An international team of anthropologists has uncovered a 38,000-year-old engraved image in a southwestern French rockshelter–a finding that marks some of the earliest known graphic imagery found in Western Eurasia and offers insights into the nature of modern humans during this period.

“The discovery sheds new light on regional patterning of art and ornamentation across Europe at a time when the first modern humans to enter Europe dispersed westward and northward across the continent,” said NYU anthropologist Randall White, who led the excavation in France’s Vézère Valley.

The findings, which appear in the journal Quaternary International, center on the early modern humans’ Aurignacian culture, which existed from approximately 43,000 to 33,000 years ago.

Abri Blanchard, the French site of the recently uncovered engraving, a slab bearing a complex image of an aurochs, or wild cow, surrounded by rows of dots, was previously excavated in the early 20th century. White and his team members began their methodical exploration of remaining deposits at the site in 2011, with the discovery occurring in 2012.

White contends that Aurignacian art offers a window into the lives and minds of its makers–and into the societies they created.

“Following their arrival from Africa, groups of modern humans settled into western and Central Europe, showing a broad commonality in graphic expression against which more regionalized characteristics stand out,” he explained. “This pattern fits well with social geography models that see art and personal ornamentation as markers of social identity at regional, group, and individual levels.”

Abri Blanchard and its sister site, Abri Castanet, previously excavated by White’s team, have long been recognized as being among the oldest sites in Eurasia bearing artifacts of human symbolism.

Over time, hundreds of personal ornaments have been discovered, including pierced animal teeth, pierced shells, ivory and soapstone beads, engravings, and paintings on limestone slabs.

The mcr-1 gene–a gene that makes bacteria resistant to colistin, an antibiotic of last resort, and that is transferrable between bacteria–has been found in a wide variety of strains of Escherichia coli in China following widespread use of colistin in agriculture.

As China prepares to introduce the drug for the first time in human medicine, two new studies published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases provide evidence of how widely the mcr-1 gene has spread to bacteria in clinical settings, including to a minority already resistant to the carbapenem class of antibiotics, and highlight the need for caution and careful prescribing when the country introduces colistin.

Infections that are resistant to carbapenems are already common in many countries and in these cases only a small number of antibiotics are effective, including colistin. In 2015, the mcr-1 gene was discovered in China and subsequently identified in other countries including Denmark, Germany, Vietnam, Spain, and the USA among others [1], raising fears that bacteria may acquire combined colistin and carbapenem resistance, making them multi-drug resistant.

Two studies published Friday come at an important time in China. Colistin, which has been used extensively in farming in China since the 1980s, was recently banned for use in agriculture, and will soon be introduced in clinical use for the first time.

The first study, led by Professor Timothy Walsh at Cardiff University (UK) and Professor Jianzhong Shen at the China Agricultural University, looked at the prevalence of bacteria carrying the mcr-1 resistance gene in human infections in two hospitals in Zheijang and Guangdong provinces across 8 years. Among more than 17000 bacterial isolates associated with infection, mcr-1 was detected in 76/5332 samples of E coli and 13/348 samples of Klebsiella pneumoniae. The study is the first to look at risk factors for clinical mcr-1 infection and found that people who had used antibiotics (particularly carbapenems) before hospitalisation were more likely to carry bacteria with the mcr-1 resistance gene. Among 146 isolates of mcr-1-positive E coli identified, only five were also carbapenem resistant.

“The emergence of mcr-1 heralds the breach of the last group of antibiotics, such as colistin. The withdrawal of the drug from agricultural use, and its introduction in the clinic might reduce colistin resistance rates in the community, and increase resistance in hospitals where they may be harder to treat or spread more easily. Our study finds that there are significant risk factors for the spread of mcr-1 infections, beyond just rural living and diet. The spread of colistin resistant bacteria will likely worsen when the drug is introduced in humans,” said Professor Tim Walsh [2].

The second study, led by researchers at Zhejiang University (China), tested samples from over 2000 bloodstream infections at 28 hospitals in China. Of the 1495 E coli samples, 20 were mcr-1 positive, one of which was also carbapenem resistant. Patients with mcr-1-positive infections were all treated successfully with other antibiotics.

“The most troubling problem for clinicians would be the transfer of colistin resistance to a bacterium which is already carbapenem resistant, making it multi-drug resistance. This does not appear to have happened to any great extent in clinical isolates, but the situation should be monitored carefully as the country prepares to introduce colistin for use in humans,” said Professor Yunsong Yu, Zhejiang University [2].

Discussing the findings from both papers in a linked Comment, Professor David Paterson, University of Queensland (Australia) and Associate Professor David van Duin, University of North Carolina (US) write: “at this stage we can conclude that the doomsday scenario of convergence of carbapenem resistance and colistin resistance (via mcr-1) has not yet occurred to any great extent in China. However, prior use of carbapenems was a risk factor for mcr-1 producing E coli, perhaps implying that the intersection between carbapenem resistance and the presence of this colistin resistance mechanism may yet be seen in the future. Furthermore, the spread of mcr-1 into globally widespread and virulent strains of E coli such as ST-131 is cause for ongoing concern and surveillance.

He added: “After carbapenems, new antibiotics will become available for clinical use in human medicine in China. There are risks that low-cost generic copies of these new antibiotics will be used in agriculture. We must be vigilant to this possibility and urge Chinese authorities to proactively prohibit use of these critical antibiotics outside of appropriate human use. Without such interventions, there will doubtless be more serious problems than mcr-1 seen in China in the near future.”

[1] The 2015 research was published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(15)00424-7/abstract

[2] Quotes direct from authors and cannot be found in the text of the Articles.

The Chinese community around the world is preparing to bid farewell to the Year of the Monkey and welcome the Year of the Rooster, which begins on Jan. 28.

The Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar and features 12 Chinese zodiac signs. They are represented by animals that occur in the following sequence: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

Combined with the Chinese five atomic elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth, they form 60 possible combinations so, in fact, 2017 is the Year of the Fire Rooster.

Like Western horoscopes, the Chinese zodiac is believed influence a person’s disposition and luck. People who believe in Feng Shui, a Chinese philosophical system used to harmonize people and their environment, arrange their home differently according to their zodiac sign. If someone’s year and element combination results in a bad prediction they may wear special accessories or make changes to their environment in order to repel bad luck.

Although Chinese Christians do not practice Feng Shui since it is not condoned by the church, they still adopt certain practices that they regard as cultural traditions to celebrate Chinese New Year.

For example, as a symbol to drive away evil and welcome the spring which represents life, people wear red clothes, give monetary gifts in red envelopes, perform lion or dragon dances, burn firecrackers and greet each other with good intentions.

Feng Shui, while an ancient Chinese tradition, has recently become mixed up with materialism and modern concerns allowing it to continue to be relevant to lives of many Chinese people.

Under the communist regime, books on Feng Shui are prohibited as is anything the regime regards as superstition. So, people from mainland China often take the opportunity to buy fortune-telling publications when they visit Hong Kong.

By Charles W. Calomiris and Matthew Jaremski*

Deposit insurance in the U.S. is backed by federal taxpayers and administered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). As of 2016, the FDIC guaranteed approximately $7 trillion in deposits, backed by an insurance fund of $75 billion (a reserve ratio of just over 1 percent).[1]

Installed under the Banking Act of 1933, deposit insurance was a temporary policy and the FDIC was authorized to pay a maximum of $2,500 to depositors of failed, insured banks, equal to around $46,000 in 2016 dollars.[2] Coverage soon became permanent and grew over time. After the U.S. implemented deposit insurance, many other countries imitated it. By the 1990s, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the World Bank had all endorsed deposit insurance. As a result of external and internal political pressures favoring its adoption, deposit insurance has spread throughout the world.

Expanded Coverage Contributes to Banking Crises

At present, the coverage limit for deposit insurance in the U.S. is $250,000 per account; in practice, however, that limit is regularly surpassed.[3] Furthermore, bills currently under discussion in the U.S. Congress could further expand use of FDIC insurance.[4]

Expanded use of government-backed deposit insurance has far-reaching policy implications even outside the U.S. Despite deposit insurance’s overwhelming political support, a large body of empirical literature suggests that the moral-hazard costs of deposit insurance have outweighed its liquidity-risk-reduction benefits.[5] These papers show that deposit insurance is among the most important contributors to the unprecedented waves of banking crises that have crashed over the world during the past four decades. The separation between policy recommendations and economic studies prompts questions about whether empirical studies may have failed to properly control for the other contributing influences that produced both the rise of deposit insurance and banking instability.

Most studies of deposit insurance are based on cross-country comparisons or comparisons across time within countries that contrast the behavior of insured banking systems with uninsured banking systems. Authors have attempted to control for factors coinciding with the creation or expansion of deposit insurance through explicit controls or through instruments that explain the creation of deposit insurance. However, some of the positive association between deposit insurance and increased bank risk may reflect exogenous increases in risk that encourage the passage of deposit insurance. If the positive association between deposit insurance and increased bank risk does in fact reflect such increases, then the risk-creating effects of deposit insurance would be exaggerated.

New Research Approach Affirms Earlier Findings

In our research, we examine a near ideal environment from the standpoint of identification: the state deposit insurance experiments of the early 20th century in the United States.

A couple states installed liability insurance funds during the antebellum period but none of these lasted beyond the Civil War. In the early 1900s, another wave of laws was passed expanding deposit insurance. During this wave, eight states passed deposit insurance laws from 1907 to 1917. Each law created a non-state guaranteed fund that would be used to reimburse any deposits in the event of a failed member bank. As the laws only covered state-chartered commercial banks in their respective states, these laws thus installed deposit insurance over unit state-chartered commercial banks operating parallel to the uninsured system of national banks[6] within the same states and to uninsured state and national banks operating in bordering non–deposit insurance states.

The framework for this present study mitigates the omitted variable problem embodied in cross-country studies by allowing for the study of insured and uninsured depository institutions operating at the same time and place as well as under the same legal system and currency. We employ detailed information about the locations, economic environments, and bank-level balance sheet characteristics of insured and uninsured banks for many states and years. Specifically, we implement a “difference-in-difference-in-difference” model that measures the effect of deposit insurance on insured banks controlling both for the change in uninsured banks in the deposit insurance states and for the change of uninsured banks in other states.

Moreover, because several of the laws were passed in the same year but implemented in different subsequent years, we are able to use placebo tests to determine whether a region-specific economic shock was responsible for both changes in banks’ and depositors’ behavior and the passage of deposit insurance, or, alternatively, whether changes in behavior were the consequence of deposit insurance.

Following the theoretical and empirical evidence of risk intolerance in uninsured deposit markets, we develop and test three hypotheses.

