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Ralph Nader: Detecting What Unravels Our Society: Bottom-Up And Top-Down – OpEd

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The unraveling of a society’s institutions, stability and reasonable order does not sound alarms  to forewarn the citizenry, apart from economic yardsticks measuring poverty, jobs, wages, health, savings, profits and  other matters economic.

However, we do have some signs that we should not allow ourselves to ignore. Maliciousness, profiteering and willful ignorance on the part of our political and corporate rulers undoubtedly contribute to worsening injustice. Let’s consider some ways that we as citizens, far too often, collectively allow this to happen.

  1. Democracy is threatened when citizens refuse to participate in power, whether by not voting, not thinking critically about important issues, not showing up for civic activities or allowing emotional false appeals and flattery by candidates and parties to sway them on important issues. Without an informed and motivated citizenry, the society starts to splinter.
  2. If people do not do their homework before Election Day and know what to expect of candidates and of themselves, the political TV ads and the plutocrats’ campaign cash will take control of what is on the table and what is off the table. This leads to the most important changes a majority of Americans want ending up on the floor.
  3. Too often, you have a grievance as a consumer, worker, taxpayer or citizen and you hit the wall trying to reach someone who should be helping you. Robots, either nonhuman or human, on the telephone are of little help. Repeated failure to productively voice one’s grievances leads to alienation, anxiety and withdrawal, rather than resurgence to demand remedy.
  4. When a majority of people think their government doesn’t work for them, but instead serves the rich and powerful, people begin to forget the good that government and honest civil servants at all levels do, or can do (see Jacob Hacker’s 2016 book, American Amnesia), thereby disregarding their crucial watchdog role as citizens. In the process, they passively surrender control of government to the plutocrats and oligarchs – leading to a corporate state defined by crony capitalism. The military industrial complex and the corporate welfarists know how to extract dollars for boondoggles from our government, which is all-too-willing to turn its back on taxpayers.
  5. When people make up their minds about an ideology or politician without the facts and relinquish any willingness to hear alternative views, societies become polarized. People are stereotyped, the marketplace of ideas goes bankrupt and instances of incivility and dehumanization increase.
  6. When people constantly consume media fueled by violence, political insults, crime and celebrity misbehavior, rather than giving voice to the good that people do every day in civil society or to important points of agreement between liberals and conservatives, the way we relate to news and each other becomes needlessly skewed. This problem has increased exponentially in recent years.
  7. If people of all backgrounds feel powerless, they will be powerless. This self-perception stifles democracy and often results in people turning their blame against one another and ignoring the power structures at the root of the problem.
  8. Readers think; thinkers read. That includes learning from the mistakes of societies throughout history that wrongly believed that they were impervious to crumbling from within. In our culture of virtual reality and Twitter-length propaganda, we all too often forget the valuable lessons of past mistakes.  History is a great teacher, as anyone who has studied how the bloody World War I was triggered by a teenager assassinating an archduke in Sarajevo or how a few rulers of autocratic nations, without institutional civic and political resistance, caused the deaths of 60 million people in World War II, can attest.
  9. At this point, some readers may be wondering about the powerful people who comprise the Wall Street and Washington supremacists. Aren’t they heavily responsible for the disintegration of our society’s economic and political health? Of course. But we citizens, day after day, let them get away with actions that embolden them further through what they see as our habitual passivity.
  10. Supporting good candidates who so often lose to silver-tongued bad candidates would be a start. Given what people think of Washington politicians, tens of millions of voters are choosing bad candidates. They may want to ask themselves whether the candidates and their rhetoric they bond with are hiding cruel records and votes against the voters’ own interests. The Washington Republicans’ current effort to take away or make less affordable health insurance, even of Trump voters, is a case in point.

For a top-down analysis, read Peter Wehner’s searing column, Declaration of Disruption in the July 4, 2017 issue of the New York Times, regarding how the rulers at the top are now leading our country “toward chaos, disarray and entropy.”

Half of democracy is showing up at community gatherings, marches, meetings and elections with your fellow citizens. No one can stop you from saying yes to your neighbors, near and far, when they send you their kind invitations to meet new people, hear new ideas, and be urged to pull together for a better community, state, nation and world.

Democracy and its blessings work, but only if we don’t drop out and recommit ourselves to securing these blessings for our posterity. It’s easier than we think!


The ECB’s Monetary Policy Stance – Speech

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The global recovery is firming and broadening. And the ongoing economic expansion in the euro area provides confidence.

But while inflation will gradually head to levels in line with our definition of price stability in the mid-term, it has yet to translate into stronger inflation dynamics. Headline inflation is dampened by the weakness in energy prices. Moreover, measures of underlying inflation remain overall at subdued levels. Therefore, as I pointed out yesterday in my oral presentation at the Bank Negara Malaysia Monetary Policy Conference, a very substantial degree of monetary accommodation is still needed for underlying inflation pressures to gradually build up and support headline inflation developments in the medium term.

Let me provide you with some details of the ongoing recovery. Euro area real GDP increased by 0.6%, quarter on quarter, in the first quarter of 2017, after 0.5% in the last quarter of 2016. Incoming data, notably survey results, continue to point to solid, broad-based growth in the period ahead. The pass-through of our monetary policy measures is supporting domestic demand and has facilitated the deleveraging process. The recovery in investment continues to benefit from very favourable financing conditions and improvements in corporate profitability. Private consumption is supported by employment gains, which are also benefiting from past labour market reforms, and by increasing household wealth. Moreover, the global recovery should increasingly lend support to trade and euro area exports. However, economic growth prospects continue to be dampened by a slow pace of implementation of structural reforms, particularly in product markets, and by remaining balance sheet adjustment needs in a number of sectors, notwithstanding ongoing improvements.

The risks surrounding the euro area growth outlook might be upward in the short term, but are overall broadly balanced. On the one hand, the current positive cyclical momentum increases the chances of a stronger than expected economic upswing. On the other hand, downside risks primarily relating to global factors continue to exist.

