Readers beware—the following article contains spoilers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

By Thomas J. Shattuck*

(FPRI) — Glorifying resistance efforts in film and programs the audience to root for the underdog. A traditional cliché, but what happens when the underdog uses extreme tactics? What happens when the United States and its actions could be perceived as no different from the Galactic Empire of Star Wars fame? Making these connections brings to light hard truths. It could very well be that no matter what a regime does, the resistance will never completely be destroyed. It may disappear for a while, but it always comes back in another form, unless and until a mutually agreeable political solution can be found. The lessons from the greater Star Wars universe can teach the public a thing or two about properly dealing with and handling such groups, but may challenge some of the audience’s preconceived notions about good vs. evil in the process.

Take, for example, the recently released Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. What Rogue One does better than any of the other Star Wars films is it expands the Rebellion beyond a core group of characters, which allows the film to wrestle with some fundamental political questions: What does it mean to resist? What is more important: defeating an oppressive regime at all costs or maintaining some semblance of humanity? What actions can appropriately be called resistance—survival, providing support or intel, active engagement, or something else? Because various characters provide different answers to these questions by resisting in ways they deem proper, viewers are left to decide for themselves which form of resistance most deserves the name. However, their actions may have troubling similarities to ISIS, al Qaeda, and other real insurgencies, making viewers uncomfortable about who they are truly rooting for.

The Resistance Will Not Be Intimidated

On one end of the spectrum in Rogue One is Saw Gerrera, leader of an extremist faction of the Rebellion known as the Partisans. Gerrera is so mistrustful of the “mainstream” Rebellion that its leaders had to track down someone he cared about—the main character Jyn Erso—in order to make contact with him. He even questions her motives once they do meet, demonstrating just how much of a toll the quest for freedom has taken on his psyche. The Partisans’ tactics go beyond anything the Rebellion had been willing to do in order to defeat the Empire. At one point in the film, they gun down a squadron of Stormtroopers in the midst of a crowded neighborhood, showing no hesitation at killing innocent civilians in the process.

The Partisans’ insurgent tactics only deepen the cycle of violence and retribution. The attack on the Stormtroopers inspires the Empire to set an example for the galaxy by testing the power of the Death Star on the Holy City on Jedha. The test obliterates the city and everyone in it. Perhaps that is precisely the reaction the Partisans may have wanted, but the human and cultural toll is so extreme as to make even the most jaded viewer gasp.

Is this form of rebellion politically useful or morally acceptable? The question is profound and the answers disturbing. Killing for the sake killing will not bring down the Empire, but only provoke it and encourage the Empire to strike back. Gerrera and his group became so radicalized that they lost the support of the Rebellion and sight of the true mission. They became the embodiment of Nietzsche’s warning: “whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

Now, consider Saw Gerrera and his Partisans in the context of today’s Middle East: a leader and group so extreme that one resistance group disavows it. Sound familiar? In 2014, al Qaeda disavowed the Islamic State for its actions in Syria. They were two organizations seemingly fighting for the same cause: to topple Bashar al-Assad as the ruler of the country. When al Qaeda announced the schism, a spokesperson for the State Department said, “The fact to remember here is that both ISIS and [al Qaeda] are designated terrorist organizations. . . . Yes, they’ve been fighting each other for months, but that doesn’t change our view of both of those groups.”

Would anyone expect the Empire to acknowledge and respect the fact that the Partisans are more extreme and violent than the Rebellion? No—both the United States and the Empire would—and do—continue to fight against both of them because they are hostile organizations. The Partisans did disrupt a peaceful neighborhood when it ambushed a squadron of Stormtroopers just as the Rebellion was trying to re-connect and make contact with Gerrera. Al Qaeda and ISIS are battling against pro-Assad forces, while also killing innocent civilians across the region. Even though Saw Gerrera is a compelling character, audience members must think of the implications of cheering for him and his group in their fight against the Empire.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Rebel Alliance works from within the existing political order to resist the Empire. At one point, Mon Mothma, leader of the Rebellion, even says that she will report the Empire’s Death Star and its destructive force back to the Imperial Senate, the largely powerless legislative body governing the galaxy. For much of the film, though, the Rebellion does not act at all; it only works to receive pertinent intel to score political points. Yet by the end of Rogue One, it is understood that Empire cannot be dealt with politically through the Senate, and must be engaged militarily.

Insurgent efforts in Iraq starting in 2003 offer a suitable comparison to the Rebellion’s strategy. After the United States toppled Saddam Hussein, certain groups of Sunnis began a countrywide effort to end the foreign occupation. By harassing U.S. and coalition forces who were attempting to stabilize the country, the insurgents hoped that they would make the opportunity cost of staying in Iraq too high for the occupiers. Slow progress, high casualties, and headline grabbing attacks diminished public opinion and the will of the U.S. government to stay in the country. Also like the Rebellion, ISIS insurgents in Iraq operate in a similar manner today: blend in with civilians, escalate attacks, and raise the costs of occupation.

Now that we can view Rogue One through the lens of reality, we are left with fundamental questions about the purpose of resistance and the meaning of success. If minor engagements against the Empire cause it to destroy entire cities and planets with the Death Star, is terror the proper way to fight? Does potential freedom justify the deaths of thousands, possibly millions, of people? Will they go too far as Saw Gerrera’s Partisans did and be ostracized from the galaxy that they are trying to free? Reality offers a plethora of examples to contextualize the damage that resistance groups cause to civilians, so think before answering.

The Dark Side of Hope

Though Rogue One takes places a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, it depicts the difficult moral choices presented by choosing resistance against a seemingly undefeatable opponent. The odds are stacked against them, and in the end, it may turn out that resistance is futile. But no matter the galaxy, setting, or opponent, one thing is clear: rebellions require hope. Whether or not someone believes or sees that hope—or whatever replaces hope—will determine how they resist.

At the Rebellion’s lowest point in Rogue One, just as the true power of the Death Star is revealed, the thesis of the Star Wars series is espoused: rebellions are built on hope. No matter what the Rebellion did to undermine the Empire, it could not do it without hope—hope for a future free from tyranny and the return of democracy to the galaxy. Without hope, the Rebellion would not have new recruits or backers. Hope is what keeps them moving forward no matter the odds or costs. Hope gives them only one choice: to fight. Members are willing to participate in daring escapades and potentially die for the cause because their sacrifices—no matter how small—may help turn the tide in the Rebellion’s favor. A death could become a rallying cry; a successful mission could lead to the destruction of a game-changing weapon; an escape could undermine the authority of the Empire. Saw Gerrera’s last words before dying were “Save the Rebellion! Save the dream!” As radical as he was, he understood the importance of freedom as a motivator for the oppressed.

As painful as it is to accept, this rallying cry and these justifications for joining make just as much sense in the context of terrorism and insurgency as it does in Star Wars. While the fictional groups in the film use hope as motivation, terrorists and insurgent groups bastardize and twist it into something else: salvation in the next life, liberation of a country, or destruction of oppressive regimes. This may take the form of the promised 72 virgins, the creation of the caliphate, or even the complete destruction of the West, any of which may be enough to motivate a young jihadi.

I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This

Star Wars obviously sets the audience up to root for the downtrodden and oppressed Rebellion over the Galactic Empire, and rightly so. It is difficult to cheer for regimes that murder innocents in the streets, colonize planetary systems, and blow up entire cities or planets. Looking at the story through a different lens, however, can raise troubling questions, and perhaps help the public to understand why frustrated rebels decide to join ISIS or al Qaeda and carry out such brutal attacks. Indeed, the Empire thought that it was truly bringing peace and stability to the galaxy, while the Rebellion viewed that same alleged peace and stability as oppression and terror.

Americans and Westerners in general resent comparisons to the Galactic Empire. We cannot be compared to an evil regime that decimates populations and planets, but we are. These comparisons – whether or not you deem them unfair or unwarranted – should make you feel uncomfortable. That is the point. This is how some people, groups, and countries characterize the U.S. It does not matter how you feel because these perceptions exist; they do not have to be respected, but they must be acknowledged.  A 2002 “letter to America” by Osama bin Laden paints the U.S. in an unflattering light. He and his followers truly believe that the U.S. operates as an oppressive regime, killing innocent civilians and displacing others. From a Western perspective, dictators like Assad or Hussein may better fit the mold of the Galactic Empire, but both interpretations can be correct and incorrect at the same time, no matter how uncomfortable that makes the audience.

More important than finger pointing over who is the Rebellion and who is the Empire is understanding how non-state actors perceive the U.S. and how those actors are motivated. Understanding these perceptions and motivations could help the U.S. operate more effectively in conflict zones and deter others from taking up a hostile cause against us and our allies. We must realize that for our enemies, resistance is seen as a new hope, even though we are programmed to see it as a phantom menace.

About the author:
*Thomas J. Shattuck is FPRI’s Assistant Editor and a Research Associate in the Program on National Security.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

In the course of its vehement condemnation of Israeli settlements, UN Security Council resolution 2334, passed on December 23, 2016, refers three times to “Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.”  To some, the phrase may appear not only innocuous, but self-evident.  In fact it is saddled with a load of historical assumption, and requires a little cool picking apart.

In the first instance, the wording of 2334 makes it clear that the idea of the City of Jerusalem as a so-called corpus separatum, namely international territory – a concept inherent in the original UN partition plan for post-Mandate Palestine – has been abandoned by the Security Council. But contradictions abound in international thinking about the Israel-Palestinian situation.  Incongruously the UN as a whole, like the European Union, still clings to the concept of an internationalized Jerusalem while at the same time asserting its support for the incompatible objective of “a viable state of Palestine in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”  It must be one or the other; it cannot be both – and the Security Council at least appears consistent.