1. If insured banks are perceived as enjoying protection from deposit insurance (which fails to charge insurance premiums that fully reflect the risk taken by insured banks), then insured banks should be able to offer more attractive terms to depositors than uninsured banks, and therefore, insured banks should increase their share of deposits relative to uninsured banks.
2. Because deposit insurance subsidizes insured banks as an increasing function of their riskiness, insured banks should use their deposits to fund risky lending, and should target a higher level of default risk.
3. The installation of deposit insurance should have created two classes of banks:
   • Insured banks that take more risk and are not disciplined by depositors; and,
   • Uninsured banks that compete with one another for deposits based on their ability to demonstrate to the market that their risk was sufficiently low.

Confirming all three hypotheses, our findings not only corroborate the prior literature on the moral-hazard consequences of deposit insurance, but also show how the introduction of deposit insurance created systemic risk.

Insured Banks Raised Loans, Reduced Reserves

We find conclusive evidence that deposit insurance caused risk to increase in the banking system by removing the market discipline that had been constraining uninsured banks’ decision making. Depositors applied strict market discipline on uninsured banks when evaluating whether to place their deposits in those banks, but seemingly ignored the financial soundness of insured banks. Thus, insured banks were able to use the promise of insurance to compete away deposits from uninsured banks. Because they were constrained only by regulatory standards—such as a minimum capital-to-deposits ratio, a minimum reserves-to-deposit ratio, and in some cases, a maximum interest rate paid on deposits—which often proved inadequate to prevent insolvency, insured banks raised their loans, reduced their cash reserves, and kept their capital ratios close to the regulatory minimum.

Insured banks were seemingly betting on the permanence of agricultural price increases that had occurred during World War I, while depositors believed in the insurance systems’ ability to protect them. Deposits flowed most strongly into insured banks located in counties where the price rises had the biggest effect. Indeed, variation across counties in the extent to which they produced commodities that appreciated during the World War I agricultural price boom explains between one-third and two-thirds of the observed effects of deposit insurance on deposit growth, loan growth, and increased risk-taking by insured banks.

Deposit Insurance May Have Increased Losses in the 1920s

The fact that a large part of the moral hazard associated with deposit insurance is dependent on the time-varying and location-specific opportunities for risk-taking has important implications for empirical analysis of the consequences of deposit insurance in other contexts. The potential costs of deposit insurance may appear low in environments with relatively low risk-taking opportunities, but those costs can appear much higher when greater risk-taking opportunities present themselves.

As banks most often used deposits to fund new loans, the implementation of deposit insurance allowed an asset price bubble to quickly form. When prices reversed in the early 1920s, the insured banking systems collapsed and left depositors with losses. The protection offered by the deposit insurance funds thus did not prevent a collapse from occurring and might even have increased the size of losses. Indeed, deposit insurance states saw declines in their state-chartered commercial banking systems throughout the 1920s, suggesting continued mistrust of the banking industry.

Conclusion

The history of deposit insurance in the U.S. and across the globe has been a process of increasing systemic risk in the name of reducing systemic liquidity risk. The regulation might have been sufficient when risk-taking opportunities were low, but failed dramatically when they became abundant. Pushed for by small unit banks and farmers, deposit insurance in the U.S. was essentially a subsidy to rural agricultural banks and a concession to farmers that feared large branch banks would use any funds extracted from their communities to make loans in the large cities.

As such, the deeper lesson of the American deposit insurance history is that economic models which attempt to explain the attraction of deposit insurance using efficiency arguments are less relevant than political models that explain it through interest groups and subsidies. Even the recent wave of modern legislation was seen to a greater extent in countries with a more contestable political system and larger and more under-capitalized banks. U.S. policymakers should view FDIC coverage expansion through this lens.

About the authors:
*Charles W. Calomiris is the Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia Business School, and Matthew Jaremski is Assistant Professor of Economics at Colgate University.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation.

Notes:
[1] General statistics on the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund can be found, on a quarterly basis, in the FDIC Quarterly, https://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/quarterly/ (accessed January 19, 2017).

[2] See Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, “A Brief History of Deposit Insurance in the United States,” September 1998, https://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/brief/brhist.pdf (accessed January 19, 2017).

[3] Norbert J. Michel, “FDIC Insurance and the Brokered Deposit Market: Not a Recipe for Market Discipline,” testimony before the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee, Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, September 27, 2016, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2016/09/fdic-insurance-and-the-brokered-deposit-market-not-a-recipe-for-market-discipline.

[4] Ibid.

[5] See Charles W. Calomiris and Matthew S. Jaremski, “Deposit Insurance: Theories and Facts,” Annual Review of Financial Economics, Vol. 8 (2016), pp. 97–120, http://www.annualreviews.org/toc/financial/8/1 (accessed January 19, 2017), and Charles W. Calomiris and Matthew S. Jaremski, “Stealing Deposits: Deposit Insurance, Risk-Taking and the Removal of Market Discipline in Early 20th Century Banks,” NBER Working Paper No. 22692, September 2016, http://www.nber.org/papers/w22692 (accessed January 19, 2017). This Issue Brief summarizes findings in these two papers.

[6] That is, unit banks chartered by the Comptroller of the Currency.

Esteemed President Medina;

Esteemed Heads of State and Government of Latin America and the Caribbean;

Distinguished Heads of Delegations and guests:

At the Summit that gave life to this Community, in Caracas in 2011, we expressed the conviction that “unity and the political, economic, social and cultural integration of Latin America and the Caribbean constitute (…) a requirement for the region to successfully confront the challenges before us.”

Never has it been more necessary to effectively advance along the path of unity, recognizing that we have many common interests. Working for “unity within diversity” is an urgent need.

To achieve this, strict adherence to the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed by Heads of State and Government in Havana in January 2014, is required, in which we commit ourselves “to strict compliance with their obligation not to intervene, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of any other State,” and to resolve differences in a peaceful manner, as well as to “fully respect the inalienable right of every State to choose its political, economic, social and cultural system.”

It is therefore essential that all members of the international community fully respect the principles of the Proclamation in their relations with CELAC countries.

It would be desirable for the new United States government to opt for respect for the region, although it is a matter of concern that intentions have been declared that endanger our interests in the areas of trade, employment, migration and the environment, among others.

It is therefore imperative to establish common courses of action and to make the organization of CELAC more effective.

Furthermore, a return of neoliberalism would increase poverty and unemployment, thus aggravating social conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mr. President:

We reiterate our support to the Venezuelan people and government in the defense of their sovereignty and self-determination in the face of acts against the Bolivarian Revolution.

We will continue to contribute to the extent of our possibilities to the implementation of the Final Peace Accord between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP and to supporting the peace talks with the ELN.

We reaffirm that the nation of Puerto Rico must be free and independent; we will continue to support the demands of Ecuador in the face of the refusal of transnationals to repair the serious environmental damages in the Amazon; we reject the political manipulation against the Bolivian government and the attempts to destabilize the country; we congratulate President Daniel Ortega for his recent re-election as leader of Nicaragua and also Vice President Rosario Murillo.

We reiterate our rejection of the parliamentary-judicial coup d’état perpetrated in Brazil against President Dilma Rousseff, to whom we express our solidarity, as well as to former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva.

We reaffirm Cuba’s support for the sister Caribbean nations in the face of attempts to deprive them of access to financial resources, in the fight against climate change and in their legitimate claim for reparation for the damages of colonialism and slavery.

We reiterate our encouragement for the efforts of the Argentine Republic to recover the Islas Malvinas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

Esteemed President:

I wish to express Cuba’s willingness to continue negotiating pending bilateral issues with the United States, on the basis of equality, reciprocity and respect for the sovereignty and independence of our country, and to continue the respectful dialogue and cooperation on issues of common interest with the new government of President Donald Trump.

Cuba and the United States can cooperate and coexist in a civilized manner, respecting differences and promoting all that benefits both countries and peoples, but it should not be expected that to do so Cuba will make concessions inherent to its sovereignty and independence.

The economic, commercial and financial blockade persists, which causes considerable hardships and human damages that severely harm our economy and hamper development.

Despite this, we continue immersed in the updating of our economic and social model and we will continue to fight to build a sovereign, independent, socialist, democratic, prosperous and sustainable nation.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to President Danilo Medina for his heartfelt tribute in remembrance of the Comandante en Jefe of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, at the opening ceremony of this Summit, as well as to all those who sent us their condolences and messages of solidarity .

Let me conclude by thanking you and the Dominican people for your hospitality and warm welcome, and congratulating you for the work carried out in heading the CELAC Pro Tempore Presidency; and at the same time express our commitment of support and solidarity to El Salvador and its president Salvador Sánchez Cerén, in his administration on leading the Community during 2017.

Thank you very much.

By Chelsea Markowitz*

Donald Trump is now the 45th president of the United States. His decidedly short inauguration speech evoked his central narrative of populism and domestic focus, with very little foray into policy detail.

Speculation continues as to whether he will actually make good on many of his unprecedented policy proposals, and also as to how they could affect Africa, which has barely been mentioned throughout his campaign. It is therefore useful to take a look at both the likelihood that Trump will stick to his guns and the degree of difficulty in pushing these initiatives forward within the US government architecture.

Climate Change

In 2015, the US was one of 172 countries to ratify the Paris Climate Change Agreement (COP 21), along with other major CO2 emitters such as China and India. However, Trump has gone as far as to say that he will leave the Paris Climate Change Agreement. The way in which the US engages on climate change has important consequences; in Africa climate change is a continuing threat which disproportionately detriments the livelihoods of the most vulnerable.

So, can Trump, and will Trump, leave COP21?

Despite his rhetoric, it is unlikely that Trump pull out of the Agreement. Of all of the policy promises that Trump has made, issues of climate change are less prominent in the minds of American people, and in fact, most actually support the concept of environmental protection. COP21 is also designed so that the process of exiting will take four years, and thus Trump could already be on his way out of office by the time this is enacted, leaving less to gain.

However, Trump might stay in the Agreement, but simply choose to ignore most US CO2 targets to the degree that they constrain businesses. Also, Trump may focus on reversing Obama’s other domestic environmental legislations, in with the goal of reducing regulations for businesses. However, such actions will face a flurry of challenges from environmental NGOs and ultimately be decided in courts.

Trade Agreements

Making good deals has been a hallmark of Trump’s campaign, and he has vowed to renegotiate “bad” trade deals so that they reflect America’s best interests. Renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has taken centre stage, and is one of the first items on Trump’s agenda.

And what about AGOA?

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is an Act passed by Congress under the Clinton administration which gives African countries preferential access to the US markets for a range of goods. In spite of flaws, it is a boon for many countries, particularly South Africa which has benefitted beyond resource extraction through manufacturing exports. Trump likely views AGOA as uneven given it is not reciprocal; however, his focus on the Act will likely be minimal. Most of the American public has never heard of AGOA, and the small amounts of manufactured goods imported do not make a big dent on US jobs. So, AGOA just might slip under the radar.

