Peace

Categories under Peace

All they are saying is give War a chance

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, April 8th, 2025 - 78 comments

At a time when the need for increased spending in health, education and the environment is so pressing the Government wants to spend a further $12 billion over the next four years on rearming.

Vilification of Russia not good for peace in Europe.

Written By: - Date published: 1:18 pm, April 1st, 2025 - 30 comments

Putinversteher – one who “understands” Putin. It is meant as a slur but Professor Geoffrey Roberts, a British historian of Russia, embraces the term.

Posturing is not policy. How the West doomed Ukraine.

Written By: - Date published: 1:04 pm, March 24th, 2025 - 209 comments

Henry Kissinger nailed it back in 2014: “For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.” 

The Unbearable Weight of Being a Useful Idiot

Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, March 23rd, 2025 - 96 comments

Res Publica takes aim at modern day ‘tankies’. Pro-authoritarian leftist, who can apologise for any authoritarian regime provided that it is intellectually cloaked in the ‘correct’ rhetoric and a veneer of geo-politics. In their view, modern day tankies are only good at reducing the left’s credibility to rubble in real-time.

Helen Clark’s nuanced take on world events

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, March 3rd, 2025 - 57 comments

In a recent interview Helen Clark managed to neatly summarise current world problems and express a desire for New Zealand to maintain its independent foreign policy.

The new world order

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, March 2nd, 2025 - 130 comments

Yesterday’s press conference involving Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky suggests that the United States is now solidly aligned with Russia against the Western World and Western values.

Good as gold

Written By: - Date published: 3:44 pm, February 22nd, 2025 - 19 comments

A fascinating expose from Michael Hudson on the causes and implications of the recent rise in the price of gold. When Nixon took the US dollar off the standard in 1971 you could get an ounce for $35. Not now; Hudson explains why.

A Commercial Peace Agreement? 

Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, February 20th, 2025 - 68 comments

Trump’s opening bid for peace towards Ukraine was that the United States would gain access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.

“As long as it takes”

Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, February 13th, 2025 - 159 comments

Well it didn’t take that long: from one SecDef to another in a matter of a month. It’s time for a rethink on Ukraine and much else.
Update: Hegseth’s speech video

President Trump makes a new Middle East Possible

Written By: - Date published: 6:04 pm, January 5th, 2025 - 23 comments

U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump makes more things possible in the Middle East than the Biden administration.

Foreign interference Bill ‘repressive tool’ to intimidate public: former minister

Written By: - Date published: 2:43 pm, December 11th, 2024 - 4 comments

New Zealand is set to update sedition and espionage laws, making these as harsh as those of other Western states that are now gearing up for war with Russia and China.

Maire Leadbeater “The Enemy Within”

Written By: - Date published: 4:13 pm, December 7th, 2024 - 9 comments

With extensive use of internal documents, Maire Leadbeater’s excellent exposition of the various iterations of the security intelligence services tells a story of constant make-work in search of an adversary defined only by ideology.

The Axis of Genocide

Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, November 8th, 2024 - 31 comments

The West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. Despite being appalled at my government, I winced as a New Zealander to hear my country described as part of the Axis of Genocide.

NZ not attending Nagasaki event, insists decision unrelated to Israel invite snub

Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, August 12th, 2024 - 27 comments

New Zealand’s decision to stay away from the event in Nagasaki paying tribute to victims of the city’s 1945 nuclear bombing called outrageous.

Resisting US pressure for NZ to sacrifice itself to defend US hegemony against China

Written By: - Date published: 3:07 pm, July 24th, 2024 - 16 comments

Don Brash is now publicly standing together with Helen Clark to protest against the subservience of recent New Zealand governments to America’s anti-China policy.

NATO escalation danger

Written By: - Date published: 3:17 am, June 8th, 2024 - 26 comments

The destruction on 23 May of a key part of Russia’s nuclear defence means the Doomsday clock is ticking closer to midnight.  A Ukrainian/NATO drone attack on the Armavir radar station north of Georgia attcked a Voronezh-DM radar which is designed to detect incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Bonnie Jenkins: US ignores China proposal for no-first-use of nukes

Written By: - Date published: 5:47 am, May 19th, 2024 - Comments Off on Bonnie Jenkins: US ignores China proposal for no-first-use of nukes

Questioned by Senator Van Hollen re US response to China’s February 2024 offer of no-first-use, Assistant Secretary Bonnie Jenkins told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee they would have to think about it, but at this point had no intention of changing to a no-first use policy.