The idea of an internationalized Jerusalem was set out in General Assembly resolution 181 (II), passed on November 29, 1947:  “The City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations.”  It was restated after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War in resolution 303(IV) of 1949, and again reiterated in a 1979 report prepared under the guidance of the UN’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.  It has never been countermanded, though as a practical proposition it is surely obsolete.  There has never been any agreement, treaty, or international understanding which applies the corpus separatum concept to Jerusalem.

The idea was part and parcel of the UN’s original partition plan for Mandate Palestine.  At the moment the British government surrendered its mandate, the territory then known as “Palestine” – except for the area designated for the Jewish state, which had come into existence on the previous day – ceased to belong to any sovereign nation. In the subsequent Arab-Israel war Jordanian forces seized East Jerusalem, while Israel gained control of West Jerusalem.  In 1949, the Israeli government declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the new state.

It was during the 1967 Six Day War that Israel captured East Jerusalem from the Jordanian army. The Security Council’s purpose in asserting that East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory is to reaffirm, as it has done on a variety of occasions in the past, that it regards as invalid Israel’s Jerusalem Law of July 1980 declaring the whole city to be the unified capital of Israel.

As for possible changes to the pre-Six Day War lines regarding Jerusalem, these are many and various.  Several have been discussed down to fine detail during past intensive negotiations.  They include redrawing the boundaries of the city and its environs to carve out a new Arab municipality of Al-Quds (the so-called “Clinton Parameters”), leaving the city unified but under joint Israeli-Arab administration (the “open city” concept of the 1999-2001 final status negotiations), and the “divided city”, or separation barrier, proposed in the joint Israeli-Palestinian Geneva Initiative of 2003.

The Old City of Jerusalem presents its own problems, and various models are similarly afloat, including so-called “territorial sovereignty” (ie divided Israeli-Arab control), a “special regime” (a united Old City under special management), and hybrid versions of these.

The main problem with resolution 2334 is that it seeks to modify Security Council Resolution 242, the accepted and agreed basis for the Arab-Israel peace process.  Adopted by the Security Council in the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War in June 1967, resolution 242 became the cornerstone of Middle East diplomatic efforts to solve the Arab-Israel dispute.  242 accepted that the armistice line boundaries after the 1948 Arab-Israel  war, which remained in place up to the outbreak of the Six Day War in 1967, were merely where the two armies happened to be placed when hostilities ceased in 1948, and were far from satisfactory as defensible international borders.  In fact, Article II of the Armistice with Jordan explicitly specified that the agreement did not compromise any future territorial claims of the parties, since it had been “dictated exclusively by military considerations.”  Accordingly  resolution 242 required the creation of new “secure and recognized” boundaries, and did not call for a full withdrawal from all the territories that Israel captured in the Six Day War.

Resolution 2334 runs counter to 242 by explicitly establishing the 1967 pre-war boundaries as the borders of a Palestinian state, only subject to any possible future agreement.  Those boundaries refer back to a city of Jerusalem divided between Israeli and Jordanian occupation.  The dividing line ran south past the Mandelbaum Gate and skirted the Old City wall, thus incorporating the Old City within East Jerusalem.

Right up until 1967 Jordanian snipers were positioned along the City Line, frequently shooting at citizens and other targets on the Israeli side of the city.  Jordan’s commitment in the 1949 Armistice Agreement to allow free access of Jews to the holy sites, such as the Western Wall and the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, was not honored. Synagogues, cemeteries and the area adjacent to the Western Wall were desecrated.  Israel understandably has no desire to recreate the conditions that gave rise to this situation – which explains why much of the Israeli media objects to the idea of pre-determining the borders of a putative Palestinian state to include an East Jerusalem occupied for 19 years by the Jordanian army.

A further interesting point.  To declare, as resolution 2334 does, that East Jerusalem is Palestinian territory carries with it an obvious corollary – namely that West Jerusalem is an integral part of sovereign Israel.  The Security Council therefore, by implication, removes any objection to states locating their embassies within that part of the city. In the light of resolution 2334, the furore raised in certain circles by US President Donald Trump’s declared intention to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem seems otiose.

With a stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump has unraveled the Trans-Pacific Partnership, withdrawing the US from the controversial free-trade pact. Without Washington’s participation, the TPP would have to be renegotiated or scrapped altogether.

The largest global trade agreement in 20 years, the TPP would have included the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. It was championed by former President Barack Obama as a way to open Asian markets for American goods and create a trade bloc to counter China.

Opposition to the TPP was one of the key planks of Trump’s presidential campaign, with the billionaire businessman calling the trade pact a “potential disaster” for the US. He said he would prefer bilateral trade deals with individual TPP countries instead. Monday’s executive order signaled the new administration’s determination to address its priorities quickly.

Vietnam backed out of the pact in November, citing uncertainty created by Trump’s election and the refusal of the US Congress to ratify the TPP.

Trump has also targeted the North American Free Trade Association, which eliminated commercial barriers between the US, Canada and Mexico during the Clinton administration.

If Wilbur Ross gets the Senate confirmation to head the Department of Commerce, he will be charged with renegotiating the trade deals, alongside US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and chief of the newly established White House Trade Council, Peter Navarro.

“We are going to start renegotiating on NAFTA, on immigration and on security at the border,” Trump said on Sunday, after the swearing-in ceremony for senior White House staff.

Trump’s animosity for the TPP was shared by some of the Democrats, led by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. His rival in the November 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, initially supported the trade pact.

On Monday, Trump assembled chief executives of major US corporations at the White House and promised to lower the tax and regulatory burden on doing business within the country. His administration will be scrapping free trade in favor of fair trade, he said.

“The regulations are going to be cut massively, and the taxes will be cut with them,” Trump said, warning that those who relocate factories will face a “substantial border tax.”

Trump signed two more executive orders on Monday, freezing all federal government hiring – with the exception of the US military – and prohibiting federal funding to US organizations promoting abortion overseas.

Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s foreign policy positions have been anything but consistent. One day we heard that NATO was obsolete and the US needs to pursue better relations with Russia. But the next time he spoke, these sensible positions were abandoned or an opposite position was taken. Trump’s inconsistent rhetoric left us wondering exactly what kind of foreign policy he would pursue if elected.

The President’s inaugural speech was no different. On the one hand it was very encouraging when he said that under his Administration the US would “seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world,” and that he understands the “right of all nations to put their own interests first.” He sounded even better when he said that under Trump the US would “not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.” That truly would be a first step toward peace and prosperity.

However in the very next line he promised a worldwide war against not a country, but an ideology, when he said he would, “unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate from the face of the Earth.” This inconsistent and dangerous hawkishess will not defeat “radical Islamic terrorism,” but rather it will increase it. Terrorism is not a place, it is a tactic in reaction to invasion and occupation by outsiders, as Professor Robert Pape explained in his important book, Dying to Win.

The neocons repeat the lie that ISIS was formed because the US military pulled out of Iraq instead of continuing its occupation. But where was ISIS before the US attack on Iraq? Nowhere. ISIS was a reaction to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The same phenomenon has been repeated wherever US interventionist actions have destabilized countries and societies.

Radical Islamic terrorism is for the most part a reaction to foreign interventionism. It will never be defeated until this simple truth is understood.

We also heard reassuring reports that President Trump was planning a major shake-up of the US intelligence community. With a budget probably approaching $100 billion, the intelligence community is the secret arm of the US empire. The CIA and other US agencies subvert elections and overthrow governments overseas, while billions are spent spying on American citizens at home. Neither of these make us safer or more prosperous.

But all the talk about a major shake up at the CIA under Trump was quickly dispelled when the President visited the CIA on his first full working day in office. Did he tell them a new sheriff was in town and that they would face a major and long-overdue reform? No. He merely said he was with them “1000 percent.”

One reason Trump sounds so inconsistent in his policy positions is that he does not have a governing philosophy. He is not philosophically opposed to a US military empire so sometimes he sounds in favor of more war and sometimes he sounds like he opposes it. Will President Trump in this case be more influenced by those he has chosen to serve him in senior positions? We can hope not, judging from their hawkishness in recent Senate hearings. Trump cannot be for war and against war simultaneously. Let us hope that once the weight of the office settles on him he will understand that the prosperity he is promising can only come about through a consistently peaceful foreign policy.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

A municipal council member of a Swedish town called Kalmar has resigned due to a Facebook post he made asking if someone could “shoot” America’s new president, Donald Trump.

“I believed that Donald Trump would calm down after he became the president [of the US]. But how wrong I was! He exceeded my worst fears! Could anyone shoot him?” Swedish Social Democratic Party member Roland Peterson, a municipal official in Kalmar’s Soedermoere district, wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday, though he removed it an hour later.

Nonetheless, Peterson decided to step down as member of both his party and the Soedermoere Municipal Council and Planning Board after making the post, announcing his resignation on Monday morning.

“After my blunder on Facebook, there is a risk that I will become a burden for the Social Democrats in Kalmar. I do not want it, so I chose to leave all my posts,” Peterson wrote in a letter to his party members, as cited by the local Oestra Smaland newspaper.

Person’s post provoked an angry reaction from his party members and fellow councilors.

“It is good that he [Peterson] removed it [the post],” councilor Johan Persson told Oestra Smalan, adding that people should “never call for violence” regardless of their opinion of Donald Trump or other issues.

The Social Democrats’ leader in Kalmar, Roger Holmberg, denounced the post as “inappropriate” and “idiotic,” while stressing that “even thinking about the idea of violence is completely wrong.” He told Swedish broadcaster STV that he had had a conversation with Peterson and said that new party members would receive training in working with social media.

Holmber said that Peterson “is deeply remorseful,” explaining that he “did not understand the impact of the post in the social media.”

Peterson told STV that he “would have never written” the post if he had considered the consequences, while promising he “will never do it again.” He also explained to Oestra Smalan that it was Trump’s environmental policy that had deeply upset him.

“He [Trump] risks the future of the entire Earth,” he said, adding that “now, when the world has started going in the right direction,” Trump plans to increase oil and coal production.