Perhaps more worrying is the initiation of negotiations for new, more reciprocal trade deals on the Continent to replace AGOA after its expiry in 2025. Trump does not seem to have an appetite towards forming new trade deals, and even if countries such as South Africa do manage to bring him to the table, the likelihood of arriving at deals with favourable terms, or any deal at all, are slim.

Aid Programs

Trump has questioned the rationale of devoting money overseas when America has pressing issues at home. Perhaps most interesting will be his approach to some of the largest recipients of US aid such as Israel and Egypt, which have considerable geopolitical significance. Additionally, what will be the future of important US AID programmes for Africa, such as PEPFAR and YALI?

While Trump’s short term, transactional approach to politics probably sees little benefit in these aid programmes, African aid has historically received bipartisan support from Congress. Trump’s prospective Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, espoused the benefits of PEPFAR in his confirmation hearing. Trump will have to pick his battles when going against Congress and cabinet members, and it is safe to say that African aid will not be a top battle chosen. Trump could possibly shave some money off of these programmes as a part of his budget, but he will likely not gut them completely. However, hopes of additional funding or new programmes under Trump will not likely materialise.

Foreign Relations and Diplomacy

Though Trump has chided African dictators as well as corruption on the Continent in the past, his primary focus on domestic issues and global non-interference imply that he will not significantly act on these statements. However, given Trump’s primary foreign policy concern is fighting terrorism, funds devoted to Afcom military support will likely be safe when considering the threats of Boko Haram and Al Shabbab. Perhaps the most significant aspect of Trump’s diplomatic engagement comes from his battle against China, which could actually benefit the Continent through greater investment in infrastructure in order to compete with the Chinese.

In the eyes of Trump, Africa is a small fish among a large pond of policy promises, and the fact that Africa may slip under Trump’s radar might not be a bad thing. Perhaps most important to note is that if African countries are expecting high levels of collaboration and engagement with the US, this will now likely be much more difficult than with past administrations. It is therefore important for countries to be clear and united in their approach to the US engagement, advocating the underutilised potential for American trade and investment, while at the same time continuing to put more emphasis on relations with other large global players.

*Chelsea Markowitz is a visiting researcher under the Economic Diplomacy programme at SAIIA.This article was originally published with The Star, click here to view the online version.

As a natural corollary of its authoritarian domestic agenda, vividly demonstrated on the virulent attacks on the US media in order to tame it, the Trump administration has wasted little time in launching a concerted attack on the UN, a pillar of the world order, through its envoy, Nikki Haley, who threatened McCarthyite-like to “take down names” of countries that refuse to toe the US’s line on international affairs.

“For those (countries) that don’t have our back, we’re taking names, we will make points to respond to that accordingly,” Haley warned in her first appearance as the new US ambassador to UN.

This was the language of a school principal with a long stick to discipline the class, hardly befitting a world organization. Displaying the raw American arrogance, Haley’s monologue was reminiscent of the speeches by Hitler’s envoy at the League of Nations, which was destined to oblivion by a crass attitude that stemmed from the pre-war ultra-nationalism (of Germany, Japan, and Italy) that had no use for an extra-national body.

Indeed, the threat to UN posed by the Trumpistas cannot be discounted, just as their threat to world peace is represented by the nuclear scientists moving the doomsday clock one notch closer to nuclear midnight since Trump assumed office a week ago.

Will the world community cower before the march of Trumpistas and thus allow a new dark age of global authoritarianism? These are challenging and uncertain times for the whole world and much depends on the spirit of resistance and democratic prowess of people around the world, otherwise within a short time real and serious damage to the pillars of post-WWII order will ensue.

Chances are, of course, that Haley’s grandstanding will soon evaporate by the reality of institutions and global practices, not to mention customary international law, which cannot be eradicated overnight and carry a great deal of weight. The Trumpista masters of chaos, who want to reinstitute torture as a normal state practice, as well as CIA prisons, and so on, have many roadblocks ahead of them, which form as real barriers to their global agenda of American unipolarism, albeit through tactical concessions to Russia, again reminding one of Hitler’s temporary peace with Stalin in 1938.

The big question is if Mr. Putin is about to make his predecessor’s mistake of appeasing an adversary that relies on the seducement of a charmed diplomacy, hiding its iron fist in velvet glove. Only time will answer this important question.

What is clear, however, is the utility of Trumpistas’ charmed diplomacy for causing rifts in Russia’s and China’s system of alliance that includes Iran.

Kayhan News interviews Eric Walberg.

What are the most serious internal and external threats facing Europe today, including threats from Russia?

The surprise victory of the Brexit campaign in Britain, despite the overwhelming propaganda against it, finally forced the European status quo to face reality. The European Union only makes sense if there is a sense of belonging, of compassion. Nationalism was the traditional way to bind people together, despite inequality and injustice. The EU lacks that glue. The crisis of Greece showed this starkly. The common currency was revealed as a myth, divorced from the reality of citizens.

The growing domestic polarization from failed neoliberalism extends across borders, and has become the common characteristic of Greeks and Irish, French and Italians. Only Germany is strong, destroyed in WWII and rebuilt as an industrial powerhouse. Its strong economy keeps it secure. But security now means security of life, and the EU does not promise this kind of security. It is neoliberalism in the first place that is the threat to security for citizens.

The flood of refugees into Europe is the external security issue created by the US-European policy to undermine Syria. Europe has no external enemies threatening its security. It created this refugee crisis through its blind following of the US goal of overthrowing the Syian regime. The threat of terrorism arising from the Syria tragedy will haunt Europe for decades. The foolish attempt to overthrow the secure, nonthreatening Syrian regime cannot be undone. Like the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, the attempt to push Syria into chaos was a product of imperial hubris. None of these schemes achieved their desired end of furthering US world power.

The choice of Trump over Clinton as president shows the desperation of the American people, tired of foreign nightmare wars, with no victory on the horizon, creating insecurity where there was none. Trump’s call to end foreign wars, whether or not he can achieve that, was the major policy difference that gave him the edge. What he will choose to do concerning Israel and Palestine is still unclear, but Netanyahu pays no attention to critics, so things can hardly get worse.

The other call by Trump is to make peace with Russia. This will undermine the continued Cold War mentality to cripple Russia and prevent Eurasian integration. If this happens, talk of another arms race, of renewing nuclear weapons testing, makes no sense. Given the increase in global environmental disasters, there will be other things to occupy the US, and it will need cooperation rather than confrontation.

How and to what extent do the return of European militias from Iraq and Syria to their lands and the wave of terrorist attacks on Europe challenge European security order?

This is unclear, as statistics about actual numbers of Europeans involved in the Syrian and Iraq militant insurgencies is not known. It is probably exaggerated as part of the attempt to lay blame for increased terrorism on Muslim discontents, rather than US-European policies and their blowback. Terrorism is nothing new. The current wave of terrorism emanates from US and Israeli sources, their aggression against the Muslim world. It started with the slow invasion of Palestine over the past 50 years, reached a climax in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and will continue as long as the Arab world suffers under the dual aggressors. A few malcontents may cause occasional sensational outbursts, but they are merely a symptom of the underlying problem. There will never be peace until a sense of dignity is restored in the Middle East and the US ends its imperial lust.

What is the future of security ties between Europe and the US during Trump presidency?

Trump is still a black box. He has portrayed himself as a ‘bull in a china shop’, lashing out at the sad state of US democracy and the economy. His only clear message is to make peace with Russia, with his appointment of the more pro-Russian businessman Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Hopefully, it will lead to a new, more rational US foreign policy, and should be favourable to all nations, though Israel’s present chauvinistic political leadership will not be happy. There really is no need for US interference in European affairs. Europe is secure, as is the US. It is US-European meddling in the Middle East that is the source of insecurity. Trump’s policy of self-reliance, of ‘making America great’ again, will rebound in Europe, as it finally shakes off its Cold War false unity.

What are possible European strategies to deal with security threats?

Europe is moving towards more nationalistic politics. Europeans like Trump, are eager for change. The only way to improve internal security (there is no external security threat to Europe) is to reverse course on Syria and Israel. The western policies undermining Syria and lack of hope for a settlement in Palestine are the main source of terrorist threats.

http://kayhan.ir/fa/news/96091

Suppose the Canadians were to build a wall to keep Americans out of their country, making it clear that Americans are simply not decent, productive, peaceful people and therefore the fewer of them who enter Canada the better. Might Americans take justifiable offense at such treatment?

Why does anyone imagine that Mexicans feel any differently?

I spent more than a decade of my career largely engaged in studying the history and economics of U.S. racial differences and race relations. (See, for example, my book Competition and Coercion.) In the USA and its colonial precursors, racial oppression took many forms, including after the War Between the States a widespread state-enforced system of racial segregation in which the “separate but equal” public facilities provided for the use of blacks were almost invariably inferior. But the system also took many seemingly pointless forms, not of any evident value to any group of white rent-seekers or to whites in general. The “point” of these restrictions, however, was always simply to insult and humiliate black people, so that even the most “no account cracker” could see that he was superior, and recognized as such, even to the most polished and accomplished black. This institutionalized humiliation of people was always the part that, aside from the ongoing, unpunished assaults and murders, rubbed me the rawest about the system.

By Louis Rouanet*

In the quest to explain economic development, institutional competition has been almost systematically ignored by many economists and historians alike who have fallen under the spell of the interpretation of nineteenth-century German historicists. The members of the German historical school, and especially Schmoller and Bücher, saw the state as the institution that was responsible for the creation of both the market and modern capitalism. Modern institutionalists, although they differ from historicists in many ways, have accepted this narrative, arguing that political centralization is a prerequisite to economic development. One book showing this tendency to accept the historicist narrative can be found, for instance, in Acemoglu and Robinson’s Why Nations Fail (2012). Distinguishing between extractive and inclusive institutions, Acemoglu argues that centralization is a necessary step to building inclusive institutions favorable to economic development. Although Why Nations Fail is a compelling book, its authors fail to explain why centralization is a feature of inclusive institutions. It is, on the contrary, institutional competition that can explain the rise of inclusive institutions in Europe rather than elsewhere — inclusive institutions that ultimately resulted in the most durable and incredible development of standards of living in human history.

Commercial institutional competition was a key factor in the development of the institutional framework that led to modern capitalism. To this extent, the history of Europe is unique. Contrary to other regions, there was no single uniform authority in Europe that could halt commercial development, no universal plundering of the entrepreneurs and workers by the state. As the historian Paul Kennedy notices in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, “there were always some princes and local lords willing to tolerate merchants and their ways even when others plundered and expelled them.”

The fall of the Roman Empire gave way to a period of political anarchy and radical decentralization where cities, aristocrats, kings, and the church all competed with each other. Over the centuries, a long evolution of the institutions gave birth to individual liberty. Although the European aristocracies and states were restricting freedom, they were forced to grant more autonomy to their subjects, for, if they did not, people were opting out by migrating or using black markets. As Leonard Liggio puts it, after 1000 A.D.:

While bound by the chains of the Peace and Truce of God from looting the people, the uncountable manors and baronies meant uncounted competing jurisdictions in close proximity. … This polycentric system created a check on politicians; the artisan or merchant could move down the road to another jurisdiction if taxes or regulation were imposed.1

Europe was where the road to freedom began. It was in Europe that the values of individualism, liberalism, and autonomy rose from history and gave humanity a sense of progress that no civilization had ever experienced to such an extent before.