The thread of deflation is gone and reflationary forces are at play. Prices pressures in the early stages of the pricing chain remain strong but have still not transmitted to the later stages. Euro area annual HICP inflation was 1.3% in June, down slightly from 1.4% in May, mainly due to lower energy price inflation. Looking ahead, on the basis of current futures prices for oil, headline inflation is likely to remain around current levels in the coming months. In these conditions, we can be more assured about the return of inflation to our objective than we were a few years ago. At the same time, measures of underlying inflation remain low and have yet to show convincing signs of a pick-up, as domestic cost pressures, including wage growth, are still subdued: although compensation per hour worked is rising, compensation per employee remains flat. This divergence goes back, at least in part, to the increased fragmentation of labour time. In the labour market technological advance, in particular the use of the internet allows for more services being offered with less intermediation at lower prices.

Underlying inflation in the euro area is expected to rise only gradually over the medium term, supported by our monetary policy measures, the continuing economic expansion and the corresponding gradual absorption of economic slack.

Also broad money (M3) continues to expand at a robust pace, with an annual rate of growth of 5.0% in May 2017, after 4.9% in April. As in previous months, annual growth in M3 was mainly supported by its most liquid components, with the narrow monetary aggregate M1 expanding at an annual rate of 9.3% in May 2017, unchanged from April.

The recovery in the growth of loans to the private sector observed since the beginning of 2014 is proceeding. The annual growth rate of loans to non-financial corporations remained stable at 2.4% in May 2017, while the annual growth rate of loans to households increased to 2.6%, from 2.4% in April. The euro area bank lending survey for the second quarter of 2017 indicates that credit standards for loans to enterprises and loans to households for house purchase have further eased and that loan growth continues to be supported by increasing demand. The pass-through of the monetary policy measures put in place since June 2014 continues to significantly support borrowing conditions for firms and households and credit flows across the euro area.

The cross-check of the outcome of the economic analysis with the signals coming from the monetary analysis confirmed the need for a continued very substantial degree of monetary accommodation to secure a sustained return of inflation rates towards levels that are below, but close to, 2%.

In order to reap the full benefits from our monetary policy measures, other policy areas must contribute decisively to strengthening the longer-term growth potential and reducing vulnerabilities. Political winds are becoming tailwinds. There is newfound confidence in the reform process, and newfound support for European cohesion, which could help unleash pent-up demand and investment, if confirmed by decisive action.

Still, the implementation of structural reforms needs to be substantially stepped up to increase resilience, reduce structural unemployment and boost productivity growth. Regarding fiscal policies, all countries would benefit from intensifying efforts towards achieving a more growth-friendly composition of public finances. A full, transparent and consistent implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact and of the macroeconomic imbalances procedure over time and across countries remains essential to bolster the resilience of the euro area economy.

Speech presented at MNI connect event, Singapore, 25 July 2017

Coalition Announces Death Of Several Islamic State Leaders In Syria And Iraq

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Coalition airstrikes killed several senior Islamic State of Iraq and Syria propagandists and facilitators in Iraq and Syria, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials announced Thursday.

“The removal of these key ISIS leaders disrupts ISIS’s propaganda production, distribution, and the ability to fund ISIS’ terrorist activities,” officials said.

CJTF-OIR officials announced the deaths of the following ISIS terrorists:

  • Abu Sulayman al-Iraqi, a senior ISIS propaganda official, was killed by a coalition airstrike near Mosul, Iraq, in early July. Al-Iraqi provided strategic guidance and production oversight for ISIS propaganda that recruited, indoctrinated and directed terrorists around the world.
  • Bassam al-Jayfus, who handled ISIS funds for terror attacks, was killed by a coalition airstrike in Mayadin, Syria, July 18, 2017. His death causes a disruption to ISIS’s multinational money laundering network, which is used to pay for foreign terrorist fighters as well as terror plotting and attacks throughout the world.
  • Rayaan Meshaal, a senior ISIS media official, was killed between May 25-27 by a coalition airstrike conducted near Mayadin, Syria. Meshaal was the head and founder of Amaq, ISIS’s official propaganda media outlet. Meshaal oversaw, authorized and disseminated ISIS digital propaganda to instigate and direct terror and recruit foreign terrorist fighters.
  • Abu-Khattab al-Rawi, an ISIS media emir, was killed by a coalition airstrike in Ba’aj, Iraq, May 17, 2017. His death was announced by U.S. Central Command on May 26, 2017.
  • Abu-Sayf al-‘Isawi, an ISIS media emir, was killed by a coalition airstrike in al-Qa’im, Iraq, April 27, 2017.
  • Abu Ali al-Janubi, ISIS’s senior media director, was killed by a coalition airstrike in Mayadin, Syria, April 16, 2017.
  • Abrahim al-Ansari, an ISIS propaganda official, was killed by a coalition airstrike in Qaim, Iraq, March 25, 2017. His death was announced by CJTF-OIR officials on March 31, 2017.

The deaths of these terrorists eliminates senior leaders and facilitators with extensive experience and training, task force officials said, and degrades the ability of ISIS to plan and conduct attacks on civilian targets in Iraq and Syria, as well throughout the region and in the West.

“The coalition will continue to exert pressure on ISIS senior leaders and associates across multiple networks in order to degrade, disrupt, and dismantle ISIS structures and remove the extremist terrorists throughout Iraq and Syria,” officials said.

Trump Is Right About “Transgenders”– OpEd

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US President Donald Trump’s decision to ban so-called transgender persons from the military makes perfect sense: the armed forces exist to win wars—they are not a laboratory for social or sexual engineers. There is an underlying issue, however, that is much more serious. It’s time for some straight talk.