Trump’s ideas about the environmental are a source of controversy in the US. Social media went into meltdown after Trump’s inauguration when certain hot topic issues disappeared from the White House website, including climate change.

Many mainstream media outlets initially reported on the conspicuous disappearances, but are adopting a more cautious ‘wait-and-see’ approach for the time being.

Anti-Trump angst was running high both in the US and abroad after his inauguration. On Saturday, Donald Trump’s first full day in the White House, thousands of women marched through US cities to protest Trump and call for the protection of civil liberties and diverse cultures.

Sister rallies took place in Japan, Australia, and Europe. Inauguration Day also witnessed violent clashes between anti-Trump protesters and Washington police.

By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty*

Registering the first violent incident of the year in the region, 25 people were killed and more than 87 were injured in a bomb blast at the Sabzi Mandi (vegetable market) area of Parachinar in the Kurram Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the morning of January 21, 2017. A statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that the improvised explosive device (IED) blast took place at 08:50am PST. Government official Shahid Khan stated that the explosion took place when the market was crowded with retailers buying fruits and vegetables. In a text message sent to journalists, the al-Alami (International) faction of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LeJ) claimed that it, along with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) splinter Shehryar Mehsud group, carried out the attack. The Shehryar Mehsud group did not independently claim the bombing.

On December 13, 2015, a similar blast in a makeshift market in Parachinar had killed 25 people and injured 62. Two militant groups, LeJ Al Alami and Ansarul Mujahideen, based in the South Waziristan Agency, had claimed responsibility for that blast.

Kurram is one of the most sensitive tribal areas, as it borders three Afghan provinces and, at one point, was a key route for militant movement across the border. It has witnessed scores of sectarian and militant attacks in the past several years. Kurram adjoins the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) where Operation Zarb-i-Azb (‘Sword of the Prophet’, also ‘sharp and cutting’) is in progress against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups.

Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched in NWA on June 15, 2014, in the aftermath of the attack on the Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, on June 8-9, 2014, in which at least 33 persons, including all 10 attackers, were killed. Since then, according to partial data compiled by South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 2,563 terrorists and 232 soldiers have been killed (data till January 22, 2017). [As media access to the areas of conflict is severely limited no independent verification of number of fatalities or identities of those killed is available.] However, Lieutenant General Asim Saleem Bajwa claimed, on June 15, 2016, that a total of 3,500 terrorists had been killed, and 992 hideouts destroyed. Referring to the losses faced by the Pakistan Army during the Operation, Bajwa added, 490 soldiers had been killed till that date.

2016 was significant for FATA in terms of violence, as the region recorded a noticeable 10 years low in terrorism-related fatalities. Overall fatalities in the Agency registered a 77.15 per cent decline in 2016, as compared to the previous year, from 1,882 killed in 2015 to 430 in 2016. While civilian fatalities declined by 43.28 per cent, fatalities among terrorist registered a sharp 80.81 per cent decline. SF fatalities also fell by 63.2 per cent.

Fatalities in FATA: 2006-2017

The number of major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities) in the Province also decreased by 76.97 per cent in 2016, in comparison to the previous year, principally due to the squeeze in the area of counter-insurgency operations. The Province accounted for 32 major incidents of violence resulting in 382 deaths in 2016, as against 139 such incidents, accounting for 1,868 fatalities in 2015.

There was a considerable decrease in incidents of explosion as well; in comparison to 72 blasts resulting in 140 fatalities in 2015, 2016 recorded 38 blasts resulting in 84 fatalities. However, while the number of suicide attacks in both these years stood at three each, the resultant fatalities increased from 18 in 2015 to 55 in 2016.

Though incidents of sectarian violence registered a decrease, with just one incident in 2016 as compared to three in 2015, that one incident inflicted 37 fatalities and left another 72 wounded, while 2015 saw 32 fatalities and 72 injured. A suicide bomber killed at least 36 people and wounded more than 37 as they attended Friday prayers at a mosque in the Pekhan Killay area of Anbar tehsil in the Mohmand Agency of FATA. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a breakaway faction of TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The United States (US) drone programme, which had created havoc among terrorists over the past years, has been downsized, as the Pakistan Army launched operations in NWA, where dreaded terrorists of al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network and Hafiz Gul Bahadur faction of TTP were sheltered. Washington had long been pressurising Islamabad to launch Operation against these groupings. There were just two drone attacks in FATA in 2016, as compared to 14 such attacks in 2015.

FATA has experienced relative calm in terms of terrorism-related activities, but the tribal people have suffered an enormous burden of destruction. Terrorism-afflicted parts of FATA require special attention for their development, but appear to be a low priority for the authorities concerned. This was reiterated by a special report of a sub-committee of the Senate’s Standing Committee on States and Frontier Regions released on November 25, 2016. The report asserted that “the Fata Annual Development Plans (ADP) for 2015-16 and 2016-17 contain new education and health facilities in different tribal agencies, but such schemes for SWA have been abandoned. The development schemes launched in the region in 2007 and beyond could not be completed because of the law and order situation there.” The committee’s main focus of study was development issues in FATA, particularly in South Waziristan Agency (SWA), and problems being faced by its people.

A total of 5.3 million people in FATA have been displaced as a consequence of counter-terrorism operations since 2008, some of them multiple times. Of these, 4.8 million have returned, with about 700,000 returning in 2016. A multi-cluster assessment of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and returnees in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and FATA confirmed the pressing need for livelihoods and basic social service. IDPs living in temporary camps were unwilling to return to their war ravaged areas. Orakzai Agency was among the areas which had purportedly been cleared of terrorists, but displaced families were unwilling to return, even as the Government threatened to ‘deregister’ them as IDPs. Like Orakzai, other parts of FATA including North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Khyber and Kurram, have been de-notified as conflict zones. During a meeting called by KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra at Peshawar on January 5, 2017, to discuss the return, rehabilitation and other issues related to the terrorism-hit people of FATA, the Government decided to deregister the IDPs disinclined to return to their native towns across FATA. According to an official statement, “The families living intentionally as temporarily dislocated persons would be deregistered just on a notice of four weeks time and the public would be informed through media in this respect.”

On January 17, 2017, Mehreen Afridi, Director FATA Youth Forum (FYF), urged the Government to reconstruct infrastructure that had been destroyed in FATA, observing that terrorists had destroyed educational institutions, hospitals and other health centres, roads, bridges and government installations, abodes of tribal people and their businesses during the last decade of terrorism in FATA.

Despite claims regarding the success of the protracted Operation Zarb-e-Azb, terrorist attacks at regular intervals underline the residual risks as well as the duplicity of the state. Before the initiation of the Operation, ample opportunity had been provided for most of the terrorists in FATA to slip out of the country, to take shelter in the bordering areas of Afghanistan. During the course of the Operation, no top-level commander of any militant group has been neutralized. Crucially, Pakistan continues to mobilize and support terrorist formations operating in Afghanistan, and the Pakistani terrorist groups operating domestically have formed close relations with these state sponsored groups, and their cadres are often indistinguishable. The blowback of Islamabad’s duplicitous linkages with the enterprise of terrorism continues to impact on the people of FATA in particular, and of Pakistan in general.

*Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

By Ajit Kumar Singh*

A civilian, Sukhdev Baghel, was hacked to death by suspected Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres at a village in the Chintagufa area of Sukma District in the afternoon of January 19, 2017. According to the Police, “As per the eyewitness, two people armed with sharp weapons stormed into Baghel’s shop and slit his throat before escaping from the spot.”

Two women and a minor girl were killed while four others sustained injuries in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) explosion near Godagaon village forest in Narayanpur District on January 18, 2017. According to preliminary information, the residents of nearby Tumnaar village, including some women and their children, were passing through the area where road construction work was underway. They inadvertently stepped on the pressure IED which exploded. Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) S.R.P. Kalluri noted, “The Maoists have planted the IEDs to target security forces [SFs] deployed to facilitate ongoing road construction on that axis.”

A village sarpanch (head of the Panchayat, village level local self Government institution) was killed, by suspected Maoists at Masenar village in the Dantewada District in the night of January 17, 2017. According to the Police, “Raju Netam, the sarpanch of Masenar village, was hacked to death with an axe last night at his native place under Bhansi Police Station area…The exact reason behind the attack was yet to be ascertained as Netam was never on the target of ultras. Though some Maoist pamphlets were recovered from the spot, no specific reason has been mentioned in them behind the brutal murder (sic).”

At least five civilians have already been killed by Maoists in Chhattisgarh in the current year (data till January 22, 2016). According to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) data, at least 64 civilians were killed between January 1, 2016, and November 15, 2016. Another three civilians were killed between November 16, 2016, and December 31, 2016, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), yielding a total of at least 67 civilian deaths through 2016, as against 53 (UMHA data) through 2015, an increase of 26.41 per cent. Worryingly, this is the highest number of civilian fatalities in the State since 2011, when 124 such fatalities were recorded (UMHA data). Civilian fatalities had dropped to 67 (UMHA data) in 2013. However, at the peak of Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-linked violence in the State in 2006, Chhattisgarh accounted for 304 civilian fatalities (UMHA data).

Most of the civilians killed were branded as ‘police informers’, even as the Maoists continue to suffer losses at the hands of the SFs in operations backed by deep penetration by intelligence agencies into ‘their areas’ with the help of the local population. Indeed, CPI-Maoist ‘East Division secretary’, Pratap Reddy aka Ramchandra Reddy aka Appa Rao aka Chalapathi, in an interview published on July 21, 2016, stated, “I must add that in the conspiracy to eliminate the Maoist party, the ruling classes and the State Government have been exploiting people in the tribal areas by converting them as police informer and agents. Such people are being given arms by the police and a special police officer (SPO) network created. It is such elements that we are eliminating.” By eliminating these alleged ‘police informers’ the Maoists believe they can break the information chain the SFs have built to target the Maoists deep inside their ‘safe heavens’. At least 56 Maoist leaders, including 25 ‘commander’ level cadres, have been killed in Chhattisgarh alone out of a total of 98 killed across India since 2010.