Far from being linked to political centralization, the commercial revolution of the Middle Ages took place in the local and non-centralized cities of northern Italy, the Hanseatic League, and the fairs of Champagne. Commercial cities such as Venice, which could prosper because its lagoons protected its autonomy from invaders, soon competed with Genoa, Pisa and other free cities for commercial superiority, thus improving the institutions necessary for the development of commerce. The guild system disappeared first in non-centralized regions such as the Netherlands and Italy. Freedom of labor was instituted in Milano already in 1502 and the Hanseatic cities took the habit of creating free masters during the sixteenth century, thus increasing both competition and production. Later, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is free, localized Antwerp and Holland that became the economic powerhouses of Europe while retaining medieval local autonomy and eschewing state-building. Instances of success by the relatively small states in the Middle Ages could be multiplied and directly contradict the historicist narrative.

Conversely, centralization caused much economic backwardness. The fairs of Champagne, for instance, were destroyed by royal taxation. Similarly, the guild system became highly monopolistic only when centralized states started to extend their power to cities and distribute patents. In France and England, where centralization and state-building was comparatively early, cities progressively lost their autonomy and freedoms during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. With this loss of autonomy came a lower level of institutional competition and, therefore, a recrudescence of anti-market practices. Before the sixteenth century, for instance, most craftsmen were not members of formal guilds in France. It is only with the support of the crown that the free crafts were adopting ever stricter regulations so that it became impossible to distinguish crafts from guilds. It is only with the 1581 and 1597 royal edicts that every producer was forced to join a guild whose privileges had to be enforced nationally, thus reducing economic competition.

In the eighteenth century, one of the main arguments advanced by the first political economists was that if the king does not free commerce, other princes will do so and attract the most talented workers. Vincent de Gournay, to whom the phrase laissez-faire, laissez passer is attributed, was constantly worrying that French workers were moving to economically freer countries such as Holland or England. Economic competition between states was still vivid during the times of Gournay and worked constantly to relax the anti-economic barriers created and maintained by the increasingly centralized states.

Europe’s high level of decentralization can account for what is sometimes called “the European miracle.”2 The best institutions prospered over the centuries whereas anti-economic institutions progressively declined or disappeared. As Bradford DeLong and Andrei Shleifer show in their paper Princes and Merchants (1999), limited government allowed for faster city growth during the 800 years before the Industrial Revolution.3 In other words: free cities, prosperous cities; prosperous cities, powerful princes.

India, China or the Arabic world never got the communal movements of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Nor did they benefit from the institutional competition brought about by the free cities of the Middle Ages. In L’Esprit des Lois, Montesquieu, while comparing the European with the Asian political system, notes:

In Asia one has always seen great empires; in Europe they were never able to continue to exist. … Therefore, power should always be despotic in Asia. For if the servitude there were not extreme, there would immediately be a division that the nature of the country cannot endure. In Europe, the natural divisions form many medium-sized states in which the government of laws is not incompatible with the maintenance of the state; on the other hand, they are so favorable to this that without laws this state falls into decadence and becomes inferior to all the others. This is what has formed a genius for liberty, which makes it very difficult to subjugate each part and to put it under a foreign force other than by laws and by what is useful to its commerce.

“Decentrism” is, as Röpke writes in A Humane Economy, “the essence of the spirit of Europe.” It is what gave room for inclusive institutions to develop, for the merchant to trade and for the ingenuous worker to innovate while keeping the fruit of his labor. Institutional competition formed the cracks through which the productive members of society could finally serve their fellowmen for a profit and participate to a flourishing economy. It was, in other words, the driving force of the European miracle.

About the author:
*Louis Rouanet is currently a student at the Paris Institute for Political Studies.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute.

Notes:

• 1. Leonard Liggio, “The Medieval Law Merchant: Economic Growth Challenged by the Public Choice State,” Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines 9, no. 1 (March 1999): 65.
• 2. Ralph Raico, “The Theory of Economic Development and the European Miracle,” in The Collapse of Development Planning, ed. Peter J. Boettke (1994), pp. 37–58.
• 3. J. Bradford DeLong, and Andrei Shleifer, “Princes and Merchants,” Journal of Law and Economics 36 (1993).

One of the most vocal, and angry, reactions to Trump’s anti-immigration executive order came from Iran whose foreign ministry, as noted previously, vowed to take reciprocal measures, as the Iranian government called the ban “an insult to the Muslim world.” Tehran did not waste any time, and shortly after Iran said it would ban U.S. citizens entering the country in retaliation to Washington’s visa ban against the nation.

“While respecting the American people and distinguishing between them and the hostile policies of the U.S. government, Iran will implement the principle of reciprocity until the offensive U.S. limitations against Iranian nationals are lifted,” a Foreign Ministry statement said cited by Reuters. “The restrictions against travel by Muslims to America… are an open affront against the Muslim world and the Iranian nation in particular and will be known as a great gift to extremists,” said the statement, carried by state media.

Trump’s temporary ban would make it virtually impossible for family members and friends of an estimated one million Iranian-Americans to visit the United States.

Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said it was no time to build walls between nations and criticised steps towards cancelling world trade agreements, without naming Trump.

“Today is not the time to erect walls between nations. They have forgotten that the Berlin wall fell years ago,” Rouhani said in a speech carried live on Iranian state television. “To annul world trade accords does not help their economy and does not serve the development and blooming of the world economy,” Rouhani told a tourism conference in Tehran. “This is the day for the world to get closer through trade.”

Rouhani, a pragmatist elected in 2013, thawed Iran’s relations with world powers after years of confrontation and engineered its 2015 deal with them under which it curbed its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from sanctions.

That may soon change. Trump’s order “certainly doesn’t do anything to convince Iranians that the Trump administration has any interest in reducing tensions with Iran,” said Trita Parsi, author of the forthcoming book “Losing an Enemy – Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy,” and president of the National Iranian American Council. With Iran holding a presidential election in May, any spike in tensions between the foes could swing support behind hardline critics of President Hassan Rouhani. According to Parsi, hardliners will point to Iran’s compromise as part of the nuclear accord and “say ‘look what it generated: this extremely negative response against Iranian people’.”

You will often see potentially important pieces of legislation languish in the US House. A bill will remain active, meaning that it can be brought to the Floor at any time. But it flies just under the radar. Other times the language floats around Washington for years until a “crisis” necessitates its activation and passage. As we know well, what eventually became the PATRIOT Act — one of the single greatest attacks on civil liberties in US history — started out and spent much of its early life as a sugar-plumb fairy dancing in neocon fantasies. Then came 9/11 and it was dusted off and imposed on the American people. And the United States has never been — and may never be — the same. Either way, these measures are important if seldom seen.

So it may well be with H.J.Res. 10, introduced in the House just as the new Congress began at the beginning of this month. The title of the bill tells the tale: a bill “To authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces to achieve the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.” This legislation, introduced by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), is as it appears: an authorization for the President to use military force against Iran. But it is much worse than that.

Why so? Because it specifically authorizes the president to launch a pre-emptive war on Iran at any time of his choosing and without any further Congressional oversight or input. The operative sentence in the resolution reads, “The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as the President determines necessary and appropriate in order to achieve the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.” (Emphasis added).

President Trump — and, importantly, his entire national security team — has been extraordinarily aggressive toward Iran, repeatedly threatening that country both at the negotiating table and on the battlefield. H.J.Res 10 would be just the blank check the Administration craves to realize such threats.

And thanks to ongoing US and allied sabre-rattling in the Persian Gulf, tensions continue to escalate. At the end of this month, the UK, US and allied military forces will take part in operation “Unified Trident,” a joint exercise in the Persian Gulf that will simulate a military confrontation with Iran.

How would Washington respond if a bill was active in the Iranian parliament authorizing war on the United States and the Iranian navy began conducting joint exercises with the Chinese in the Gulf of Mexico simulating an attack on the United States?

This by article was published by RonPaul Institute.

By Clint Watts*

(FPRI) — This week was not a one in American history:

• We initiated a migration ban on seven Muslim countries, although no major terrorism plot against the U.S. since 9/11 has come from those countries. There are countries that have supplied terrorists in directed plots against the U.S. since 9/11, but they are not on the list. I’m guessing they have been excluded because there are serious financial and business consequences if we were to designate these countries similarly.
• We stopped Syrian refugees coming to the U.S. even though there are zero incidents of Syrian refugees infiltrating the U.S. to conduct an attack. America’s ISIS recruits and their plots are overwhelmingly homegrown, not foreign infiltrators.
• We proposed building a wall to stop illegal immigration, even though illegal immigration has been steadily declining for years. We’ve proposed no realistic solutions for the legal immigration of migrant workers or a path to citizenship for them. Walls never work and we could be spending our national resources on things that promote American good (education and health, cough cough, American first) rather than blocking out irrational fears.
• We again brought up the idea of reintroducing torture, because we need to “fight fire with fire,” even though we know torture doesn’t work, thus justifying our actions by the lowest standard of our adversaries, undermining our principles, all to appear ‘tougher’ rather than ‘better’ than our adversaries.
• We were downgraded in world rankings as a democracy.

Regardless of whether one is a Republican or Democrat, or if these policies don’t come to fruition, it’s hard to understand how any of these policies are about putting America first, or “Making America Great Again.” We pride ourselves on phrases like “nothing to fear but fear itself” but it appears that we have nothing to fear but being insufficiently scared of things that are sometimes real but mostly imagined.

This morning, for the first time in my life, I cannot say that we are the home of the free and the brave, the ones that free the oppressed, that everyone has an equal opportunity, or that we will make the tougher, right decisions in the face of adversity. Even after the 9/11 attacks, and missteps in the War on Terror, I could say this. Today I cannot.

We say we want to “Make America Great Again” but somewhere along the way we’ve forgotten that what made America great was that we, Americans, were the world’s refugees, we were the earth’s oddballs that came together and created the best system of governance, invented the world’s advancements, worked harder than the rest, earned our place in the world, promoted and fought for the ideals of freedom and liberty at home and abroad, and worked to give everyone, American or not, an opportunity to make the best life for themselves, their loved ones and their communities.

America is great when we face our fears, don’t compromise our principles, lead by example, and make hard, short-term choices for the greater good of humanity. We know we are great, when others around the world want to emulate us, join us and befriend us.

We are not great because we tell ourselves we are. We are not great because of enticing deals, phony tough talk, or giving into our fears — fears increasingly fueled by bogus narratives. America is not the best country in world history because we said,” stay away, leave us alone, we can do all this by ourselves!”

