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By Bertold Brecht
at the Congress of the Peoples for Peace,
December 1952, Vienna
Source: «Das Gedächtnis der Menschheit», aus: Bertolt Brecht, Werke.
Grosse kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, Band 12: Gedichte 2.
© Bertolt-Brecht-Erben/Suhrkamp Verlag 1988.
(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)
by William J. Astore,* USA
(22 May 2022) Thirty years ago, I co-taught a course on the making and use of the atomic bomb at the U.S. Air Force Academy. We took cadets to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the first nuclear weapons were designed and built during World War II, and we also visited the Trinity test site, where the first atomic device exploded in a test conducted in July of 1945.
by Jakob Wehrli
(22 May 2022) How can we create peace with even more weapons? This question is currently being asked. If you look at the media, the answer is clear: the only way to force the enemy, i.e. Russia, to make peace is to deliver more weapons, more tanks and more warfare. Because this enemy is so evil that only the language of force and only a military victory will lead to peace. To put it bluntly, in these eyes anyone who even talks about or seeks negotiations is a friend of evil. Which also makes any further discussion of this futile.
(22 May 2022) upg. Klaus von Dohnanyi is a political legend. In January 2022 he published his latest book “Nationale Interessen. Orientierung für deutsche und europäische Politik in Zeiten von globalen Umbrüchen“ (“National Interests. Orientation for German and European politicies in times of global upheaval”). In it, he warned against a war in Ukraine. On 22 April, two months after the outbreak of war, the Norddeutscher Rundfunk NDR interviewed him. In the following, we present his most important statements for discussion. They are quoted verbatim and therefore partly colloquial (subheadings “Infosperber”, Switzerland).
by Diana Johnstone,* France
(21 May 2022) After years of neoliberalism, French politics that venture outside the conformist center’s unshakable loyalty to the Atlantic Alliance are now dangerously “extreme.”
On Sunday, Emmanuel Macron was re-elected for a second five-year term as president of the French Republic with 58.54 percent of the vote. Just as in 2017, the candidate he defeated was Marine Le Pen, who got 41.46 percent. Sounds like déjà vu all over again.
by Wolfgang van Biezen
(22 May 2022) (Red.) Russia's military deployment in Ukraine is generally described as contrary to international law. But the situation is not as clear-cut under international law as it appears at first glance. The International Court of Justice's 2010 opinion on the secession of Kosovo plays a decisive role in the assessment, as the author shows in his insightful study.