Moreover, according to UMHA data available since 2003, SFs achieved their best ever kill ratio in their fight against the Maoists in Chhattisgarh in 2016 – at 1:3.19 (115 Maoists killed as against 36 SF personnel). 47 SF personnel and 48 Maoists were killed in 2015, i.e., a kill ratio of 1:1.02 in favour of the SFs. Prior to that, the SFs secured a positive kill ratio of 1:1.11 and 1:1.18, respectively, only twice in the past, in 2009 and 2004. On the other hand, Maoists had twice achieved a kill ratio of three or above – in 2003 (1: 3.75) and 2007 (1:3). In the current year (data till January 20, 2017), the SFs have eliminated seven Maoists while losing one of their own troopers.

SFs have also arrested large numbers of Maoists. UMHA data indicates that at least 686 Maoists were arrested in 2016 (up to November 15) adding to 512 in 2015. At least 687 Maoists were arrested in 2014 and 387 in 2013. The mounting pressure has also resulted in the surrender of 1,174 Maoists in 2016 (up to November 15), as against just 173 surrenders in the corresponding period of 2015. Total surrenders through 2015 stood at 323. There were 413 surrenders in 2014 and a mere 28 in 2013. The Chhattisgarh Government has made liberal changes in the existing “surrender and rehabilitation policy” for Maoists in the State. In one such lucrative addition, the Chhattisgarh Government decided that, upon surrender “the individual will be watched for six months, and if his behaviour is deemed to be good”, he will be eligible for a government job. A Cabinet Subcommittee “may also take back criminal cases against him.”

Crippling and cumulative losses have hit Maoist activities in the State. For instance, Chhattisgarh recorded 381 Maoist-linked incidents in 2016 (up to November 15), as against 453 such incidents in the corresponding period of 2015. There was a total of 466 such incidents through 2015.

Nevertheless, the trend in civilian killings indicates that the Maoists continue to pose potent threat to security in the State. Further, an analysis of partial fatalities data compiled by the SATP for the Bastar Division of the State suggests that, though the Maoists are losing their hold in the region, they still retain a strong presence and operational capabilities. The Bastar Division comprises seven of Chhattisgarh’s 27 Districts – Bastar, Bijapur, Dantewada, Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur and Sukma – but accounted for 202 fatalities out of a total of 207 recorded in the Maoist-related violence in the State through 2016, i.e., a staggering 97.58 per cent. Similarly, in 2015, the Bastar Division accounted for 95.83 per cent of total fatalities in the State. Worryingly, on October 26, 2016, the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB), disclosed that the CPI-Maoist was reportedly working on a plan to create a new ‘guerrilla zone’ along the Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh (MP) border region as an “extension” of its current stronghold in Bastar. The proposed new ‘guerrilla zone’, will be nestled in the Satpura Hills range, spreading over eight Districts in the three States of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and MP, with the objective of facilitating the expansion of the CPI-Maoist base north and east of Bastar. Of these eight Districts, the Maoists have already established bases in Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, Balaghat in MP and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra. Efforts are underway to expand into the border Districts of Kawardha and Mungeli in Chhattisgarh; Mandla and Dindori in MP; and Gondia in Maharashtra. The new ‘guerrilla zone’ would function under the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC), presently the most powerful entity within the CPI-Maoist operational setup.

SFs have achieved tremendous success in their fight against the Maoists in Chhattisgarh over the past few years, despite great odds. For instance, according to the latest Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) data, as against a sanctioned strength of 425 Police Stations, the State has only 402. Shockingly, 161 of these 402 Police Stations are without any vehicle. There are 14 Police Stations without a telephone connection. The State has 55,330 policemen, as against a sanctioned strength of 65,749, leaving at least 15.84 posts vacant. In this highly Maoist-afflicted state, the Police/Area Ratio (number of policemen per 100 square kilometers) is 40.93, as against the sanctioned strength of 48.63. The all-India ratio stands at 54.69, as against a sanction of 72.03. Governments, both at the central and state levels, continue to have fail to address these issues and deficits.

After a successful experiment with the District Reserve Group (DRG), a special wing of the Chhattisgarh Police used exclusively for anti-Maoist operational duties in the Bastar Division, the State Government, on July 1, 2016, suggested raising a ‘Dandakaranya Battalion’ in the Armed Forces, on the lines of the Naga Regiment of the Indian Army, to facilitate the entry of tribal youth from the Maoist-hit Bastar Division. Meanwhile, to augment the State’s capacity to counter the Maoists, the Centre has approved the setting up of the ‘Bastariya Battalion’ of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which is likely to be established in 2017, recruiting youth mostly from the Bastar region. Reports indicate that DRG carried out 644 anti-LWE operations in 2015, both individually and in coordination with other State and paramilitary Forces, during which they gunned down 46 ultras. No such data is available for 2016.

At a time when the CPI-Maoist is at its lowest ebb since its inception in September 2004, there is simply no room for complacence. Any lackadaisical approach can facilitate a Maoist resurrection as they are still not a spent force, and have repeatedly demonstrated their capacities to recover from reverses in the past.

* Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

By Rajesh Rajagopalan

US President Barack Obama left office mouthing the same soaring, ungrounded rhetoric with which he came in.  The eight years in-between has made the vacuity and inadequacy of that rhetoric abundantly clear.  He has presided over a diminishing of American influence far out of proportion to the real decline of American power.  He leaves behind a country that faces far many problems, mostly self-inflicted, in the international arena than when he took over.  Obama’s failures have consequences not just for the US but for many parts of the world, with growing regional insecurity from the Indo-Pacific to the Baltics breeding suspicion, competition, instability and possibly war.

It is important to understand the reasons for Obama’s failures because they implicate a certain worldview that still resonates in parts of the American establishment.  More importantly, though they have different worldviews, some elements of President Donald Trump’s policy framework are uncomfortably close to the policy outcomes of Obama’s worldview.

At the root of this worldview lay an odd mixture of liberal internationalism and a radical leftwing rejection of American moral authority, all wrapped in the false flag of a realist’s worry about American over-extension.  It was a worldview that assumed that disputes between states result not from a natural conflict of interest and balance of power politics but from the lack of understanding of opposing perspectives that can be resolved by dialogue.  Convinced that it was misguided American foreign policy that was the source of much of the conflict between the US and others – policies he frequently derided as the “Washington playbook” – he championed a different approach that sought to reach out to adversaries and treat American allies with greater circumspection.  His successor is being rightly criticised for threatening America’s global alliance structure, but Obama had started down this road much earlier.  What Obama sought was a general disengagement from Washington’s leadership role that one of his advisors memorably characterised as “leading from behind”.  In essence, it was a worldview that saw America’s global role as the problem and a diminution of that role as the solution.

In the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, this became a common liberal trope, and one which even some Realists accepted, that US global role was breeding resentment and hampering US foreign policy.  But there is little indication that a reduced US footprint has enhanced US reputation, or more importantly, that it has had any direct relevance to American strategic effectiveness.  For example, Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world, complemented with the Iran nuclear deal, his clear partiality towards the Palestinians in their dispute with Israel, and his refusal to intervene in Syria or Yemen, did not garner him much goodwill: despite some initial enthusiasm, as he left office, his image in that part of the world left “much to be desired”.  The reason is simple: strong states, whether global ones or regional, will breed fear and resentment simply because they are strong.  This is as true of India in South Asia as it is of the US in the global system.  This is an unavoidable cost that come with the privileges of being a great power.  This is not to suggest that the US (or India) have not behaved badly or that they should behave badly but to underline the foolishness of making international opinion the guiding principle in strategic behavior.

Attempting to reduce the US’s global role was illogical because the US is not just another state: it still remains the world’s most powerful state.  Great powers, especially unipolar powers, bear a disproportionate burden of the cost of maintaining international order, whether it is in the security realm or in that of international commerce.  There are two reasons why they should be willing to bear that burden: first, while they may pay a disproportionate cost, they also reap a disproportionate profit from the maintenance of that order.  The US has benefited greatly from the liberal international order that it established after the Second World War, even more so than other states that may not have had to bear as much of the costs of maintaining it.  Similarly, in the security realm, the US established a nuclear non-proliferation order which may have benefited all but allowed the US to remain an untrammeled global power.  These are benefits that are usually not well recognized in the US debate about its global role.

Second, if the US withdraws from playing this role, no one else will step into the breech.  No other power has the capacity that the US has to play this global role.  While in theory it may appear that a combination of great powers may be able to match the US in capacity, the likelihood that they would be able to coordinate their differing interests to promote such an order are quite low.  If the European Union or the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) were able to form successful regional groupings, this owed much to the protection that the US offered, which ensured that these countries did not have to worry as much about each other, making cooperation more likely.   America’s refusal to play this role might result not in a more democratic multilateral order but a crumbling one.  It will harm all, but it will harm the US most of all because it is the US that has the most to gain.  In other words, the US can choose not to play its global role, but that would be a poor choice.

If Obama’s desire to reduce America’s global role was misguided, his reluctance to acknowledge the centrality of power politics was an even bigger problem.  Syria is one prominent example.  The bloodshed in Syria will for a long time be blamed on Obama’s reluctance to commit American power to resolve or at least contain the civil war there.  But the real problem with Obama’s policies in Syria was not that it allowed the Assad regime and its Iranian and Russian backers to conduct one of the most openly brutal civil war campaigns in recent decades.  It is foolish to expect that states, including the US, will expend their blood and treasure for saving strangers in a distant land, whatever the claims of statesmen in peacetime.  The real problem was that Obama and his administration refused to recognise that as terrible as the civil war was, it also had consequences for the regional balance of power.  This was the primary reason why Iran and its client, the Hezbollah terrorists, quickly and decisively went all-in to support the Assad regime.  It was the same recognition of the wider consequences that led other, much weaker regional players such as Saudi Arabia, and distant ones such as Russia, to also push their chips forward.  But Obama, conditioned to dismiss balance of power concerns, was blind these larger implications.  The consequence is that the US is no longer a serious player in the region, at least for the present, and the competition between the various regional players in the region has intensified, potentially poisoning the regions politics for some time to come.