We landed on the moon, won world wars, achieved standards of living never witnessed in human history, and rescued the downtrodden and the unfortunate from natural and man-made peril. We did all this because no one else could, no one else would, it wasn’t “America First,” it was “America the Beautiful.”

Many will see this through their own partisan lens (shocking!). I know and like many of the more responsible appointees coming into parts of the administration and I hope they can re-direct things soon. But the past week’s words and policies have consequences. America is “not safer” and definitely not “greater” by any of these new policies from the first week.

The pendulum will swing back, and I hope not too many Americans, particularly those in uniform that have carried the greatest sacrifice since 9/11, suffer the consequences of this past week’s tough talk.

President Trump may be the best thing for America in the end, not because he makes us great again, but because he makes us, as Americans, want to be great again in spite of him, not because of him.

About the author:
*Clint Watts is a Robert A. Fox Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Program on the Middle East as well as a Senior Fellow with its Program on National Security. He serves as the President of Miburo Solutions, Inc. Watts’ research focuses on analyzing transnational threat groups operating in local environments on a global scale

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

By Brig Anil Gupta (Retd)*

I have often wondered as to why certain communities in Jammu region continue to remain in a state of despair and deprivation in an independent India. Why people belonging to a segment of the society are termed as “Indian citizens” but are deprived of all basic amenities of livelihood in the very state they reside in? Why in the era of social equality in the 21st century and after 70 years of independence they carry a tag of “refugee” or are permitted by law to only apply for the job of “Safai Karamcharis (sweepers)”?

In Jammu & Kashmir if your forefathers migrated from West Pakistan at the time of partition and were economically and socially backward or they migrated from Nepal to serve in the maharaja’s army or you belong to the 200-odd Valmiki families which were brought from the neighbouring state of Punjab in the late 1950s to be employed as safai karamcharis (street cleaners), you are certain to be discriminated against and humiliated due to the so-called ‘special status’ enjoyed by the state.

These infelicitous people have been enduring this neglect and contempt of the state in the hope that one day those in the corridors of power in Jammu & Kashmir will look beyond the myopic prism of regionalism and religion and consider their plight from a broader outlook as a “humanitarian issue.”

While the government of India is sympathetic to their cause and is taking measures to ameliorate their woes, nothing major can happen until they are granted “Permanent Resident” status. The previous state governments did not have even a moment to spare for their ordeals and any attempt by the current government is opposed vehemently by Pakistan-backed separatists, soft-separatists and valley-centric political parties.

The partition of the Indian sub-continent based on religion forced large scale migration of Hindu families from West Pakistan (now Pakistan) to India and the Muslim families (who opted for Pakistan) to Pakistan. The Hindu migrants settled in different parts of India, including the Jammu region of J&K.

Those who settled in Jammu are the unfortunate lot who till date are tagged as “refugees” and hence denied jobs in the state government, quasi-state jobs, admission in Technical/Professional/Higher Education institutions run by the state, right to vote for panchayats/local bodies/ state legislature, right to buy immovable property, scholarships including Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme for J&K and any other benefit for which production of Permanent Resident Certificate (PRC) is mandatory.

The irony is that many of those among them who were wealthy or influential or had permanent resident relatives have managed the PRC but those who were poor, uneducated and landless but hardworking, self-respecting and socially unaware continue to remain deprived till date and referred to as “refugees” despite the fact that they have been residing in the state for three generations now. Most of these families stay in the “Rice Bowl” of the state and generate tremendous revenue for the state government but the state government refuses to grant them permanent residence. The lands they cultivate are “allotted” to them under the “Land to Tiller Act-J&K” and they pay regular land tax to the government yet they are not the owner of the land to the extent that they cannot sell/dispose of the land. They are allowed to build houses on the allotted land but the land does not belong to them.

On the contrary, Muslim families who migrated to Pakistan and became Pakistani citizens are allowed to return even today and claim their property in accordance with Section 6 (2) of the Constitution of J&K amended vide the 6th Amendment enacted in 1965. Isn’t it anarchic?

The families of those militants who went to Pakistan for arms training, married there, produced children and returned to the state with families via the illegal route of Nepal have been granted permanent residence despite being born and brought up in Pakistan on anti-India propaganda. They enjoy all the benefits that are denied to these children of a lesser God because they were born in independent India, are patriotic and belong to the minority Hindu community.

The tale of Valmiki and Gorkha communities is equally disappointing. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad’s cabinet in 1957 passed a resolution to bring Valmiki families from the neighbouring state of Punjab to work as safai karamcharis. They agreed to move only after they were promised that Permanent Resident clause would be relaxed in their favour. After about 200 families moved to J&K and were engaged by the government, they were recognised as Permanent Resident Safai Karamcharis.

The implication is that they or their descendants can only be employed as safai karamcharis. Gross injustice to a Dalit community. Their children, irrespective of their qualifications, are not eligible for a government job except that of a sweeper. They are also denied all other privileges of a permanent resident like voting, acquisition of immovable property, scholarships and admission to professional/higher education institutions.

Similar is the plight of the miniscule Gorkha community whose forefathers were soldiers in the Sikh Army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu (who later founded the Dogra Empire of J&K in 1846) was the Commander in Chief of the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. It was Maharaja Ranbir Singh, successor of Gulab Singh, who enlisted Gorkhas in the Army of Jammu & Kashmir. These valiant Gorkhas loyally served the state in numerous battles and campaigns leading to spectacular victories.

Many of these Gorkha families settled in Jammu and continued the noble profession of soldiering without bothering to acquire properties. They are socially, economically and educationally backward and do not possess landed property or homes. Their descendants today find it difficult to obtain the PRC without which they cannot enjoy the benefits of permanent residents. Another irony of justice.

The insertion of Article 35A in the Constitution of India through a Presidential proclamation titled The Constitution (Application to Jammu & Kashmir) Order, 1954 is the bête noire that haunts the members of these communities since it is the Caucus Fundamental of all their woes.

Article 35A grants special status to the permanent residents of the state who are defined in Article 6 of the Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir. The successive state governments in J&K, in the guise of article 35A and article 370, have been discriminating against non-residents of the state, the category under which these deprived communities are clubbed.

It is a clear-cut display of power politics to protect the interests of a particular community under the garb of preventing change in demography. The 10-Point 1952 Delhi Accord signed between Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah included a provision that enabled the state legislature to define “permanent residents” and grant those special rights and privileges as enjoyed under the State Subject Law enacted by Maharaja Hari Singh in 1927.

It was also agreed that in accordance with Article 5 of the Constitution of India, persons who have their domicile in J&K shall be the citizens of J&K. Presidential Order of 1954 was made to accommodate the provisions of Delhi Accord — with Article 35A being one of them. It also implied that citizens of India were not ipso-facto citizens of Jammu & Kashmir, hence these sections of the society, though they are Indian citizens, are denied the citizenship of J&K which is determined through ancestry in accordance with State Subject Law 1927. Furthermore, majority of these people belong to Scheduled Castes (SC) and are deprived of all the benefits and schemes of the state government meant for the SC because of inability to produce PRC.

A peep into history would reveal that in 1927 the state of Jammu & Kashmir was an independent princely state and, in the circumstances then prevailing, promulgation of such a restrictive law by the Maharaja was justified in order to protect the interests of his subjects. But now that the State is an integral part of India and the permanent residents are Indian citizens, the very thought of enjoying “exclusive rights” and denying those to other fellow Indians based on the principle of ancestry is against the concept of “Fraternity” enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution of India.

The panacea to the plight of these hapless communities lies in the change of mindset of the Valley-based political leaders of the state. They need to visualise the issue as humanitarian and not political. The logic of demographic change is flawed to the extent that the Hindu community to which they belong will continue to remain in minority in the state even after they are granted permanent resident status. Sections 8 and 9 of the Constitution of J&K are the enabling provisions which authorise the state legislature to amend the definition of permanent residents to include them and their descendants by a two-thirds majority.

Let the present legislature take the initiative and write a new chapter in the history of Jammu & Kashmir unlike their predecessors who, despite enjoying the required majority, lacked the respect for human rights and the political will to become history makers.

*The writer is a Jammu-based political commentator, columnist, and security and strategic analyst. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

By Tarun Basu*

When Salman Khurshid took over as External Affairs Minister in the latter part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s second government in 2009-14, he had breakfast with a group of editors and foreign policy analysts. The meeting took place a few months of then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India during which, at an address in Chennai on July 20, 2011, she spoke of India’s leadership potential and “India’s growing role in the Asia Pacific and in South and Central Asia..

“I believe in India’s future. This is not, therefore, a time when any of us can afford to look inward at the expense of looking outward. This is a time to seize the opportunities of the 21st century, and it is a time to lead, Clinton said in an address tilted “A Vision for the 21st Century” at the Anna Centenary Library to much applause.

When Khurshid was asked whether India was prepared for such a “larger role” as advocated by US, he made light of these remarks, saying India never saw itself as a “power” in a geopolitical sense as its foreign policy was an instrument to promote national development goals and not for projecting itself to the world in any muscular manner.

Much diplomatic and political water has since flowed and much of that thinking may have got nuanced since the change in government in New Delhi in the summer of 2014 though the direction of the country’s foreign policy has not fundamentally changed.

The debate may have got sharpened with the publication of a book (Choices/Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy/Penguin Allen Lane) by India’s former national security adviser and foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon, who said though India is destined to be a “great power, with the ability to shape the international system and environment to our purposes”, its time has perhaps not yet come. In his estimation “for a considerable time to come, India will be a significant power with many poor people” and therefore should be “conscious of the difference between weight, influence and power” which, in a geopolitical sense, should carry with it the ability to influence outcomes – which, he implied, India did not yet have.

Menon cautioned that “history is replete with examples of rising powers that prematurely thought that time had come. that mistook their influence and weight for real power”.

There is little doubt that the US, for long the world’s pre-eminent military and economic power has by its sheer weight and influence exercised its unchallenged ability to shape global events and outcomes till much of the 20th century. However, with the spread of nuclear weapons among non-traditional powers and rise of radicalised, highly motivated non-state actors and their powerful patrons that ability has seen serious abridgement or has been called into question as carefully laid out military plans and strategic calculus went awry in meeting major global challenges.

Hence, perhaps because it has come to recognise its inherent limitations in exercising global power in the 21st century and fulfilling international obligations on its own, the US has looked for a string of alliances and partnerships in shaping global policies in tune with its own value systems.

“..I think this is the only way forward. Yes, it is ambitious agenda, but we can afford to be ambitious, because when we in the United States and particularly in the Obama Administration look at India, we see, as President Obama said, a nation that is not simply emerging, but has emerged, and a nation with whom we share so many bonds, and one that will be a leader globally in shaping the future we will all inherit”, Clinton said in context of shaping the future of what US has begun calling the “Indo-Pacific region”.

