UN and NGOs makes clear, without any reservation or ambiguity, that on August 9, 2018 dozens of school children on a bus in Yemen were killed by a Saudi Arabian air-strike, and that American supplied weapons had been used, and probably British too. Criticism of Saudi Arabia and its partner in crime, the United Arab Emirates, has been increasing over the last year.

The U.S. is not a partner in the actual fighting but, started by President Barack Obama and continued on a larger scale by President Donald Trump, the U.S. doesn't only provide weapons but also it has provided intelligence, warplane refueling and guidance technology for missiles and bombs.

THE WORLD
Middle East

Photo credit: www.defense.gov

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Everything gets said, nothing gets done. When President Donald Trump met President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16, we were promised all sorts of goodies – progress in reconciliation in Ukraine and Syria, and not least nuclear disarmament. If there is progress behind the scenes it's not noticeable to the naked eye.

People talk about Trump being in Putin's pocket yet when, soon after Trump became president, Putin suggested major cuts in nuclear weapons Trump turned him down. This would have been a fantastic way to start his presidency. He could have upped Barack Obama's achievement of getting the arsenal down to 1550 warheads each. In nearly everything else he wants to destroy Obama's legacy or minimize it. This would have been a way to do it.

OPINION

Photo: Vladimir Putin meets with U.S. President Barack Obama in New York City, 29 September 2015. CC BY 4.0

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

Under Obama the spirit of cooperation had nearly all gone. But President Donald Trump wants to bring the era of goodwill back again. Unfortunately, because of his erratic leadership, no one is quite sure whether to trust him. Moreover, he says one thing about friendship with Russia while his Administration increases sanctions and does a go-slow on arms control.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Two mistakes, committed on President Barack Obama's watch, were the triggers for the end of the long post-Cold War period of good relations with Russia. They were the attack on Libya by the U.S., France and the UK and the subsequent killing of its long-time dictator, Muammar Gadhafi. The second was the crisis in Ukraine.

OPINION

Image: Moses's army in the land now called Palestine attacked its resident tribes including the Midianites. Following their defeat, Moses told his victorious generals, God was ordering him to kill all the women and their young sons. The watercolor by James Tissot at the Jewish Museum, New York, shows 'The Women of Midian Led Captive by the Hebrews'. Credit; Wikimedia Commons.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Recall Shakespeare's great work of dramatic art, the Merchant of Venice, where Shylock was treated as an unpleasant Jew (with a lovely, self-effacing daughter) who dealt mainly in shady usury.

His speech to the court is one of Shakespeare’s most remembered:

“Hath not a Jew eyes? / Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? /If you prick us, do we not bleed? /If you tickle us do we not laugh? /If you poison us, do we not die? /And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

But what if we substitute Palestinian for Jew? Viz: "Hath not a Palestinian eyes?" and so on. …

OPINION

Photo: Khan at a political rally in Peshawar in 1996. CC BY-SA 3.0

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – I haven't played cricket with Imran Khan, the newly elected prime minister of Pakistan, but I did interview him back in 2005 when only a rare foreign journalist was interested in him despite his fame as having been the world’s best cricketer. Now he has won a handsome political victory.

We did talk about Kashmir, the number one foreign policy issue then and today. He didn’t think the Indian government of that time, when Manmohan Singh was prime minister, was strong enough to make a deal. On the Pakistani side he didn't think an army man could do it despite the army's large influence on politics. He went on to say, "a civilian prime minister could do it if a real leader emerged like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto" (who was prime minister in the 1960s). Maybe he meant himself.

OPINION

Photo credit: donaldjtrump.com

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Russian president Vladimir Putin has been in a benign mood after a perfectly organized World Cup which gave Russians and foreigners the rare freedom to mass in the street. In response the world TV audience has looked at Russia with new eyes. Maybe there’s a new Russia coming to the boil which, if the West could seize the chance, could help the two countries make a pot of very tasty and good tea! Maybe.

The Donald Trump/Vladimir Putin encounter is as convoluted as they come.

OPINION

  1. Time Has Come For Europe To Be Tough With Trump
  2. Sending Brazil's Lula To Jail Is Absurd
  3. No Easy Answer To The Knife That Killed Arnaud Beltrame
  4. Why Putin Will Win Re-election As Russia's President
  5. What the Prophet Implied and What Sustains Fundamentalists

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