An even more consequential example is China and Obama’s refusal to recognise the increasing threat that China posed, both because of its growing power but also because of its increasing aggressiveness in the region.  Obama sought a partnership with China, seeking China’s help in shoring up a global system that Beijing clearly saw as underwriting American dominance rather than as a neutral one that benefited all, including China.  When Obama reluctantly sought to counter China with the pivot and rebalancing, it was too little, only serving to confirm China’s suspicions that American intentions were hostile while doing little to actually shore up confidence among American allies in the region.  The consequence is that China is now militarily planted in Southeast Asia, with American allies seriously debating whether they might not be better off cutting a deal with China instead.

The consequence of Obama’s strategic foolishness is a much more dangerous and unstable world.  It is also one in which Washington is trusted even less by its allies, which will only make any effort at stabilising the international order that much more difficult.  Obama may have left office and the memory of his rhetorical flourishes may fade but the damage he has done to the international order will remain with us for some time.

“The USA has Urinary Trump Infection.” – Protest sign, San Francisco Women’s Rally, Jan 21, 2017

The man, called Bruce, goes by the name of DJ Chocolate Starfish. He is energetically occupying himself in the corner of a room on the third floor of the often noisy San Francisco Public library, eyes moving with frenzied delight at the mixed tunes, ears covered with enormous head pieces. DJCS minds his computer screen and entire sound system of amplifiers, being true to his name.

A superb window is positioned beside the table DJCS has conquered with conviction. From there, the organism that is the Women’s March is developing, buzzing and heaving, adjusting between the Public Library and the Asian Museum.

“Whoa shit!” exclaims Chocolate Starfish, placing his headphones down with an elaborate gesture on the table. The thud is startling, followed by a question clouded in fear: “Hey man, I thought you were about to pick off the protesters one by one.” Not every day one is assumed to be a sniper, exchanging pen for rifle. “Don’t worry man. I was just going to quietly slip out. I ain’t seen nothin…”

Solid calm and reassurance was quickly restored. Chocolate Starfish found form quickly, chirped with enthusiasm at the crowds gathering outside for the rally. “This is bigger than fucking Milk.” He was reminded by the passion of Harvey Milk, the San Francisco Board Supervisor and gay activist who paid for his life in the service of his city, speaking to lifestyle, rights and identity. Now that was a San Francisco that could march against fear, turning out after his murder in 1977 with solemn dignity.

Prior to two o’clock on the Sunday afternoon, the numbers were already gathering to celebrate Woman, the sleeping giant of America supposedly woken, in Her fight against the Misogynist-in-Chief, whose trash-talking disposition towards the opposite sex was captured by a video. Added to this were his erratic comments during the campaign about penalising those who use abortion, though he exited rapidly from that proposition.

Naturally, it was far more than that, and the protest over the course of the day drew in themes from across the spectrum that went beyond Woman. Pro-immigrant and Black Lives Matter voices were also in evidence. As these were added to the shopping list, contradictions appeared gaping.

In front of the Asian Museum were several women, garbed in hippy chic outfits, the tattered jackets lending themselves to stylish suggestions. They held signs backing Hillary Clinton as the legitimate president, alongside peace symbols, NATO, and “love, actually”. The confused combination evidently ignored the troubling and far from peaceful role of NATO since the end of the Cold War, not to mention the role played by the nuclear weapons in the alliance, triggering the European Disarmament Movement.

These are hippies turned conservative protectors of the status quo, doves genetically modified to be hawks in Hillary Clinton’s laboratory of politics. They are the patriots of the moment, darkly insinuating that Trump is Vladimir Putin’s poodle.

Protest simplifies. The street placard (or “signage” as it is often referred to here) takes a problem of various dimensions and dragoons it into a simple form. Sometimes, these are amusing. “Did you know Trump is fart in British slang?” went the message being held by a school girl, flashing her smile before the cameras. “My taco is nacho business,” went another.

In a perverse sense, the Trump tweet is a form of crude protest. The leader as “creeper tweeter” invites uncomplicated engagement, lures the respondent into a world where the complex subject goes to die. The entire twittersphere is a noisy engagement, furious, often abusive, the sovereign domain of trolls rather than the idyll of the philosophical walk. Complexity and nuance are compressed, even crushed.

Consequentially, the entire language of the debate has been shaped by Trump. Instead of seeking elevated forms of engagement, protests insist on the “Pussy Grab Back” line. Others use street fighting (or is it genital fighting?) talk: “Grab My Pussy and I Kick Your Dick.” The language becomes pathological and violent, sounding very much like the man’s own lingo, the subject of denigration turned denigrator. It is forceful, promising of assault, and worshipful of the vagina and uterus. Dick thinkers become vagina thinkers.

As the crowd swells and snakes out to the tens of thousands (the final estimate of those who turned up numbered a hundred thousand), more signs appear, providing the President with generous publicity: “We are still fighting for an America for all of us”; “E pluribus unum.” Except, obviously, those who voted for Trump, who remain the shadow targets of the protesters, lowlife types to be denigrated rather than convinced.

Here, today, there was little complexity at hand. There was much indignation to bottle, but the speeches at the rally were rambles of self-indulgence, a mass of angst filled with platitudes: “Compassion changes minds.” There were the usual salutes to native plights and the environment, a fear for war. There were memories, framed by pasts of pain.

There was little by way of a constructive targeting of Trump, given his non-existent record. Crimes spoken of had yet to happen; and many, in fact, had already been committed by previous US administrations. To date, apart from rumour and sentiment, the other targets were Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

While these appointees may well seem like selections from a nightmare fantasy, thespians in an absurdist play, they have yet to prove true to their statements. Trump himself ducks, adjusts and re-forms positions with gum like indifference, and surely knows that he is now the People’s Apprentice who might well be fired.

What we saw during these protests was, in fact, a huge festival, a chance to have a good Sunday out. There was, to that end, little to worry the police. These were individuals who had turned up with families, dogs, and, in some instances, to get laid. To its wet, flickering end, it was protest as festival, having found a convenient justification. It was excellent for the bars lining Larkin Street, where the protesters repaired to before marching on. It would have made Trump proud: spending patrons, keeping the US economy purring.

“He may well have united America,” chortled Chocolate Starfish, his bulky bag packed after much effort, ready to brave the choking march that was already cutting off Market Street. “The poor bastard should have known he would do this.” Not quite: a Disunited States is precisely why Trump is in office, and another cartoon character of blame could just as well have been Clinton herself, the figure lauded and celebrated before these indignados.

By Hossein Kebriaeizadeh

Ideological conflicts have been always both customary and unavoidable. From this viewpoint, there are various forms of extremism, especially of the Takfiri type, which can be divided into different branches from ideological, political, tactical and other viewpoints. However, new instances of Takfiri extremism, which were seen in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East and believed in conquering territory and even established a new form of government and rule known as the Islamic State, rang the alarms for those pioneering the idea of a world free of violence.

I personally believe that Daesh was the product of a special fertile ground in Islamic world, but nobody can be indifferent to major factors, which helped and accelerated spread of this phenomenon.

Ideological links between Daesh, as case study of this paper, and Saudi government’s official ideology led Saudi officials to the strategic error at the outset of this terrorist group that Riyadh would be able to form something similar to a modern army in the region by organizing members of this groups around the axis of fighting its ideological enemies. However, before long, as Daesh gained more power and formed the so-called Islamic State, and despite existence of shared values, differences in political views between the two sides caused the leader of Daesh, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to introduce Saudi kingdom as usurper of the Two Holy Mosques. In doing this, Daesh announced that the only form of government acceptable for this group was the same violent government that they had already formed in Iraq and Syria.

This difference in viewpoints, which led to overt hostility between Daesh and Saudi Arabia, does not mean that Riyadh has stopped its direct and indirect support for the spread of extremism even under the present circumstances. Evidence to this claim is the hefty budget still allocated out of Saudi Arabia’s oil revenues to supporting those religious schools, speakers and media, which promote Wahhabism across the Islamic world. In doing this, Saudi Arabia is practically helping such notorious terrorist groups as Daesh or al-Qaeda to have access to abundant financial resources to recruit fighters and jihadist forces.

In fact, those factors, which Daesh considers as sources of legitimacy and popularity, are very similar to those factors, which the political system in Saudi Arabia considers as sources of its legitimacy. Wahhabism is currently being promoted in such a way both in Saudi society and across the Islamic world that it would pave the way for dictating blind obedience to the king as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques on the basis of the doctrine known as “one rule, one ruler, and one mosque.” This interpretation of Wahhabism is like a two-edged sword, because it can also enable Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to establish a similar government and require the entire Islamic world to bow before it. Anybody, who may be opposed to the ruler, could be then punished with the ruler’s sword of excommunication as was common at the time that the current government of Saudi Arabia was established in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Today, however, about one century has passed since the establishment of the Saudi kingdom and its rule has been strengthened. So, why primitive principles on which this political order has been based do not change in relation to democratic values? The reason behind survival of this way of thinking, which is known as the breeding ground for extremism, should be sought in the expediency-based approach adopted by the king himself and its regional functions.

Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the late 1970s, the Saudi government found itself faced with an ideological rival, which promoted a Shia government based on people’s votes, and in this way, pitted some form of Islamic democracy against the political thought of Wahhabism.