She went on to say: “The United States has always been a Pacific power because of our very great blessing of geography. And India straddling the waters from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean is, with us, a steward of these waterways.”

But is India ready for that “larger role” professed by the US? Going by Prime Minister Narendra Modi government’s declarations and belief systems, India, despite its rich cultural history, size, population and economic status was punching below its weight and India should now “improve our weight and punch proportionately”. It should, government strategists believe, discard defensiveness on global issues, shed past certitudes on multilateralism (like being part of the non-aligned bloc) and begin to alter the way that India looks at global problems.

From the outset the government, led by am ambitious Prime Minister in Narendra Modi, a political neophyte out to prove to people of the country that India’s “good days” (achche din) were still to come and he was the man of destiny for the country, set out in the conduct of its foreign policy and international relations, demonstrated not just a lot of energy but inventiveness (calling neighbourhood leaders, including Pakistan’s to his inauguration) and some daring (surgical strikes, standing up to China over Dalai Lama, etc).

Although he himself is yet to articulate a foreign policy vision for his government in parliament or elsewhere, two policy addresses, one by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, and the other by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, provide interesting insights to his and the government’s thinking. Doval made two interesting observations that reflect in many ways the changed thinking of the Indian establishment. One, weak states invite trouble and hence, to demonstrate one is a strong state, one must not hesitate to exercise power. Two, there is little place for morality in international affairs, a point emphasised by ancient India’s pre-eminent ideologue of statecraft, Chanakya, whose dicta have been resurrected by the present nationalist rulers.

Pro-government analysts say that Modi and his ideological fellow travellers dream of a “big power” role for India in the near future and the deepening and broadening of ties with the US as among the “key elements of a changing Asian calculus”.

Will India then be a “balancing power” or a “leading player”? Will India step in to play a peacemaker role in global hotspots as many countries keep demanding?

The question that remains is India ready yet to play that role, institutionally and structurally, whether it has a political consensus for that strategic leap and whether its forces can be deployed beyond the borders if required to match the expectations of such a role.

This is where there seems to be a conflict between the thinking of the present NDA dispensation in comparison to the “strategically bold but tactically cautious” previous UPA administration.

Howard B and Teresita C Schaffer, retired US diplomatic couple with long experience in South Asia, in their new book “India at the Global High Table” (Harper Collins), feel India should be seen more as a “revisionist power” where the country “seeks to revise a world order that gives primacy in its international relations to a handful of powers, most of them European or American, and it aims to take its place among those who are acknowledged to run the world.”

According to them”if India does pursue a bigger international leadership role, its policies will become more deeply interdependent with those of other countries.

“It will need to make choices that it has been able to avoid until now. It may in the end continue to see a solo role as its preferred international pathway. But the whole concept of autonomy, or maximising one’s options, is harder to define for countries playing a major role in a globalised world.”

To this determination, which lies at the core of US strategic thinking, UPA policymaker Menon has this to say in his book: “At the risk of disappointing those who call on India to be a ‘responsible’ power – meaning they want us to do as they wish – and at the risk of disappointing Indians who like to dream of India as an old-fashioned superpower, I would only say as Indira Gandhi once said, ‘India will be a different power’ and will continue to walk its own path in the world. That is the only responsible way for us.”

Or, as Schaffer and Schaffer defined so perceptively what they called the central element of the vision guiding Indian foreign policy down the years as “India determination to march to its own drummer”.

*Tarun Basu is a veteran journalist who is President, Society for Policy Studies. He can be contacted at tarun.basu@spsindia.in

By K.P. Fabian*

The talks held on January 23-24, 2017 in the Kazakhstan capital Astana should be seen against the grim toll of the turmoil in Syria that began in February/March of 2011 with more than half a million Syrians dead, half the 22.5 million population displaced — with over 5 million outside the country, and unfortunately with no end in sight for the inexorably unfolding tragedy.

The participants were seven: Russia, Turkey, Iran, the Syrian regime, UN represented by its mediator Staffan di Mistura, the armed rebels led by Mohammed Alloush, politburo member of Jaish al-Islam (one of the armed groups), and the US as observer. The initiative for the talks came from Russia, Turkey, and Iran, with Russia in the driving seat. The three are the ‘guarantors’ of the cease-fire announced on December 30, 2016.

Turkey has recently moved closer to Russia on Syria and there is a degree of understanding between the two along with some mutual accommodation though they still might have differences about the desired final outcome. Russian President Vladimir Putin adroitly chose the date January 23 keeping in mind the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump – former President Barack Obama had ever since the annexation of the Crimea in 2014 ‘demonised’ Putin.

Let us look at the political context of the talks. On December 22, 2016, eastern Aleppo, held by the rebels since 2012, fell to forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad supported by Russia and Iran. On December 30, a ceasefire and talks at Astana were announced. The ceasefire, though broken repeatedly, more by Assad than by his foes, has generally held mainly because the rebels, receiving less and less external support, are in no position to fight Assad. They cannot defy Turkey as it either provides military supplies or permits the passage of such supplies from others through its territory. The ceasefire did not necessarily indicate a serious readiness to talk and settle matters on the part of the warring foes.

In listing the participants, we have mentioned “the armed rebels”. A list of the rebel groups that attended the Astana talks has not been published. But we have a list of the groups that had agreed to the ceasefire as per a notification of the Russian Defence Ministry: Feilak al Sham with 4,000 fighters, Ahrar al Sham (16,000), Jaysh al Islam (12,000), Thuwar al Sham (2500), Jaysh al-Mujahideen (8,000), Jaysh Idlib (6.000), and Jabhat al-Shamiya (3.000).

Some Kurds attended the talks, but Turkey saw to it that its foes PYD (Democratic Union Party) and YPG (People’s Protection Units) were not invited. YPG is closely allied to the US in its fight against the Islamic State. YPG provides the boots on the ground while the US Air Force carries out the bombing.

The Assad regime was represented by its Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Jaafari. Iran, Russia, and Turkey too were represented at a similar level. There was a significant difference between Astana and the various meetings at Geneva, Vienna and elsewhere that have taken place under the auspices of the UN or that of US-Russia. This time the rebels were represented not by civilians but by the commanders. Russia sent General Stanislav Gadjimagomedov underlining the military dimension of the talks.

There was difference of opinion between Iran and Russia over inviting the US as Trump has adopted a hostile stance towards the Iran nuclear deal. But Russia prevailed as expected. Russia had earlier said that it was inviting Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Egypt. Obviously, the decision to invite them was changed.

The delegation of the Syrian regime and the other delegates from that country refused to talk directly to each other. They communicated through the ‘guarantors’. Jaafari referred to the rebels as ‘terrorists’ as for Assad anyone opposed to him is a terrorist. The three ‘guarantors’ issued a joint statement read out by Kazakhstan Foreign Minister Kairat Abdhrakhmanov, not subscribed to by the rebels.

The joint statement of the three guarantors is rather anodyne. They “reiterate their determination to fight jointly against ISIL/Daesh and al-Nusra [Front] and to separate from them armed opposition groups”. This is nothing new.

The guarantors “express their conviction that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict and that it can only be solved through a political process”. This is rather strange as the three countries are engaged in a military solution to the Syrian crisis. They have compelled their client, namely, the Assad regime, to attend the meeting only to see whether it can get the rebels to surrender their arms as a pre-condition to political talks.

The rebels did not associate themselves with the joint statement because their demands about the lifting of siege, release of prisoners, and delivery of aid to besieged areas were not agreed to by Assad. In short, the surrender that Assad was wanting did not occur.

The next round of talks is in Geneva under the auspices of the UN on February 8, 2017. Even more important than the Astana talks is the likelihood of Trump and Putin formally agreeing on a united fight against the Islamic State and al Qaeda. The latter two hold considerable territory — with the Islamic State alone holding territory as large as Florida.

We have to wait and watch how that war will unfold as it will cause large scale civilian casualties. Even if that war succeeds, peace and normalcy will elude Syria unless there is a political resolution of the crisis, the moot questions being Assad’s continuance in power and the shape and future of post-Assad Syria.

*Ambassador K.P. Fabian is a retired Indian diplomat who served in the Middle East and has deep knowledge of the region. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Saturday congratulated US President Donald Trump on taking office and wished him every success in his work.

During a telephone conversation, both sides expressed their readiness to make active joint efforts to stabilize and develop Russia-US cooperation on a constructive, equitable and mutually beneficial basis, according to the Kremlin.

According to the Kremlin, Putin and Trump had a detailed discussion of pressing international issues, including the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict, strategic stability and non-proliferation, the situation with Iran’s nuclear programm, and the Korean Peninsula issue. The discussion also touched upon the main aspects of the Ukrainian crisis. The sides agreed to build up partner cooperation in these and other areas.

The two leaders emphasized that joining efforts in fighting the main threat – international terrorism – is a top priority. The presidents spoke out for establishing real coordination of actions between Russia and the US aimed at defeating ISIS and other terrorists groups in Syria, the Kremlin said.

The sides stressed the importance of rebuilding mutually beneficial trade and economic ties between the two counties’ business communities, which could give an additional impetus to progressive and sustainable development of bilateral relations.

The Kremlin said that Putin and Trump agreed to issue instructions to work out the possible date and venue for their meeting.

Trump asked to convey his wishes of happiness and prosperity to the Russian people, saying that the American people have warm feelings towards Russia and its citizens, according to the Kremlin, which said that Putin, in turn, emphasized that the feeling is mutual, adding that for over two centuries Russia has supported the United States, was its ally during the two world wars, and now sees the United States as a major partner in fighting international terrorism.

The two leaders agreed to maintain regular personal contacts.

The conversation took place in a positive and constructive atmosphere, the Kremlin added.

(RFE/RL) — More than 2,000 people rallied in St. Petersburg to protest a decision by the city administration to turn the landmark St. Isaac’s Cathedral over to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Protesters said they fear the church will not maintain the public museum status of the cathedral, which is a popular tourist attraction.

“We won’t give St. Isaac’s to the church. We want to save it as a museum,” local official Boris Vishnevsky told protesters on January 28.

“The money earned by the cathedral was the city’s, but now it will be for the church. It’s not fair,” Tatiana Tsenkovskaya said.

Some also expressed concerns about the growing power of the church.

“The church has claimed too much in recent years. Russia is a secular state,” Filipp Gotfrid said.

A few dozen counterprotesters also gathered to support the plans.

St Isaac’s, founded in 1818, is one of the top tourist sites in St. Petersburg and has been a museum since 1917.

Novel thinkers and those with original ideas, coupled with gifts of clairvoyance, are always initially challenged and ostracized by the masses, who are then used by corrupt political leadership to justify horrific actions of exclusion, persecution, and damnation of their enemies.

For more than 50 years, Lyndon LaRouche has been writing, lecturing, teaching, and warning Americans and the rest of the people of the world, about the exact same issues pertaining to economics, global governance, and the agenda of the Oligarch/ Plutocrat/ Deep State lunatic fringe who Donald Trump and the majority of America (and the world) are now fighting against.