No one doubts that there are men who have, and want to, transition to the other sex, and vice versa, but it is not generally understood that transgender persons are a fiction—they do not exist. These people are more properly known as transsexuals—they are attempting to change their sex. I say attempting because they cannot succeed. To wit: Bruce Jenner will never be able to menstruate.

Gender refers to socially learned roles that are appropriate for the sexes, for males and females. Those roles are universally the same in every society in the history of the world: women are nurturers and men are warriors. Why? Because women give birth and men do not. Moreover, men have more testosterone than women, making them more aggressive. Neither sex is better than the other; rather, as the Catholic Church informs, they complement each other.

This is what biology and anthropology affirm, and what the Catholic Church teaches. In other words, gender roles take their cues from nature, and ultimately from nature’s God, which explains why the LGBT segment of the population—it is not a “community”—is railing against it. They find support, of course, among cultural elites, many of whom deny the reality of nature and nature’s God.

Trans persons should not be bullied, or subjected to what the Catholic Church calls “unjust discrimination.” But there are plenty of good reasons, especially for the military, to practice just discrimination against any person or group of persons who may logically compromise winning in the battlefield.

To cite one example, the reason why Type 1 diabetics are barred from the military is because of their need for regular injections; accommodating them is not practical. Trans persons need regular injections as well. So if anything, allowing trans persons to serve, but not Type 1 diabetics, is not fair—it is an expression of unjust discrimination. The answer is not to allow these diabetics to serve, but to ban both groups.

When I was undergoing a physical at a military base in Brooklyn during the Vietnam war—it was part of the filtering program of prospective airmen—the fellow in front of me was rejected for being underweight, and the guy behind me was rejected for being overweight. I was declared to be just right.

That’s life—inequality exists. But it is important to concede that not all manifestations of it are inequitable. Hence, the difference between just discrimination and unjust discrimination.

Azerbaijan Drops Out Of NATO Exercises Without Explanation

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By Joshua Kucera

When NATO military exercises kick off in Georgia next week, they will include troops from the United States, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, and Armenia. But they won’t include Azerbaijan, an unexpected, last-minute dropout.

Azerbaijan also didn’t participate in another set of recently concluded NATO-affiliated drills in Romania, although in past years they had participated in several previous iterations of the drill. Armenia, meanwhile, took part for the first time in the exercises, under the rubric Saber Guardian

And Azerbaijan also didn’t take part in U.S./Ukraine-hosted naval exercises in the Black Sea, called Sea Breeze, in spite of earlier promises that they would. (Armenia didn’t take part in these, either, possibly because they have no naval forces.)

It’s not clear why Azerbaijan dropped out of the exercises in Georgia and the Black Sea. There has been no official explanation, and neither the Ministry of Defense nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to The Bug Pit’s request for comment.

The exercises are all part of a huge series of NATO drills around the Black Sea this summer in which about 40,000 troops are participating. This, naturally, has aroused Russia’s ire. “All these deployments, including the incessant series of exercises, create an absolutely new configuration of forces near our borders, which in a substantial way not only worsen the security situation but also present a danger, a threat to Russia,” said Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Alexander Grushkov.

And Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigoriy Karasin accused Georgia of “aggressive escapades” and that “the exercises being conducted in Georgia with the participation of NATO soldiers do not inspire optimism and a sense of security in the region.”

So it may seem unlikely that Armenia, by far Russia’s closest ally in the South Caucasus and a member of Russia’s anti-NATO, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), is taking part in these aggressive escapades. It’s not clear in what capacity or strength they’re taking part — neither the exercise organizers nor Armenia has given any details about what sort of units it’s sending.

But it’s common for Armenia to send small units to NATO exercises, and otherwise cooperate in limited ways with NATO. “No doubt, the CSTO and NATO pursue different goals, but… our practice shows that it is possible that a country finds ways for cooperation in different formats to ensure its national security,” President Serzh Sargsyan said earlier this year.

The more curious case is Azerbaijan. Baku cooperates with NATO as well; just last month Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov visited Brussels to discuss the country’s participation in NATO’s Afghanistan mission, and in May an Azerbaijani delegation went to Brussels to discuss future cooperation. Azerbaijani troops have taken part in a number of exercises in the past.

The story of these exercise dropouts has been more or less ignored by the major Azerbaijani press, but one website quoted military analyst Uzeir Jafarov as saying that Armenia’s presence at Noble Partner would justify Azerbaijan staying away. (It’s worth noting, though, that Armenia wasn’t in the Sea Breeze exercises which Azerbaijan also dropped out of, and both Armenia and Azerbaijan took part, without incident, in the NATO Saber Guardian exercises last year.) Another article, somewhat confusing the timeline of events, suggested that “Azerbaijan is not taking part in the exercises on its own initiative, and in its absence Armenia saw its chance to finally catch NATO’s eye.”

Kremlin Talks About Traditional Values To Avoid Responsibility For Social Policy Failures – OpEd

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Moral norms are important for any society, Vladislav Inozemtsev says; but the Kremlin’s promotion of spirituality and traditional values is not leading to their strengthening among Russians but rather allowing the Kremlin to avoid taking responsibility for its social policy failures and doing something about them.

In an essay for the RBC newspaper, the Moscow economist argues that the current Russian government strategy of minimizing attention to social problems, relying on prohibitions, allowing family violence to go unchecked and exacerbating suspicions and hatreds isn’t lead to “serious positive changes” (rbc.ru/newspaper/2017/07/26/597727d09a79471a7578658c).

Talk about “spiritual values,” he continues, works to the benefit of the Kremlin in two ways. On the one hand, it allows Russia to position itself as “’an island of morality’” internationally. And on the other, it promotes the ideas Russians are personally to blame for what happens and that they have no reason to hold the government responsible for its shortcomings.

In exploiting this device, however, the authorities forget that religiosity by itself does not necessarily improve the socialization of individuals and that talk about moral norms gives rise to a sense that nothing needs to be done beyond that, neither of which helps improve the situation with regard to HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, family violence or other problems.