With Islamic democracy in place in Iran, Riyadh saw itself faced with the risk of losing legitimacy of its monarchial system as a result of which, it fostered an unhealthy model of ideological rivalry in the region. Organizing and supporting Takfiri groups in order to counter Islamic movements that had taken a democratic turn, was seen as being capable of both protecting the monarchial system’s interests and establishing the regional order, which would be desirable to Riyadh.

The emergence of Arab revolutions from 2011 onward faced Riyadh with difficult conditions. Now, Saudi Arabia had to choose between two options: either to accept changes in fundaments of its rule in line with those developments, or to resist those changes by taking advantage of the same tactic, that is, supporting extremist groups through a strategy that aimed to spread crisis to areas under control of its rival countries, Syria and Iraq.

The result of this decision was waging of a low-intensity war with Iran by taking advantage of ideological, identity-based and religious components present in the region. It was a full-fledged proxy war waged by taking advantage of unreliable armed forces.

Saudi Arabia had on its track records the past experience of supporting extremism in Afghanistan and Egypt in order to counter measures taken by the former Soviet Union and former Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, through the United States’ support during the Cold War era. In line with that experience, Riyadh decided to provide spiritual, financial, logistical, and intelligence support for these unruly troopers in order to makes its dreams about establishing the Wahhabi hegemony in the region and countering the so-called Shia Crescent come true. This decision, which was made even without due attention to domestic conditions in Saudi Arabia and the situation in the region, finally led to escalation of a widespread crisis and spread of terrorism over a short period of time and with an unprecedented degree of violence.

This path is not necessarily irreversible. Later establishment of an Arab coalition in order to fight terrorism by Saudi Arabia was an important, though inefficient, measure, because the first step in fighting extremism is to understand its root causes. Such understanding must first evolve among Saudi princes and other power circles in Riyadh, because these are places with the highest degree of division with regard to this phenomenon. Changing the content of educational curriculum in Saudi Arabia, revising the approach taken by such religious centers as the Muslim World League, and correcting performance of Wahhabi schools as well as the material taught by Saudi preachers, speakers and media are major steps to be taken in this regard. Such teachings, in addition to economic factors like poverty, unfair distribution of wealth and power, and absence of suitable channels for political, social and civil participation in the Middle East, have paved the way for extremist groups, which follow the same policy under different names, to pose a major threat to peace both at regional and global levels.

More than 1,600 ‘terror’ suspects were arrested in Turkey last week, the Interior Ministry said Monday.

They included 1,218 suspected members of the Fetullah Organization (FETO) held responsible for the attempted coup in July, 372 PKK suspects and 75 Daesh suspects, according to a statement.

Turkey has been hit by more than a dozen bomb and gun attacks since July 2015 that have resulted in hundreds of deaths. The terror attacks were usually claimed or attributed to the PKK or Daesh. The coup attempt saw at least 248 people martyred.

In its statement, the ministry said a total of 228 operations were conducted against the PKK, in which five ‘terror’ suspects were killed and one injured. Of the 372 arrested, 36 were held in custody pending trial.

Four improvised explosive devices and 48 shelters were destroyed by the Gendarmerie across southeast Turkey.

The statement said 572 of the FETO suspects were remanded in custody and one of the 75 suspected Daesh members was held for trial.

Original source

Chinese e-Commerce company Alibaba is interested in investing in Sri Lanka to build an e-Commerce platform to further promote its on-line business ventures, according to the Sri Lanka government.

The founder of Alibaba e-Commerce Company and its current chairman Jack Ma expressed his interest during a January 18 meeting with Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake on the sidelines of World Economic Forum 2017 held at Davos, Switzerland, the government said.

According to the Sri Lanka government, Chairman Jack Ma said that he will take immediate action to start investing in Sri Lanka. He also pointed out that his proposed investment will generate hundreds of employment opportunities to the youth of Sri Lanka.

Terrorist attacks have been randomly sweeping the world. While uncertainty around bloody conflicts in West Asia and Africa, sectarian politics in Arabia and Iran, Integration issues in Europe and North America and lack of democracy in Muslim majority states have become the norms of modern politics, one fact remains certain: Sectarianism has been on the rise in Muslim majority countries. Perhaps there are detectable patterns along these sectarian lines.

While the majority of Muslims have been unwillingly dragged into unpleasant discourses, often resulting in their discrimination and alienation based on religious affiliation, there are underlying patterns emboldened by Islamist discourses, which erode believing Muslims from within.

There are patterns of rejection, alienation and otherisation practiced by conservative Islamist elites against minorities and other belief systems. Posing several controversies in our modern time, these practices primarily help hard-line elites to remain in power, forcing Muslims to reside between the hammer and the anvil.

Who is the Target?

While some attribute the reasons of the rising tides of sectarianism, especially in West Asia and North Africa, to the nature of the Islamic religion and culture, others, parallel to Islamist discourse, blame Muslims for not believing enough in their religion. Interestingly enough, Islamist politics does not only draw sectarian lines among Muslims and non-Muslims but also among Muslims themselves. While Islamists are not a homogenous group that follows a specific interpretation of a specific sect in Islam, sectarian lines are much deeper than they initially seem to be.

Indeed, the rejection, alienation and otherisation patterns extend to define cultural authenticity in contrast with the immorality of the inferior “other”. The West (and other distinctive minority groups) becomes a viable target of such discourse. It becomes a target not because it is per se the target itself, but because it masks the real target of local elites, who might have westernised practises. One might then ask the question of why the West in general is the target and not China or Japan. Obviously the target is politically oriented.

Professor of Anthropology Dale Eickelman puts it nicely when he wrote: “Although Islamic discussions of cultural authenticity often present the West as the morally inferior ‘Other’, such discussions mask the real target of moral censure-local elites and their Westernized practices or ethnically distinct groups and their ‘deviant’ conduct.”

Politicised Boundaries

In Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori’s book: Muslim Politics, they make it clear that Muslim discussions on gender and family are inherently politicised. This political contentiousness also applies on the rejection, alienation and otherisation patterns, by which boundaries between the Muslim and the non-Muslim are politically drawn.

“Islamist discourses . . . that uphold the authenticity of tradition thus seek to draw boundaries not only between the Muslim and non-Muslim community but also between the ‘true’ guardians of community and the ‘internal other’”, they wrote in their book on page 91.

This model also holds when explaining Islamist discourses on other belief systems. The boundaries of what is Islamic and what is not, what is a pure version of Islam and what is not and who is right and who is not become the centre of such model.

Conservative Islamist discourses, especially of Sunni factions in West Asia and North Africa, tend to alienate and otherise those who don’t follow their beliefs. Such discourses have become inherent to Muslim politics on other belief or non-belief systems and are often politicised. Such development does not date back to Islam’s inception but rather to the 70s of the 20th century. This is most evidently detectable in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Islamically Coloured Exclusive Model

This model applies to Sunni as well as Shiite hard-line clerics, the most significant two factions in Islam in terms of number and impact. An Islamist discourse defines the ‘SELF’ as the best nation (umma) to walk on Earth and has the only pure version of Islam. Such Islamist discourses otherise those who don’t fall in the same faction and deem them corrupt and deluded, thus should be fought against and boycott.

Based on this premise, the discriminatory boundaries drawn here are not only between Muslim and non-Muslim but also between “the ‘true’” guardians of community and the “internal other”.

While a difference in the dogmatic belief is enough to deem others to infidelity, such exclusive model holds because it combines two persistent features in Islamist politics toward other groups regardless of their religion:

The first feature is the arrogance of Islamists’ discourse regarding other beliefs as they (the Muslims) are those who represent authenticity, purity and righteousness. Whereas the others represent the opposite until they comply with this fundamental version of religion. This feature can also be detectable with other extreme ideological frameworks and is in no means exclusive to Islamist ones.

The second feature is the persistence of the controversy of modernisation. On the one hand Islamists tend to use means, more likely invented by infidels, to raid against non-Muslims and even against Muslims of different interpretations of Islam. Hard-line Islamists use Internet, TV channels, TV shows, radio, Microphones, cars etc. to attack the secular and immoral “OTHER”.

On the other hand they measure their civilisational development by western standards. To call a community civilised means that its members have good western cars, brilliant western equipment, electricity etc. The controversy of otherising all belief and non-belief systems, and at the same time using not only their tools, but also their measures to define the boundaries between the true guardians of Islam and the internal and external other undermines the “desired” authenticity of the “Islamic tradition”.

Detected Patterns in Reverse

An argument can be posed that this analysis is more generalising than it is supposed to do. Not all Muslims care for other beliefs and many of them even call for tolerance and world harmony. Many don’t seem to be arrogant and absolutely not controversial to modernisation. This is equivocally true.

Not all Muslims feel the same as hardline Islamists and their followers and many perhaps oppose such alienation and otherisation patterns. The scrutiny of such discriminatory patterns against other belief systems remains more crucial for Muslims than non-Muslims, especially that such patterns constantly appear in journalistic writings, cultural and national discourses, social media outlets, and religious contexts.

It is a great risk for a Shiite, for example, to show up in a Sunni majority area at a time of conflict such as in Syria, and perhaps the opposite is also true. It remains a risk for a woman to be completely independent, as is it also fatally risky to be an atheist, or Satanist in Muslim majority country.

The sentiment of otherisation and alienation of other beliefs hardly fades in a strongly believing Muslim person but it has different layers and levels.

It is noteworthy to mention that not all Muslims can be included under the two features underlying the otherisation model mentioned above. Therefore, Muslims can be broadly divided into two groups: The leaders who claim to have more religious knowledge than the rest of the members of society. The leaders mainly represent religious institutions and to whom such otherisation model greatly applies.

And the followers, who have less religious knowledge and mainly represent the public, to whom this model variably applies but on different levels, ranging on a spectrum between hard-line radical Muslims to liberal Muslims.