To be sure, at the time Lyndon LaRouche was railing against these enemies of humanity in the 1970s and 80s, both before and during the Ronald Reagan administration, his enemies were so strong that they were able to character assassinate and marginalize him from political power, and they were also able to set him up for what he alleges was a false and contrived criminal case, sentencing this wise learned gentleman to prison for many years, where inside he was apparently attacked and attempts were made to murder him.

But Lyndon LaRouche, who is not only one of the world’s greatest thinkers/writers, is also one of its most resilient, and he survived this slow assassination plot hatched by his enemies, and is now living in Germany.

His enemies and betrayers were allegedly people like George H W Bush and the rest of the New World Order globalist/skull and bones secret societies, which were beholden to the City of London within the United Kingdom and its crown, rather than to the United States of America and its People.

To that end Lyndon LaRouche’s enemies have now been revealed, over the past few years especially, to be the enemies of the American People.

One recalls at a media press conference in the late 1990s, wherein James Woolsey, formerly head of the CIA, who is an open and avowed NWO globalist, openly castigated, humiliated, and verbally assaulted a member of the press corp asking a question that was both intelligent and insightful, as soon as Woolsey learned that this media representative was from the Executive Intelligence Review (“EIR”), funded, led and spearheaded by Lyndon LaRouche. James Woolsey has now been banished from the halls of power by the Donald Trump administration and the rest of America, for his political background/motivations have been revealed to the American public and the rest of the world, as have the rest of the rabid Neo-Cons, Neo-Liberals, and other Trotsky-ite communists and Stasi-like proponents of a technocratic global New World Order where the masses are considered cattle, and their ruling Oligarchs/Plutocrats are designed to be their sheep-herders.

Oscar Wilde wrote that “You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies” – well if that is the case then Lyndon LaLarouche may be the second coming of Christ.

Lyndon LaRouche has stated that the people who wanted him dead and gone were entities such as the Queen of the United Kingdom, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Justice Department, and the Mossad.

He further fingered the CIA and British intelligence, as well as Communists, extreme/militant Zionists, Narcotics Gangsters, the Rockefellers, powerful bankers, globalists, Henry Kissinger, Averell Harriman, international socialists and Nazis, and International Terrorists.

Whatever Lyndon LaRouche’s history and evolution throughout his life, much of which has been controversial and difficult to understand, one must admit that this list of enemies is truly impressive, and have now been established to be enemies of the American people and the rest of the world.

The problem is that 40-50 years ago, no one knew who these people were, or why they were motivated against him, as they had a complete and total stranglehold on the media and the power structure within the USA and the world, and so truly no one in the American masses knew about it.

Some of the issues and political agendas of Lyndon LaRouche that he has supported and espoused over the last 40-50 years resulted in his powerful enemies removing him from political power, forcing him away from his American podium, exiling him from the United States of America, and confining him to a prison for a dubious crime like Jean Valjean in Les Misérables:

(1) he is against rabid environmental protectionism, and instead opts for bolstering and growing the American and world economies through manufacturing, industry and great jobs;

(2) he has called out our corrupt political leadership who often engage in behavior/actions against the interests of the American people (and the world) because he has uncovered their allegiance to the City of London in the United Kingdom and British Crown, rather than the interests of the American people;

(3) he is a supporter of the international balance of power approach, against stupid foreign wars of intervention, as he discovered long ago that this was only in the interest of the international Oligarch/Plutocrat elite, while undermining and disenfranchising the American people (and the rest of the world);

(4) he is a supporter of better relations with all nations and countries of the world, trading honestly with all, entangling alliances with none, as was typified and instructed by Thomas Jefferson;

(5) he is a supporter of the BRICS banking paradigm, which seeks to challenge the bankster hegemony being foisted and perpetrated against the third and second world and its people, while simultaneously devaluing American currency and oppressing the citizens of the USA;

(6) he is 100% in favor of bringing high paying quality jobs in manufacturing, industry, and other hard employment with higher salaries and better longevity and working conditions back to the United States, after the awful carnage that was inflicted on the American people by the pro-NAFTA corporate/government fascist crowd, which sent tens of millions of American jobs and its corporations overseas (President Donald Trump has made this a cornerstone of his entire Presidential Administration, if not all of the above issues as well);

(7) he is for abolishing (or at least auditing) the Federal Reserve, which he views as the ultimate harbinger and source of evil, for which countless intellectual luminaries of the modern age have profoundly supported and espoused, but Lyndon LaRouche was talking about this 50 years ago;

(8) he is against wholesale and systematic corruption within all 3 branches of the US government, having traced its economic and financial fount to the City of London and its UK proponents;

(9) he is against a biased and corrupted media, speaking out against its rapid consolidation so that it could better brainwash and mind-control the American people and the rest of the world into accepting the long-term enslavement visions of the global Oligarchs and Plutocratic feudal masters who lurk in the shadows;

(10) He is completely against the doctrines of Neo-Conservatism in our foreign policy, against useless stupid foreign wars, and routinely calls out people like US State Department Chief Victoria Nuland for destroying and sabotaging other sovereign foreign nations in their bloodlust and thirst for global hegemony at the expense of the world’s people, and only beneficial to its Oligarch masters;

(11) A return to the Bretton Woods system, including a gold-based national and world monetary system, fixed exchange rates, and ending the IMF;

(12) Replacement of the central bank system, including the U.S. Federal Reserve System, with a national bank;

(13) A war on drug trafficking and prosecution of banks involved in money laundering;

(14) Building of nuclear power plants;

(15) Opposition to excessive environmentalism, deregulation, outcome-based education, and abortion;

(16) Immediate reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act which separated private mom and pop checking/savings accounts from the risky “casino-like” investment habits/tactics of the major banks, the repeal of which in 1998 by then President Bill Clinton under pressure from Goldman Sachs/Treasury Secretaries/Economic Advisors Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Gene Sperling and others within the Central Banker cabal led directly to the financial cataclysm of 2008 wherein the American People were forced to bail out these reckless banks with their taxpayer dollars;

These are only a few of Lyndon LaRouche’s original and greatest original contributions to humanity for the past 50 years.

In December 1980, LaRouche and his followers started what came to be known as the “October Surprise” allegation, namely that in October 1980 Ronald Reagan’s campaign staff conspired with the Iranian government during the Iran hostage crisis to delay the release of 52 American hostages held in Iran, with the aim of helping Reagan win the 1980 presidential election against Jimmy Carter. The Iranians had agreed to this, according to the theory, in exchange for future weapons sales from the Reagan administration. The first publication of the story was in LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review on December 2, 1980, followed by his New Solidarity on September 2, 1983, alleging that Henry Kissinger, one of LaRouche’s regular targets, had met Iran’s Ayatollah Beheshti in Paris, according to Iranian sources in Paris. The theory was later echoed by former Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr and former Naval intelligence officer and National Security Council member Gary Sick. This of course all led to the famous “Iran Contra Affair,” which resulted in several prosecutions and congressional inquiry into the “hidden hands” of backroom black market clandestine operations at the expense of the American people.

In 2002 LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review argued that the September 11, 2001, attacks had been an “inside job” and “attempted coup d’etat,” and that Iran was the first country to question it. The article received wide coverage in Iran, and was cited by senior Iranian government officials, including Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hassan Rowhani. Mahmoud Alinejad writes that, in a subsequent telephone interview with the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, LaRouche said the attacks had been organized by rogue elements inside the U.S., aiming to use the incident to promote a war against Islam, and that Israel was a dictatorial regime prepared to commit Nazi-style crimes against the Palestinians.

There are countless thousands of anecdotes and pieces of essential and important trivia regarding this great man’s life, and it would be impossible to list them all here.

According to George Johnson, LaRouche sees history as a battle between Platonists (eg Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, and Leibniz) who believe in absolute truth, and Aristotelians (eg Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume) who rely on empirical data.

According to Lyndon LaRouche, industry, technology, and classical music should be used to enlighten the world, whereas psychotherapy, drugs, rock music, jazz, environmentalism, and quantum theory simply bring about a new dark age in which the world will be ruled by the oligarchs.

LaRouche and his ideas have been called anti-semitic since at least the mid-1970s by dozens of individuals and organizations in countries across Europe and North America. LaRouche and his followers have responded to these allegations by claiming that LaRouche has countless Jewish supporters in his inner circle, and has vociferously denied these allegations.

In 1977 LaRouche married his current wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who is German and 27 years younger than him. Her 1984 book, “The Hitler Book” argues that “We need a movement that can finally free Germany from the control of the Versailles and Yalta treaties, thanks to which we have staggered from one catastrophe to another for an entire century.” Helga founded the Schiller Institute, which has been accused of antisemitism by the Berliner Zeitung and Political Research Associates, a non-profit research group that studies right wing, white supremacist, and militia groups.

LaRouche maintains that he is anti-Zionist, not anti-semitic. When the Anti-Defamation League accused LaRouche of anti-semitism in 1979, he filed a $26-million libel suit.

Lyndon LaRouche said in 2006 wrote that “religious and racial hatred, such as antisemitism, or hatred against Islam, or, hatred of Christians, is, on record of known history, the most evil expression of criminality to be seen on the planet today.”

Now that Donald Trump is President of the United States, perhaps Lyndon LaRouche will be allowed to emerge from forced exile, as his enemies have now been outed and routed, and he should take his rightful place amongst one of America’s greatest heroes, thinkers, philosophers, writers, lovers of humanity and the United States of America.

This article was published at Veterans News Now

During his inaugural speech, President Trump clearly and forcefully outlined the strategic political-economic policies he will pursue over the next four years. Anti-Trump journalist, editorialists, academics and experts, who appear in the Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have repeatedly distorted and lied about the President’s program as well as his critique of existing and past policies.

We will begin by seriously discussing President Trump’s critique of the contemporary political economy and proceed to elaborate on his alternatives and its weaknesses.

President Trump’s Critique of the Ruling Class

The centerpiece of Trump’s critique of the current ruling elite is the negative impact of its form of globalization on US production, trade and fiscal imbalances and on the labor market. Trump cites the fact that US industrial capitalism has drastically shifted the locus of its investments, innovations and profits overseas as an example of globalization’s negative effects. For two decades many politicians and pundits have bemoaned the loss of well-paid jobs and stable local industries as part of their campaign rhetoric or in public meetings, but none have taken any effective action against these most harmful aspects of globalization. Trump denounced them as “all talk and no action” while promising to end the empty speeches and implement major changes.