Instead of distracting attention with all this talk about “spiritual values,” Inozemtsev says, the Russian authorities should be focusing attention on the problems of Russian society and drawing on the approaches of other countries. That is, he argues, a minimum “if Russia wants to survive.”

Indeed, he says, it should stop counting the number of churches and prayers as a mark of success and stop greeting any effort to provide objective information about real problems as the work of the enemies of the country. But tragically, the current Russian regime seems committed to moving in exactly the opposite direction, hardly a good omen for the future.

Spain Arrests Moroccan Man For Spreading ISIS Ideology On Internet

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Spain’s Guardia Civil arrested a Moroccan citizen in Biscay for spreading ideology of terrorist group Islamic State (DAESH) on the internet.

The detainee, of Moroccan origin and a resident of the town of Balmaseda in Biscay, is being investigated as the material author of the criminal offence of terrorism through the social media. His direct contact with fighters in the conflict zones allowed him access to material which he later distributed, principally through his own Facebook page.

On Wednesday, officers from the Intelligence Service of the Guardia Civil arrested a 22-year old Moroccan, Y.I., in Balmaseda (Biscay), charged with the criminal offence of terrorism.

The detainee, who carried out his activities in a highly radicalized environment, had a Facebook profile through which he distributed the ideology of the terrorist group DAESH. The spread of the terrorist ideology was also backed up by images of the activities carried out by foreign terrorist fighters in Syria with whom he was in very close contact.

The Guardia Civil is currently searching the home of the detainee to collect evidence of his activities, which were mainly carried out by electronic means, and to identify other possible sympathisers of the terrorist group DAESH in Spain

Since 2013, the detainee has been spreading publications, which showed his degree of extremism, constantly referring to the Jihad and the armed fight in defence of Islam, glorifying DAESH terrorists as well as leaders of different Salafi-Jihadist terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, the al Nusrah Front (now referred to as Jabhat Fatah al Sham) and DAESH. In his profile, he praised the commission of terrorist attacks perpetrated by these Jihadist groups and even posting an annual reminder in commemoration of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Since 26 June 2015, the year in which the Ministry of Home Affairs raised the Counter-Terrorism Alert Level to level 4 (Spanish acronym: NAA-4), the law enforcement agencies have arrested a total of 186 Jihadi terrorists in operations carried out in Spain and abroad, and a total of 231 since the start of 2015.

Peru: Government Doesn’t Recognize Social Conflicts

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The number of social conflicts in Peru dropped in the first half of 2017, going from 212 in December 2016 to 177 in June of this year, according to the 20th report from the Mining Conflicts Observatory, released on July 19, which collects figures from the Ombudsman Office.

According to José de Echave, head of the Mining Conflicts Observatory —made up by the non-governmental organizations Solidarity Action for Development (CooperAcción), the Ecumenical Foundation for Development and Peace (FEDEPAZ) and the Training and Intervention Group for Sustainable Development (Grufides)— there is a declining tendency towards social conflicts, particularly since last March, due to the Coastal El Niño, the climatic phenomenon characterized for the abnormal warming of the waters of the Pacific ocean, which devastated the Peruvian coast earlier this year.

However, said De Echave, “there have been changes made in the methodology being used by the Ombudsman Office to keep records of the social conflicts,” but what is certain is that the reduction in social conflicts is not the result of a government strategy. Last month´s creation of the Vice-Ministry of Territorial Governance, the entity in charge of handling social conflicts, has had nothing to do with this decline, said De Echave.

The head of the Vice-Ministry, Attorney Javier Fernández-Concha, explained during a foreign press conference held on June 7, that “its function and objectives are not only to handle social conflicts once they reach a violence stage. We have a vision of territorial development, of what the causes of conflict are and how to reduce them before reaching a situation of violence; a sign that society is not understanding itself.”

The report from the Observatory, however, considers that Fernández-Concha “has pretended to distance himself from the approach of the Ombudsman Office and the reports on social conflicts that seem to be the cause of discomfort for some people. Almost by magic, he has pointed out — without explaining how — that there are only five social conflicts taking place in the country and not the 217 as reported by the Ombudsman Office. As far as he is concerned, a conflict only exists ‘when there is a crisis, a road blockade, a kidnapping, and the legal order is broken´. He adds that “to handle both dialogue and conflict at the same time is very difficult in a negotiation and to accomplish it is ‘simply to capitulate´.”

This approach is a serious step backwards, the report states, and the reality is that crisis or social unrest categories are getting confused with conflict.

“We cannot lose sight that beyond the existence of protest events, there is an undercurrent of conflict, which is the one that must be understood and obviously addressed, in order to face the root of the problem that manifests before, during and after the protests,” the document reads.

Environmental defenders at risk

Also worrisome is the criminalization of social protest. In the presentation of the report, Mirtha Vásquez, of Grufides, drew attention about the risks environmental defenders are facing.

“There is violence against them and a latent risk of attacks and murders. Attacks for defending their territories — against mining, oil, hydroelectric companies —, psychosocial violence that is used in the media and social networks, characterized by stigmatizing, defamation, categorizing them as enemies of development. This puts the defenders at risk, and the state is not responding because these attacks are considered ‘freedom of expression´. The lack of response encourages impunity; the law is being used to dismantle the social movement,” she said.

David Velasco, of FEDEPAZ, denounced that Law Decree 1095, in place since 2010, allows for the intervention of the Armed Forces in a protest when considering the participants a “hostile group,” and for the use of fire arms.

To file criminal charges against social and environmental leaders that are open for years is another strategy to criminalize protests. In general, the report states, “environmental leaders continue to be strongly attacked and are permanently being discredited … So far there is no efficient state mechanism that can respond to the real risks these people is facing.”