While religious figures (and clerics), through the claim that they know the words of Allah much better than the rest and thus they know the meaning of life itself, enjoy an extraordinary authority in the Muslim majority world and by extension the West, they reach a detectable degree of arrogance manifested by their writings and discourses.

By effect, those who follow their teachings will seem or become arrogant toward others of different belief systems. The controversy of modernisation is much less present to the public on the liberal side of the spectrum than it is on the more hard-line side.

It is possible to dismantle such discriminatory patterns by enforcing policies that emphasise on raising awareness, enhancing education and promoting reason and critical thinking.

This article originally appeared in Mashreq Politics & Culture Journal (MPC Journal)

Donald Trump is such a consummate liar that in coming days and years our democracy will depend more than ever on the independent press – finding the truth, reporting it, and holding Trump accountable for his lies.

But Trump’s strategy is to denigrate and disparage the press in the public’s mind – seeking to convince the public that the press is engaged in a conspiracy against him. And he wants to use his tweets, rallies, and videos to make himself the only credible source of public information about what is happening and what he’s doing.

It is the two-step strategy of despots. And it’s already started. It was officially launched the first full day of the Trump administration.

Step 1: Disparage the press and lie about them: At a televised speech at the CIA, Trump declared himself to be in a “running war” with the news media, and described reporters as “the most dishonest human beings on earth.”

Trump then issued a stream of lies about what the press had reported.

Some were seemingly small. For example, Trump claimed that the crowd for his swearing-in stretched down the National Mall to the Washington Monument and totaled more than 1 million people, and he accused the media of reporting falsely underreporting the number. “It’s a lie,” he said. “We caught [the media]. We caught them in a beauty.”

Trump is wrong. Even independent observers reported that attendance was sparse, far smaller than the outpouring of people who attended the first Obama inauguration.

More importantly, Trump told CIA employees that agency has been losing the battle against the Islamic State and other terror groups. This assertion runs counter to every intelligence report that has been publicly issued over the last six months.

Trump insisted that he has always valued the CIA. “They sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community,” Trump said, continuing to criticize the press for its “dishonest” reporting.

In fact, Trump has repeatedly vilified the CIA and the entire intelligence community for what he claimed were politically charged conclusions about Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election in order to help Trump. At a Jan. 11 news conference, Trump even accused intelligence officials of being behind a “Nazi-like smear campaign” against him. And in his tweets he put quotation marks around the word “intelligence” in referring to the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

The weekend before his inauguration he even attacked CIA Director John Brennan (who resigned at the conclusion of President Obama’s term), suggesting he was “the leaker of Fake News.”

In his talk at the CIA Trump also claimed, as he’s done before, that the United States bungled its exit from Iraq by not taking Iraq’s oil. “If we kept the oil, we wouldn’t have had ISIS in the first place,” Trump said, asserting that this is how the Islamic State terrorist group made its money.

Rubbish. As has been well established and as the media has fully reported, taking Iraq’s oil would have violated international law (both the 1949 Geneva Convention and the 1907 Hague Convention).

Step 2: Threaten to circumvent the press and take the “truth” directly to the people. At Trump press secretary Sean Spicer’s first televised news conference, Spicer castigated the press for its “dishonest” and “shameful” reporting, lied about the inauguration day events and numbers, and took no questions. (When confronted with Spicer’s outright lies, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, told NBC that Spicer had merely given “alternative facts.”)

Then Spicer issued a dire warning: “The American people deserve better,” he said. “As long as [Trump] serves as the messenger for this incredible movement, he will take his message directly to the American people.”

We’re not talking Roosevelt-like “fireside chats” here. Trump’s tweets have already been firestorms of invective directed at critics, some of whom have been threatened by Trump followers stirred up by the tweets. And CEOs pray their companies aren’t targets, because stock prices of the companies he’s already vilified have dropped immediately after his diatribes.

Trump and his advisors – Steven Bannon, formerly of “Breitbart News” as well as Spicer and others – understand that if a significant portion of the public trusts Trump’s own words more than they do the media’s, Trump can get away with saying – and doing – whatever he wants. When that happens, our democracy ends.

The shock election of Donald Trump has thrust Canada into one of the most perilous periods of its existence. Our relationship with the United States, upon which so much of our security and prosperity depends, has never been more uncertain.

Canada’s staid liberal-conservative political map on most economic issues and even social issues has been relatively flat. Conservatives in Canada, like in the US, are what Trump supporters (really just Tea Party lite) call “cuckservatives” — cuckolded by the liberals on both economic and social issues (free trade, global warming, feminism, abortion, affirmative action, gaylib).

Canada just emerged from a nasty Conservative decade last year, a mix of cuckservative on social issues (to steal Liberal votes) and Trump old-time conservative on environment and energy (to carry out Harper’s real agenda). Canadians breathed a collective sigh of relief to be done with him.

So Canada is a bit of a foretaste of what is to come for the US. Harper was a Trumper on global warming and environmental policy, withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol and showing little interest in the Paris negotiations. It was a shameful period, with environmental research gutted, scientists muzzled so as not to raise red flags, the environmentally destructive Alberta tarsands boondoggle, plans for pipelines to the west, east and south to the US.

It was a relief to get the ‘real thing’ again, the liberal agenda with all its failings, even if, so far, it is not doing much of anything good. On the Kinder-Morgan pipeline, Trudeau dawdled, hoping people would lose interest, and then approved, cynically relying on a Canada-wide opinion poll that said 51% Canadians approve and 64% figure it will go ahead no matter what. He twisted BC’s Liberal premier to go along with him. Trudeau also vows that the tarsands will expand and produce tar for “decades ahead”.

Liberals at least pretend to listen to protesters, and the ongoing pipeline protests since November 2016 across Canada and on Parliament Hill will remind the young, trendy PM of his constituents’ demands. His famous populist ‘selfies’ are already causing him embarrassment.

Trump will not show any interest at all in such liberal complaints. Already, he has vowed to revive the Keystone XL pipeline project, blocked by President Obama under pressure from environmentalists. That would make it easier for Trudeau to pander to the oil industry, both in revving up the tarsands and green lighting their pipeline plans. Canada will face mass protests, energized by allies south of the border.

Despite his waffling on the oil issues, Trudeau put Canada back on the environmental road–at least in words–joining the Paris Accord, which his conservative predecessor refused to do, and reinstating environmental research programs which Harper had slashed with his second term majority.

The current situation recalls the relations that Justin’s father Pierre and his successor Jean Chretien had with thorny American presidents of yesteryear, Johnson, Nixon and George Bush. Relations reached ever new low points over Vietnam and Iraq.

‘It’s overrun by godless, gunless hippies’

Probably Trudeau will find Trump indifferent to Canadian demands, despite Canada being America’s closest ally in every sense, and its largest trading partner. His knowledge of Canada is less than zero, despite adding his logo to Toronto’s top hotel, Trump Towers, the second tallest skyscraper in Canada.

His efforts to expand in Canada were met with disdain for his Trump ‘brand’ during his gaffe-plagued presidential campaign. Disputes and a messy legal divorce ensued. Still unfinished in 2016, it is already in bankruptcy court. A bad omen for the Donald in Canada.

Perhaps that’s what motivated his bizarre comments last July when he told “Fox and Friends” that he believes the US “should never have allowed” Canada to gain independence, that the United States owned Canada “at some point”, and giving it back was a “major mistake”. The former reality tv star was responding to a question about Puerto Rico possibly becoming the 51st of the United States, when he made the statement. “It used to be 51 you know, when we had Canada.”

As a harbinger of what he has in store for Canada, he explained, “Look at that place now, it’s falling to pieces. It’s overrun by godless, gunless hippies.” “Well what are you going to do if elected?” the interviewer Kilmeade asked. “Forcefully take Canada and claim it as part of America?”“I think that’s gotta be an option,” Trump responded. “You know, they’ve got a lot of oil up there, a lot.”

What’s on the real agenda?

After Keystone XL, there’s the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which can’t go ahead without the US. No decision on pulling out of TPP becomes final until February 2018, so there is a breathing space. Perhaps the other 11 members, including Canada, will agree to renegotiate.

Then there’s NAFTA, which is almost two decades old and has reshaped the North American and Mexican economies. “Canada is the chief export market of 35 US states, and 9 million US jobs depend directly on US exports to Canada, ” said Canada’s International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland. While Mexico and Canada increased their trade with the US under NAFTA, the US goods trade deficit with Canada and Mexico has grown from $9.1 billion in 1993 to $76.2 billion in 2015. NAFTA’s effect on US jobs is disputed, despite Freeland’s soothing words.

But renegotiating this complex treaty would be very difficult;,no one-way street. Canada and Mexico are preparing their own list of demands that could require difficult US concessions. If Trump just tears it up, Mexico would suffer much more than Canada, as Canada and the US would automatically revert to the pre-existing free-trade agreement (FTA) between Canada and the United States.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said that he would be willing to discuss NAFTA with Trump to “modernize” the treaty, but not renegotiate existing provisions, which could include adding environmental, labor and other provisions that weren’t contemplated when NAFTA was being negotiated in the early 1990s. Trudeau said Canada will insist that any renegotiation bring an end to a decades-old dispute over Canadian exports of softwood lumber, said David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to the United States.

Both Mexico and Canada would likely demand greater access to compete for US public sector procurements, now largely protected by “Buy America” laws. A major Trump administration infrastructure spending program would make this a more enticing target.

Canadian workers wil be glad to see the back of NAFTA, as they lost heavily to the US and Mexico. It is Mexico that faces serious problems if NAFTA is cancelled. In addition, there is the demand that it erect a wall and the prospect of millions of illegal workers in the US being deported, many to Mexico.

US-Canadian polar vortex?

If the United States is moving down an illiberal path, alongside Tea Party Republicans, relations with the United States could be more contentious than they have been in decades.