President Trump targeted importers who bring in cheap products from overseas manufacturers for the American market undermining US producers and workers. His economic strategy of prioritizing US industries is an implicit critique of the shift from productive capital to financial and speculative capital under the previous four administrations. His inaugural address attacking the elites who abandon the ‘rust belt’ for Wall Street is matched by his promise to the working class: “Hear these words! You will never be ignored again.” Trump’s own words portray the ruling class ‘as pigs at the trough’ (Financial Times, 1/23/2017, p. 11)

Trump’s Political-Economic Critique

President Trump emphasizes market negotiations with overseas partners and adversaries. He has repeatedly criticized the mass media and politicians’ mindless promotion of free markets and aggressive militarism as undermining the nation’s capacity to negotiate profitable deals.

President Trump’s immigration policy is closely related to his strategic ‘America First’ labor policy. Massive inflows of immigrant labor have been used to undermine US workers’ wages, labor rights and stable employment. This was first documented in the meat packing industry, followed by textile, poultry and construction industries. Trump’s proposal is to limit immigration to allow US workers to shift the balance of power between capital and labor and strengthen the power of organized labor to negotiate wages, conditions and benefits. Trump’s critique of mass immigration is based on the fact that skilled American workers have been available for employment in the same sectors if wages were raised and work conditions were improved to permit dignified, stable living standards for their families.

President Trump’s Political Critique

Trump points to trade agreements, which have led to huge deficits, and concludes that US negotiators have been failures. He argues that previous US presidents have signed multi-lateral agreements, to secure military alliances and bases, at the expense of negotiating job-creating economic pacts. His presidency promises to change the equation: He wants to tear up or renegotiate unfavorable economic treaties while reducing US overseas military commitments and demands NATO allies shoulder more of their own defense budgets. Immediately upon taking office Trump canceled the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and convoked a meeting with Canada and Mexico to renegotiate NAFTA.

Trump’s agenda has featured plans for hundred-billion dollar infrastructure projects, including building controversial oil and gas pipelines from Canada to the US Gulf. It is clear that these pipelines violate existing treaties with indigenous people and threaten ecological mayhem. However, by prioritizing the use of American-made construction material and insisting on hiring only US workers, his controversial policies will form the basis for developing well-paid American jobs.

The emphasis on investment and jobs in the US is a complete break with the previous Administration, where President Obama focused on waging multiple wars in the Middle East, increasing public debt and the trade deficit.

Trump’s inaugural address issued a stern promise: “The American carnage stops right now and stops right here!” This resonated with a huge sector of the working class and was spoken before an assemblage of the very architects of four decades of job-destroying globalization. ‘Carnage’ carried a double meaning: Widespread carnage resulted from Obama and other administrations’ destruction of domestic jobs resulting in decay and bankruptcy of rural, small town and urban communities. This domestic carnage was the other side of the coin of their policies of conducting endless overseas wars spreading carnage to three continents. The last fifteen years of political leadership spread domestic carnage by allowing the epidemic of drug addiction (mostly related to uncontrolled synthetic opiate prescriptions) to kill hundreds of thousands of mostly young American’s and destroy the lives of millions. Trump promised to finally address this ‘carnage’ of wasted lives. Unfortunately, he did not hold ‘Big Pharma’ and the medical community responsible for its role in spreading drug addiction into the deepest corners of the economically devastated rural America. Trump criticized previous elected officials for authorizing huge military subsidies to ‘allies’ while making it clear that his critique did not include US military procurement policies and would not contradict his promise to ‘reinforce old alliances’ (NATO).

Truth and Lies: Garbage Journalists and Arm Chair Militarists

Among the most outrageous example of the mass media’s hysteria about Trump’s New Economy is the systematic and vitriolic series of fabrications designed to obscure the grim national reality that Trump has promised to address. We will discuss and compare the accounts published by ‘garbage journalists (GJ’s)’ and present a more accurate version of the situation.

The respectable garbage journalists of the Financial Times claim that Trump wants to ‘destroy world trade’. In fact, Trumps has repeatedly stated his intention to increase international trade. What Trump proposes is to increase US world trade from the inside, rather than from overseas. He seeks to re-negotiate the terms of multilateral and bilateral trade agreements to secure greater reciprocity with trading partners. Under Obama, the US was more aggressive in imposing trade tariffs that any other country in the OECD.

Garbage journalists label Trump as a ‘protectionist’, confusing his policies to re-industrialize the economy with autarky. Trump will promote exports and imports, retain an open economy, while increasing the role of the US as a producer and exporter.. The US will become more selective in its imports. Trump will favor the growth of manufacturing exporters and increase imports of primary commodities and advanced technology while reducing the import of automobiles, steel and household consumer products.

Trump’s opposition to ‘globalization’ has been conflated by the garbage journalists of the Washington Post as a dire threat to the ‘the post-Second World War economic order’. In fact, vast changes have already rendered the old order obsolete and attempts to retain it have led to crises, wars and more decay. Trump has recognized the obsolete nature of the old economic order and stated that change is necessary.

The Obsolete Old Order and the Dubious New Economy

At the end of the Second World War, most of Western Europe and Japan resorted to highly restrictive ‘protectionist’ industrial and monetary policies to rebuild their economies. Only after a period of prolonged recovery did Germany and Japan carefully and selectively liberalize their economic policies.

In recent decades, Russia was drastically transformed from a powerful collectivist economy to a capitalist vassal-gangster oligarchy and more recently to a reconstituted mixed economy and strong central state. China has been transformed from a collectivist economy, isolated from world trade, into the world’s second most powerful economy, displacing the US as Asia and Latin America’s largest trading partner.

Once controlling 50% of world trade, the US share is now less than 20%. This decline is partly due to the dismantling of its industrial economy when its manufacturers moved their factories abroad.

Despite the transformation of the world order, recent US presidents have failed to recognize the need to re-organize the American political economy. Instead of recognizing, adapting and accepting shifts in power and market relations, they sought to intensify previous patterns of dominance through war, military intervention and bloody destructive ‘regime changes’ – thus devastating, rather than creating markets for US goods. Instead of recognizing China’s immense economic power and seek to re-negotiate trade and co-operative agreements, they have stupidly excluded China from regional and international trade pacts, to the extent of crudely bullying their junior Asian trade partners, and launching a policy of military encirclement and provocation in the South China Seas. While Trump recognized these changes and the need to renegotiate economic ties, his cabinet appointees seek to extend Obama’s militarist policies of confrontation.

Under the previous administrations, Washington ignored Russia’s resurrection, recovery and growth as a regional and world power. When reality finally took root, previous US administrations increased their meddling among the Soviet Union’s former allies and set up military bases and war exercises on Russia’s borders. Instead of deepening trade and investment with Russia, Washington spent billions on sanctions and military spending – especially fomenting the violent putchist regime in Ukraine. Obama’s policies promoting the violent seizure of power in Ukraine, Syria and Libya were motivated by his desire to overthrow governments friendly to Russia – devastating those countries and ultimately strengthening Russia’s will to consolidate and defend its borders and to form new strategic alliances.

Early in his campaign, Trump recognized the new world realities and proposed to change the substance, symbols, rhetoric and relations with adversaries and allies – adding up to a New Economy.

First and foremost, Trump looked at the disastrous wars in the Middle East and recognized the limits of US military power: The US could not engage in multiple, open-ended wars of conquest and occupation in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia without paying major domestic costs.

Secondly, Trump recognized that Russia was not a strategic military threat to the United States. Furthermore, the Russian government under Vladimir Putin was willing to cooperate with the US to defeat a mutual enemy – ISIS and its terrorist networks. Russia was also keen to re-open its markets to the US investors, who were also anxious to return after years of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry imposed sanctions. Trump, the realist, proposes to end sanctions and restore favorable market relations.

Thirdly, it is clear to Trump that the US wars in the Middle East imposed enormous costs with minimal benefits for the US economy. He wants to increase market relations with the regional economic and military powers, like Turkey, Israel and the Gulf monarchies. Trump is not interested in Palestine, Yemen, Syria or the Kurds – which do not offer much investment and trade opportunities. He ignores the enormous regional economic and military power of Iran, Nevertheless Trump has proposed to re-negotiate the recent six-nation agreement with Iran in order to improve the US side of the bargain. His hostile campaign rhetoric against Tehran may have been designed to placate Israel and its powerful domestic ‘Israel-Firsters’ fifth column. This certainly came into conflict with his ‘America First’ pronouncements. It remains to be seen whether Donald Trump will retain a ’show’ of submission to the Zionist project of an expansionist Israel while proceeding to include Iran as a part of his regional market agenda.

The Garbage Journalists claim that Trump has adopted a new bellicose stance toward China and threatens to launch a ‘protectionist agenda’, which will ultimately push the trans-Pacific countries closer to Beijing. On the contrary, Trump appears intent on renegotiating and increasing trade via bilateral agreements.

Trump will most probably maintain, but not expand, Obama’s military encirclement of China’s maritime boundaries which threaten its vital shipping routes. Nevertheless, unlike Obama, Trump will re-negotiate economic and trade relations with Beijing – viewing China as a major economic power and not a developing nation intent on protecting its ‘infant industries’. Trump’s realism reflect the new economic order: China is a mature, highly competitive, world economic power, which has been out-competing the US, in part by retaining its own state subsidies and incentives from its earlier economic phase. This has led to significant imbalances. Trump, the realist, recognizes that China offers great opportunities for trade and investment if the US can secure reciprocal agreements, which lead to a more favorable balance of trade.

Trump does not want to launch a ‘trade war’ with China, but he needs to restore the US as a major ‘exporter’ nation in order to implement his domestic economic agenda. The negotiations with the Chinese will be very difficult because the US importer-elite are against the Trump agenda and side with the Beijing’s formidable export-oriented ruling class.

Moreover, because Wall Street’s banking elite is pleading with Beijing to enter China’s financial markets, the financial sector is an unwilling and unstable ally to Trump’s pro-industrial policies.

Conclusion

Trump is not a ‘protectionist’, nor is he opposed to ‘free-trade’. These charges by the garbage journalists are baseless. Trump does not oppose US economic imperialist policies abroad. However, Trump is a market realist who recognizes that military conquest is costly and, in the contemporary world context, a losing economic proposition for the US. He recognizes that the US must turn from a predominant finance and import economy to a manufacturing and export economy.

Trump views Russia as a potential economic partner and military ally in ending the wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, and especially in defeating the terrorist threat of ISIS. He sees China as a powerful economic competitor, which has been taking advantage of outmoded trade privileges and wants to re-negotiate trade pacts in line with the current balance of economic power.

Trump is a capitalist-nationalist, a market-imperialist and political realist, who is willing to trample on women’s rights, climate change legislation, indigenous treaties and immigrant rights. His cabinet appointments and his Republican colleagues in Congress are motivated by a militarist ideology closer to the Obama-Clinton doctrine than to Trumps new ‘America First’ agenda. He has surrounded his Cabinet with military imperialists, territorial expansionists and delusional fanatics.

Who will win out in the short or long term remains to be seen. What is clear is that the liberals, Democratic Party hacks and advocates of Little Mussolini black shirted street thugs will be on the side of the imperialists and will find plenty of allies among and around the Trump regime.