Another issue addressed by the report is the reduction of Environmental Quality Standards, supposedly to favor investment from extractive industries, and the setback in the process of the spatial planning due to changes in the regulations of organization and functions of the Ministry of the Environment (MINAM), taking away from it the administration of the country´s spatial planning, and relegating it to only environmental spatial planning.

Ana Leyva, Director of CooperAcción, told Latinamerica Press that spatial planning “is outside everyone´s mandate, it is now up in the air. It is a weakening of the environmental authority.”

For De Echave, the government seems to not understand that “the objective bases that give an explanation to the conflicts are multidimensional: social, environmental, economic, cultural, and occupational. There are conflicts in a dormant situation that could escalate at any time. For example, occupational conflicts have cropped up in the mining sector, just as an example. As the Peruvian economy is in a recession, conflicts stemming from demands will appear.”


How Tax-Dodging Billionaires Use Farmers As Props – OpEd

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By Chuck Collins*

After this summer, President Trump and the Republican Congress have one big item on their agenda: taxes. Specifically, cutting them for the rich.

One tax they’ve got in their crosshairs is the estate tax — which they malign as “the death tax.” But it’s nothing of the sort.

Passed a century ago at the urging of President Theodore Roosevelt, the estate tax is a levy on millionaire inheritances. It puts a brake on the concentration of wealth and political power, and raises substantial revenue — over a quarter of a trillion dollars over the next decade, if it’s kept — from the richest one tenth of 1 percent.

Yet lobbyists are trying to put a populist spin on their effort to abolish this tax, which is paid exclusively by millionaires and billionaires. Puzzlingly, they’re deploying farmers as props and claiming that the tax means the “death of the family farm.”

The accusation is pure manure.

Only households with wealth starting at $11 million (and individuals with wealth over $5.5 million) are subject to the tax. “This hurts a lot of farmers,” claimed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Many people have to sell their family farm.”

But a new report by President Trump’s own U.S. Department of Agriculture shows this claim is bull. Only 4 out of every 1,000 farms will owe any estate tax at all — and the effective tax rate on these small farms is a modest 11 percent.

Of those few farms, most have substantial non-farm income, according to the report — think billionaire Ted Turner’s ranch in Montana. And estate tax opponents haven’t been able to identify a single example of a farm being lost because of the estate tax.

Still, the rodeo continues.

When the House Ways and Means Committee staged a July hearing against the estate tax, they summoned South Dakota farmer Scott Vanderwal to talk about the woes of the estate tax. The problem was, as Vanderwal himself revealed, his farm wouldn’t even be subject to the tax.

In 2014, right-wing election groups ran $1.8 million worth of ads featuring farmer John Mahan of Paris, Kentucky. “For our family farms to survive, we’ve got to get in this fight” to “end the death tax,” he said.

What the ad fails to disclose is that Mahan is the 15th biggest recipient of farm subsidies in Bourbon County, taking $158,213 of taxpayer money between 1995 and 2014. While some farm subsidies promote price stability and conservation practices, the bulk of funds go to the wealthiest 1 percent of farmers and corporate agricultural operations.

Farm organizations like the National Farmers Union and the American Family Farm Coalition support retaining the estate tax. They believe the concentration of farmland and farm subsidies has created unfair corporate farm monopolies across rural America.

“The National Farmers Union, through its grassroots policy, respects what the estate tax represents,” said union president Roger Johnson in testimony to the Treasury Department. “We are not opposed to the estate tax.”

When defenders of the estate tax have proposed a “carve out” to exempt any remaining farms, the anti-tax crusaders oppose it. They don’t want to lose their fig leaf.

All this farm talk mystifies who actually pays the tax. Most estate taxpayers live in big cities and wealthy states such New York, Florida, and California. Few have probably ever driven a tractor.

Instead of farmers in overalls, picture Tiffany Trump. If Congress abolishes the estate tax, the president’s children stand to inherit billions more.

In the coming tax debate, watch out for the advertisements and sound bites about farmers and the estate tax. The tax lobbyists for billionaires will be pulling the strings.

*Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a co-editor of Inequality.org. He’s the author of the recent book Born on Third Base. Distributed by OtherWords.org.

Qatar Warns Of Continued Israeli Violations In Al Aqsa Mosque And Al Quds

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Qatar participated in the emergency meeting of Arab foreign minister that was held Thursday with a delegation chaired by HE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi. The meeting discussed the latest Israeli attacks and actions against the city of Al Quds and Al Aqsa Mosque.

In a speech to the meeting, Al Muraikhi said that the occupied city of Al Quds in general and Al Aqsa Mosque in particular are facing an unprecedented and systematic Israeli aggression that takes the entire region to a very dangerous juncture that would be unnecessary if there is an Israeli government that pays heed to international community and its resolutions.

In his speech, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs stressed that the Israeli government’s campaign to Judaize the city and close Al Aqsa Mosque in the face of worshipers and its attempt to impose a new reality in the holy city violates all international laws and norms, violates the resolutions of the United Nations and the relevant UN Security Council, stirs Arab and Muslim emotions, and represents a fierce war against the Palestinian people.

He added that Israel, the occupying power, is striving to change the historical reality in the Holy Mosque by installing metal detector gates in a dangerous precedent that has not happened for nearly half a century, especially since the terrorist crime of burning Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969, a matter which would lead to a very serious escalation and serious consequences and fuel religious war in the region.

Al Muraikhi said that these violations, backed by military force, are part of the implementation of pre-planned plans to Judaize the occupied city of Jerusalem and increased attempts to impose temporal and spatial division in Al Aqsa Mosque, by increasing excavations, incursions and desecration, a matter which constitutes a blatant aggression against the rights and sanctities of the Palestinian people, the Arab and Islamic nation.

In this regard, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs referred to the decisions of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Human Rights Council, which have repeatedly stressed that the city of East Jerusalem (Al Quds) is an occupied city and an integral part of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, and that Al Aqsa Mosque is a holy place for Muslims only.