Is there anything Trump might learn from Canada (besides Canada’s history)? Stepping up Canadian engagement in multilateralism–including a United Nations peacekeeping mission to Africa–can set an example for the world that even US president-elect Donald Trump might want to follow, says former Canadian governor general Michaelle Jean.

That’s not likely, though no one knows what his foreign policies will be anywhere, so who knows?

Canada and the US are on different trajectories now. The big news as Trump plans to increase coal production is that Canada would speed up the transition from traditional coal power to clean energy by 2030.

Perhaps Trump will study his like-minded Tea Partiers Harper and Australian ex-PM Tony Abbott. Harper and Abbott were global warming deniers, bucking popular opinion, and are gone. Australia, now under a post-Abbott government, ratified the Paris Agreement hours after Trump’s election. In a hopeful sign, Trump has already backed off his threats to quit the Paris Accord, and admitted that global warming is real after all.

Trump will face opposition domestically, some of it from his own industrialists, who embraced cleaner techology under Obama, with an eye on exporting. Local and regional governments have also been taking their own action on climate, as happened in Canadian provinces adopting carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems despite Harper’s stalling. Besides, costs of alternative energy are falling, and coal is not so cheap anymore.

The US will face pressure from other nations, too, including some that were once seen as climate laggards. China is urging America to stand by the Paris Agreement, adding that it plans to continue to combat climate change “whatever the circumstances.”

katehon.com

By Enrique Clari*

The Spanish banking sector is getting used to judicial setbacks. Unfortunately, they’re not the sorts of setbacks we’d like to see. This could have been an article on the elimination of the legal privileges — e.g., the existence of a state-owned central bank in charge of bailing out its (equally) irresponsible fellows — that financial businesses are nowadays granted worldwide. Eliminating those privileges would have been a setback for the banking sector, but good for everyone else. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s been happening: no liberalization of that sort whatsoever has taken place.

Rather, several recent rulings from Spanish courts have systematically encroached on the individual’s right to contract with others — and the public opinion is gleefully celebrating their decisions.

It all started back in 2013 when the Spanish Supreme Court declared the nullity of the so-called “floor clauses,” which simply constituted a minimum level set on the payment of interests on (mortgage) loans and which were included in many of such contracts during the housing bubble. These clauses were commonly accompanied by “roof clauses,” whose content was exactly the opposite (i.e., a maximum interest rate) and yet did not experience any ban by the judicial authorities.

Thus, a contract by which two freely agreeing parties, in accordance with their personal evaluations of risk, decided to put some limit to the amount of interest that could derive from the loan, was deemed void by the Justices, since it supposedly violated Spanish consumer’s protection legislation. The key element defining the “abusive character” of floor clauses was its alleged “obscurity” or “lack of transparency,” even though signed contracts would commonly refer to those conditions in terms such as: “It is hereby established that in no case the interest rate shall be lower than 3.5% or higher than 14%.”

These rulings are forcing banks alone to bear the consequences of their costumers’ decisions when it comes to legal disputes between them. It is becoming a worrying judicial habit.

For instance, just a few days ago the same malicious “abusive” feature was interpreted by the courts to exist in a whole myriad of other contracting clauses included in mortgage loans, like multi-currency calculation of its value, the responsibility of the borrower as regards the payment of a special tax on economic activities and other legal expenditures. More recently, a judge decided for the first time to allow a debtor to turn over his house as a way to extinguish the mortgage loan without having agreed on it with the creditor.

Not surprisingly, all the above-mentioned judicial resolutions have been welcomed by the citizenry with a unanimous joyful roar in celebration of the “people’s” victory over a profiteer capitalistic elite. In that sense the court’s verdicts resemble an act of ideological revenge against the banking sector, rather than the usual result of justice administration.

True, many bankers — especially those directly coming from the public sector — were involved in grand larceny rather than in financial servicing during the boom ages. True, when the Great Recession started, the bankruptcy of their companies was not due to managerial abilities of bankers, but to taxpayers’ money. True, such outrageous events should never have taken place (and they wouldn’t in a truly free market).

And yet, neither banks nor their costumers should be seen as the central victims of these ignominious occurrences, for the greatest damage has actually been inflicted to a much blurrier concept: the rule of law. This sequence of regrettable decisions will only bring about legal uncertainty and foster irresponsibility among consumers when contracting with entrepreneurs.

The last judicial pronouncements on mortgage loans, which are now cherished as an unexpected shield granted to individuals in order to defend themselves from the hordes of rent-seeking usurers, will eventually operate against them, leading to either higher prices or a reduced quality in the services offered by financial businesses.

But the legal consequences will be even worse than such plausible economic disturbances. Freedom of contract is in clear jeopardy, since its future is in the arbitrary hands of the State. Instead of analyzing the legality of floor clauses case by case and declaring them void whenever mala fide were to be appreciated, Spanish courts have decided to forbid contracting parties to negotiate on those terms and on others akin to them.

Moreover, the impartiality that should preside over any stance in the administration of justice has been completely forsaken by the judges in these particular rulings, in connivance with misguided headlines and a rampant anti-capitalistic mentality within society. Let us just hope it is not too late for liberty to strike back.

About the author:
*Enrique Clari is a Law and Political Science student at the University of Valencia in Spain.

Source:
This article was published by The MISES Institute.

By Laxman K Behera

By Khalid Kazimov

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has suggested that the value of Iran’s reserves of foreign exchange and gold increased by $25.5 billion over 2016.

The CIA report estimated Iran’s reserves of foreign exchange and gold at $135.5 billion as of December 31, 2016.

According to the estimations, the figure for 2015 stood at $110 billion.

The entry on reserves of foreign exchange gives the dollar value for the stock of all financial assets that are available to the central monetary authority for use in meeting a country’s balance of payments needs as of the end-date of the period specified. This category includes not only foreign currency and gold, but also a country’s holdings of Special Drawing Rights in the International Monetary Fund, and its reserve position in the Fund.

According to the CIA report, Iran has ranked 17th among 170 countries in terms of foreign exchange reserves.

China with $3.092 trillion of reserves of foreign exchange ranked the first.

In separate calls Monday, US Defense Secretary James Mattis spoke with his counterparts from the United Kingdom and Canada and with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, according to readouts of the calls provided by Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis.

Mattis’ first call to a defense counterpart since his confirmation Friday was made this morning to Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan. The defense secretary thanked Sajjan for his leadership and the deep and enduring defense partnership between the United States and Canada, Davis said. The two reiterated the depth and breadth of the relationship shared between the United States and Canada as North American Aerospace Defense Command partners, NATO allies and North American neighbors, he said.

The two leaders “reinforced the vital importance of U.S. and Canadian commitment to North American defense and NORAD,” the captain said. Mattis emphasized the “indispensable partnership with Canada across the spectrum of bilateral and multilateral security issues,” such as Iraq, NATO Enhanced Forward Presence and the effort to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, he said. The two leaders also addressed the importance of North American defense relations among the United States, Canada and Mexico, Davis said.

Mattis thanked Sajjan for Canada’s strong support for the alliance and expressed his personal appreciation for the professionalism of the Canadian armed forces, he said. The two committed to stay in close communication and noted they looked forward to meeting one another, the captain said.

United Kingdom

In his conversation with U.K. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, Mattis emphasized that the uniquely close relationship between the U.S. and U.K. will continue and is reflected in defense ties that are a bedrock of U.S. security, Davis said.

Mattis also emphasized the United States’ unshakeable commitment to NATO and thanked Fallon for his country’s commitment to contribute two percent of gross domestic product to defense and for the U.K.’s contributions to international security, the captain said. The two leaders pledged to work together in the coming months, agreeing to maintain focus on defeating ISIL, Davis said, and they pledged to continue to work closely together. The leaders noted they looked forward to meeting at the NATO defense ministerial in February, he added.

NATO

The defense secretary, who previously served as NATO’s supreme allied commander for transformation, spoke with Stoltenberg to reconnect and discuss the key role NATO plays in transatlantic security, Davis said. Mattis “wanted to place the call on his first full day in office to reinforce the importance he places on the alliance,” the captain said.

The two leaders discussed the importance of our shared values, and the secretary emphasized that when looking for allies to help defend these values, the United States always starts with Europe, Davis said.

Both pledged to consult in the months to come and look forward to meeting in person during next month’s NATO defense ministerial.

By Terri Moon Cronk

Iraqi security forces are finishing clearing operations in eastern Mosul while Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters have ceased fighting and are on the run, Pentagon Press Operations Director Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said Monday.

Speaking with reporters, Davis said ISIL fighters are moving to Mosul’s north bank of the Tigris River to cross the waterway by boat to reach western Mosul.

“I can tell you it’s a great day not to be a member of the ISIL navy,” the spokesman said. “We destroyed another 10 boats on the Tigris River today for 143 boats total. Our message to ISIL is: ‘We will not allow you to get away to the other side of the river and set up shop there.’”

Operation Desert Leopard

Another significant Iraqi security force operation underway in the region is Operation Desert Leopard, Davis said, where the Iraqis are working very methodically by starting in Ramadi and going up the Euphrates River Valley to Haditha, while clearing the area.

“It’s been a good operation that’s driving ISIL back,” he said.

In Yemen, the United States conducted airstrikes from Jan. 20 to 22 in al-Bayda against al-Qa-da in the Arabian Peninsula operatives, killing five al-Qaida members in three days, Davis said.

“AQAP remains a significant threat to the region and the United States,” he said.

“Al-Qaida’s presence has a destabilizing effect on Yemen [in addition to] its using the unrest there to provide a haven from which to plan future attacks against the United States and other interests,” the spokesman said.

“We will continue to degrade, disrupt and destroy al-Qaida and its remnants, and we remain committed to defeating AQAP and denying it safe havens regardless of its locations,” Davis said.

The strikes conducted by the United States continue to diminish AQAP’s presence in the region, the spokesman said.