Iran launches missiles at Israel in retaliation for consulate strike in Damascus

Written By: - Date published: 4:18 am, April 15th, 2024 - 15 comments

Israel should not have bombed the Iranian consulate buildings in Damascus. Iran should not have fired 300 missiles at Israel in response. Neither of these actions should have happened, but they now have. The world now watches to see if there is further retaliation and escalation of violence, or if calmer and wiser heads prevail.

USUKAs

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 pm, March 3rd, 2024 - 32 comments

US Undersecretary of State Bonnie Jenkins is in Wellington this week with a hard sell for us on AUKUS Pillar 2 wunderwaffen maybes. We should say tai hoa.

Where Oz goes, we go? To war with China?

Written By: - Date published: 9:28 pm, February 17th, 2024 - 38 comments

Testifying to the Defence Select Committee last week, Air Marshal Short said Australia was “reshaping” its Defence Force for “a singular threat from a singular direction.” This was described as being an obvious reference to China.

The Subs and the Next War

Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, February 11th, 2024 - 9 comments

In March 2023, former Australian prime minister Paul Keating attracted significant media attention when he described AUKUS as a manifestation of the United States’s campaign to encircle China with hostile military allies and partners.

Operation Poseidon Archer

Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, January 25th, 2024 - 31 comments

CNN reports that the US has named the ongoing operation against Houthi in Yemen “Operation Poseidon Archer, suggesting a more organized and potentially long-term approach.” New Zealand has joined it – cue the slippery slope.

Not all Americans are Neocons

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, January 13th, 2024 - 14 comments

But the ones that run US foreign policy are. Matthew Hooton in a typical smear wants to label Helen Clark as anti-American because she warned that involving us in attacking Houthis was a ”slippery slope.” She’s not and he’s wrong.

John Pilger, RIP

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, January 2nd, 2024 - 8 comments

A bright star in the firmament of justice has gone out.   One of the greatest journalists of our era has passed away. John Pilger was always on the side of the oppressed.

Luxon’s values on show re Zelensky

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 pm, December 22nd, 2023 - 32 comments

Three NZ prime ministers talking to Zelensky

It is not clear exactly who persuaded Luxon to put Zelensky on his Xmas calling list. It might have been Albo or MFAT, no doubt on orders from the US, who are desperate to keep the illusion of victory alive until after the US Presidential election.

What Is peace Anyway?

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, November 16th, 2023 - 12 comments

We are further away from peace in parts of the world than a decade ago. But pessimism about peace isn’t a foregone conclusion.

The Holocaust should be a lesson not a template

Written By: - Date published: 10:52 pm, November 11th, 2023 - 19 comments

“Jewish people exterminating men, women and children in a concentration camp is _______.”
How do you finish a sentence like that?

Still pussy-footing on Gaza

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, October 31st, 2023 - 57 comments

Unlike the other four Eyes, New Zealand voted for a UNGA resolution calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza. The US had previously vetoed a ceasefire resolution. Finally on RNZ, Ben Strang asked whether  Israel’s response to HAMAS is also a “war crime?’

Passing the buck on Gaza

Written By: - Date published: 10:17 pm, October 25th, 2023 - 22 comments

The new government is leaving it to the old government to carry the ball on Gaza. Both governments have dropped it. The 5Eyes formula of “Israel’s right to defend itself” does not extend any right to the indiscriminate bombing, and refusal to allow any water, food or fuel to innocents in Gaza.

Wither Foreign Policy?

Written By: - Date published: 8:31 am, October 5th, 2023 - 7 comments

Alexander Gillespie complains that kiwis are not being given answers on foreign policy in the election. Given the state of flux in the world, and the questions he poses, it is probably just as well. The answers might all be dangerous.

Unease Over New Zealand Overtures to US in Pacific

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 pm, September 6th, 2023 - 9 comments

New security-state documents show Wellington aligning its military with the “rules-based international order” while preparing Kiwis for war with key trading partner China, writes Mick Hall.