He insisted that the State of Qatar strongly condemns these ongoing Israeli violations of Al Quds and Al Aqsa Mosque, reiterates its total rejection of any change in the status quo in East Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and calls upon the government of Israel to cease all actions and restore the situation in the city to what it was, including the removal of metal detector gates and respect for freedom of worship, and the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to practice their religious rites.

Some Incremental Progress Of Trump Administration Despite Pall Of Scandal – OpEd

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Although the media is properly focused on the very troubling issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and the Trump campaign’s apparent willingness to collude with a foreign power to win it, and the heretofore Republican debacle in trying to repeal Obamacare, progress is being made on less publicized issues—whether by the Trump administration or other branches of government pushing back against it.

Let’s start off with some unblemished kudos for the Trump administration. Trump is cutting off aid to American-backed rebels in Syria that had absolutely no chance to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s brutal Russian-backed government (US aid and military advisers supporting groups fighting ISIS in eastern Syria are being augmented). Although the media focused on this move’s helping Russia without getting much in return, the policy change was long overdue. After US removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya produced chaos, instability, and increased terrorism in both countries, the Russians were likely right that removing Assad would have led to the radical Islamists—either ISIS or al Qaeda-linked groups―taking over the entire country. Ending aid to such anti-Assad rebels may help Russia, but it is also the wise thing to do anyway.

The rough-and-tough Trump administration also made the correct decision to bring an al Qaeda terrorist suspect to the United States for trial in a civilian federal court, instead of trying him in one of the kangaroo military tribunals at the prison in Guantanamo Bay. This move may be a tacit acknowledgement that civilian courts have a much greater success rate at actually trying, convicting, and punishing terrorists than do the unconstitutional tribunals, which have besmirched the reputation of the admired American justice system.

Next, on to an issue on which the Trump administration should get partial praise. Although Trump has railed against Obama’s multilateral nuclear deal with Iran―which obligated the Iranians to suspend their nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions―he avoided scrapping the agreement, probably because other countries besides Iran are involved in the pact. It has been widely acknowledged that Iran has complied with the agreement. Yet, the Trump administration is violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the deal by slapping new sanctions on Iran’s missile program and its Revolutionary Guard Corps. Although Trump’s Secretary of Defense James Mattis is an anti-Iran hardliner, and Trump’s inclination is to side with Saudi Arabian despots against the somewhat more democratic Iranians, the United States does share some interests with Iran—for example, in countering ISIS—and should probably have a more even-handed relationship with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

The history of economic sanctions indicates that they can sometimes bring short- to medium-term economic pressure on a target nation, until the victim learns how to evade them, but are usually ineffective in compelling the target to make major political changes—their primary goal. Thus, sanctions usually end up costing the target money and having a symbolic effect, but not motivating decisive behavioral change. As a result, the augmented sanctions bill—on Iran, North Korea, and Russia—that will probably be passed with overwhelming veto-proof majorities in Congress will likely not improve the behavior of any of these countries. Despite these major drawbacks, however, the bill is needed to inflict some punishment on Russia for what was a direct attack on American democracy. True, the United States has meddled in other nations’ elections in the past, and should stop it, but some punishment is nevertheless needed to deter such future meddling in US polls. President Obama’s punishment of Russia by kicking out 35 Russian diplomats and closing their vacation spots in the United States was a pathetic response to such a substantial offense.

President Trump has been leery of the sanctions bill, because it compels him to get congressional approval to remove any sanctions from his beloved Russia, but it is necessary legislative pushback on an imperial president with authoritarian tendencies.

Other American institutions are also rallying against potential tyranny—the courts on Trump’s travel ban seemingly aimed at Muslims, suspicious states in denying him their voter information, the State and Defense Department bureaucracies by pushing back on his slavish support for Saudi autocrats in their dispute with tiny Qatar (which hosts a major US base used in the war against ISIS), and the media in fact checking his myriad of lies and in its dogged investigation of the very important potential collusion with Russia and probable obstruction of justice.

Thus, despite the pall of scandal, some incremental progress is being made during the Trump administration—either by the administration or by the checks and balances against it in the American system.

This article was published at and is reprinted with permission.

China To Provide $1.5 Billion To Finance Iran Railway Project

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China’s Exim Bank (the Export-Import Bank of China) penned a contract with Iran’s Bank of Industry and Mine to finance $1.5 billion for signaling of Tehran-Mashhad railroad, IRIB news reported.

The agreement was signed in Tehran on Tuesday by Iran’s Bank of Industry and Mine Managing Director Ali Ashraf Afkhami and Vice President of Exim Bank Sun Ping during a ceremony attended by China’s ambassador to Tehran, Iran’s deputy transport minister, head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (known as RAI), and one of the deputies from Central Bank of Iran (CBI).

As reported, the total value of the contract, which is the first one in its kind during the past one and a half year, stands at $1.7 billion. The Chinese bank will finance $1.5 billion of the project and $200 million will be provided by Iran.

“The agreement has been signed after 16 months of continuous negotiations with the Chinese bank,” Afkhami said addressing the signing ceremony, underlining the significance of JCOPA, commonly called the nuclear deal, implementation.

As Ping said, “China’s Exim Bank has financed 26 projects in Iran in various sectors including electricity, petrochemicals, oil and gas, and non-ferrous metals till the present time

Iran’s Relations With Tajikistan: Trends And Prospects – Analysis

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By Fatemeh Atri-Sangari*

Relations between Iran and Tajikistan have seen many ups and downs in recent years. The latest negative development in these relations was a request by Tajik authorities who asked officials in charge of Iran’s economic and cultural offices in Khujand city to shut down those offices. This came after Tajikistan stopped the activities of Iran’s cultural advisory office in the city of Dushanbe in addition to shutting down the local office of the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation in that city in 2015.

In general, the year 2015 has been considered as a turning point in Iran’s relations with Tajikistan, because it was then that Iran invited Mohieddin Kabiri, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan, to a conference in Tehran, thus causing extreme dissatisfaction of Tajik officials. However, it seems that this development was just a small sign of worsening relations, which had already started to deteriorate. Therefore, if problems in the two countries’ relations are taken into account, many reasons at bilateral, regional and transregional levels can be found for this deterioration. A study of Iran’s relations with Tajikistan with the main focus on the aforesaid reasons is the goal of this paper.

Reality of Iran’s relations with Tajikistan: An inside view

Iran was the first country to open its embassy in Tajik capital, Dushanbe, after the country’s independence in 1992 and remained impartial through the country’s civil war. To prove this impartiality, Tehran hosted three Tajik peace conferences in 1994, 1995, and 1997. Many Tajiks have found in long years that they are an important part of the Persian cultural realm and not part of the Russian culture. Therefore, Iran has more potential for working in Tajikistan compared to other countries in Central Asia.

At the same time, Tajikistan is almost the poorest country in Central Asia and Iran can use economic aid as a means of boosting its political standing in that country. However, this is just one flip side of the two countries’ relations. On the other side, Emomali Rahmon, the president of Tajikistan, considers Tehran as a useful balancing weight against Russia’s influence and to protect Tajikistan’s legacy and identity. This is why he even issued an edict banning Russian names to be used for calling Tajik children. Therefore, after Iran’s cultural office was opened in Tajikistan, the two countries’ relations further expanded and efforts were made to introduce Persian poetry and arts in Tajikistan in addition to holing Nowruz (Persian New Year) celebrations there.

From an economic viewpoint, trade ties between the two countries expanded in the late 1990s and early 2000s, increasing from 40 million dollars in 2000 to 140 million dollars in 2007, 177 million dollars in 2011, and finally 295.2 million dollars in 2013. However, the figure has been going downhill since 2013 and reached 171 million dollars in 2016. Iran also helped with the construction of Tajikistan’s Sangtuda 2 power plant with a capacity of 220 megawatts of electricity in 2011. Iran invested 180 million dollars in that project with Tajikistan’s share standing at 40 million dollars. Implementation of such projects greatly improved Iran’s image as a regional power in Central Asia.

On the other hand, Iran’s private sector also created many jobs in Tajikistan and Iranian companies are widely involved in the country’s energy, construction, agriculture and transportation sectors. As a result, Iran, along with China and Russia, remains one of the three main trade partners of Tajikistan and more than one hundred cooperation agreements in various fields have been signed between Tehran and Dushanbe.

Why Iran and Tajikistan drifted apart?

Many bilateral, regional and transregional reasons have been given for current cold relations between the two countries. On the bilateral level, Iranian businesspeople working in Tajikistan were faced with serious corruption and extortion by local officials and the police, which gradually reduced Iran’s investment in that country. The case of Babak Zanjani and problems that emerged after his apprehension by Iran was just one case to the point. On the other hand, Sangtuda 2 power plant, which had been built by Iran, has been frequently pushed to the brink of shutdown as Tajikistan did not pay the price of electricity and the issue has led to problems between the two countries.

As differences soared, Iran invited Mohieddin Kabiri, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan, to the 29th International Islamic Unity Conference on December 27, 2015, whose party is considered opposition to the Tajik government. This came as the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan had been designated as an extremist and terrorist group by the country’s government, and all its activities had been banned. In reaction to Iran’s measure, Dushanbe accused Tehran of harboring terrorists. Then, on October 22, 2016, the father of Mohieddin Kabiri passed away and a ceremony was held for him in northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad. Tajikistan showed immediate reaction to this issue.

As of October 24, 2016, Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security halted visa issuance for citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran both at border and at Dushanbe International Airport. Following these developments, Iranian entrepreneurs and businesspeople started leaving Tajikistan. In addition, limitations were considered for the import of some Iranian goods, including tea, chicken and chicken meat. Another reaction shown by Tajikistan was opposition to permanent membership of Iran at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Saudi Arabia’s influence in Tajikistan

At the present time and due to escalating challenges across the Middle East region, Tajikistan is focus of attention for a number of governments due to its strategic position. Of course, Tajikistan has been always more inclined toward Iran, because cultural and historical heritage as well as the common language bring the two countries close. Saudi Arabia, however, has been providing the country with hefty financial aid, which is above Iran’s ability.

In fact, it seems that Tajikistan was more willing to have Iran as a strategic partner and benefit from relations with Tehran. Of course, relations between Dushanbe and Riyadh were not friendly in past years due to the support offered by Saudis to Wahhabi elements during the civil war in Tajikistan. However, Saudi Arabia has given 200 million dollars in aid to Tajikistan to help it construct new buildings for the parliament and government and has also allocated 35 million dollars to construction of new schools in Tajikistan. Riyadh announced its readiness in January 2017 to provide a long-term loan to Tajikistan to finish the country’s most important hydropower plant, known as Rogun. Saudi Arabia has also promised to invest six billion dollars in Tajikistan’s economy. Of course, it seems that Tajikistan is also pursuing its political goals, in addition to economic ones, through strengthening relations with Saudi Arabia.

Tajikistan is aware that widespread presence of Saudi Arabia in that country can be potentially dangerous to its domestic security. However, in order to gain economic benefits and show its advantages to Iran and even Russia, Dushanbe insists on maintaining relations with Riyadh. For example, in January 2016 and during a trip to Saudi Arabia by Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Riyadh asked Tajikistan to become a member of the Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT), but Tajikistan did not answer that request and simply said it would consider it for further assessment.

Of course, Rahmon’s participation at the Riyadh meeting in May 2017 showed that relations between the two countries are rapidly expanding. In fact, one can assume that big powers both inside and outside the region are being pressured by Tajikistan and Dushanbe is trying to do anything to boost its maneuvering room among those powers and secure its own interests. However, without even considering Iran’s position, relations between Dushanbe and Riyadh can be a source of threat to Russia and, therefore, they cannot be expected to expand beyond a certain level. This is true because one of the goals pursued by Saudi Arabia through such relations is to keep this country away from the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and pave the way, along with Americans, for destabilizing Central Asia and border regions of Russia.

Conclusion

During past years, Iran has been aware that the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan has been outlawed by the Tajik government, but at the same time, has been trying to maintain relations with Rahmon’s government. However, it seems that as relations between the two countries got less friendly, especially with regard to financial and economic exchanges, Iran reached the conclusion that the government of Tajikistan has been trying to exploit bilateral relations in its own benefit. The same understanding has prevailed in Tajikistan with regard to Iran and this country has frequently accused Iran of interfering in its internal affairs. Therefore, it is not strange for the two countries’ relations to go downhill, because those projects, which were previously considered as sign of long-term and lasting unity between the two countries, are now “cracked.”

Although there are currently a lot of problems in relations between Tehran and Dushanbe, the two countries, however, have many motivations and contact points to improve their ties. For example, as the year 2016 came to an end, Iran’s railroads authority started negotiations to connect the country’s railroads to those of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan en route to China.

Tajikistan has accepted to invest 3.2-3.5 billion dollars in this project. On the other hand, it seems that there are limitations for cultural exports from Iran, which have been considered by the current Tajik government, and this issue can greatly impede full acceptance of Tajikistan as an unconditional ally for Iran. Up to the present day, cultural relations and common history have been the most important grounds that have really connected Tajikistan to Iran, but cultural closeness is no guarantee for continuation of close political relations.

Of course, at the level of society, Tajik people are not inclined toward extremist versions of Islam and are more given to nationalism and, therefore, seek continuation of their country’s relations with Iran. However, at the level of governments, all existing issues and problems between the two countries must be attended to in a gradual manner and away from any haste. Therefore, the role played by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs must be propped up more than before and all measures must be taken through this ministry and within a clear framework.

*Fatemeh Atri-Sangari
Doctoral Student of Regional Studies at Moscow State University

Bibliography:
1.   Luciano Arvin for The Diplomat, “What does Tehran’s focus on building relations with Dushanbe mean for Central Asia? Iran Courts Tajikistan,” May 31, 2017, http://thediplomat.com/2017/05/iran-courts-tajikistan/

2. Борис Джерелиевский, Тоджикистан отворачивается от Ирана в сторону саудовской Аравии, 25. 05. 2017, http://kolokolrussia.ru/evraziya/tadjikistan-otvorachivaetsya-ot-irana-v-storonu-saudovskoy-aravii

3.    И.Раджабов, Таджикистан – Иран: холодное братство, 15.09.2016, http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1473957360

4. RubenGarcia, Прохладная дружба: что вбивает клин между Таджикистаном и Ираном, 11.05.2017, http://ru.sputnik-tj.com/analytics/20170511/1022283820/iran-tadzhikistan-nedoverie-mejdunarodnyie-otnosheniya.html

5. Сухроб Самади,Исоджон Раджабов,Иран и Таджикистан: дружба и предательство, 21.11.2016, https://www.e-tadjikistan.org/analitika/iran-i-tadzhikistan-druzhba-i-predatelstvo.html

6.   Таджикистан между молотом и наковальней или почему Иран, Саудовская Аравия, Россия и Китай борются за эту республику, 14.06.2017, http://politus.ru/politics/2892-tadzhikistan-mezhdu-molotom-i-nakovalney-ili-pochemu-iran-saudovskaya-araviya-rossiya-i-kitay-boryutsya-za-etu-respubliku.html

Iraq: Claims US-Trained Forces Linked To Mosul War Crimes

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An Iraqi army division trained by the United States government allegedly executed several dozen prisoners in Mosul’s Old City, Human Rights Watch said. Two international observers detailed the summary killings of four people by the Iraqi army’s 16th Division in mid-July 2017, and saw evidence that the unit had executed many more people, including a boy, according to HRW.

The US government should suspend all assistance and support to the 16th Division pending Iraq’s full investigation of the allegations and appropriate prosecutions, Human Rights Watch said. Under the “Leahy Law,” the US is prohibited from providing military assistance to any unit of foreign security forces if there is credible evidence that the unit has committed gross violations of human rights and no “effective measures” are being taken to bring those responsible to justice.

“The US government should make sure it is no longer providing assistance to the Iraqi unit responsible for this spate of executions but also suspend any plans for future assistance until these atrocities have been properly investigated,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Given the widespread abuses by Iraqi forces and the government’s abysmal record on accountability, the US should take a hard look at its involvement with Iraqi forces.”

Two international observers independently told Human Rights Watch that on a day in mid-July at about 10 a.m. in Mosul’s Old City, they saw a group of Iraqi soldiers who identified themselves as members of the 16th Division lead four naked men down an alleyway, after which they heard multiple gunshots. The observers said other soldiers standing in the street told them that the four men were Islamic State (also known as ISIS) fighters.

The observers said that they had been in the area throughout the morning and witnessed no fighting or gunfire in the area. One said they saw the soldiers beat the four men with their rifle butts before leading them away. They said they photographed the incident but a commander later took their camera and deleted the pictures, then ushered them into a nearby building. While they were inside, they heard gunshots. An officer then came in and told the observer to leave the area.

One of the observers said that as they were leaving the area, they saw through the doorway of a damaged house about 20 meters down the street the bodies of a number of naked men lying in the doorway. They said one of the dead men was lying with his hands behind his back and appeared to have been handcuffed, and there was a rope around his legs. The observer returned the next day and photographed three naked bodies and a mattress that appeared to cover additional bodies that they had seen the previous day, and shared the photo with Human Rights Watch.

The observer said the damaged building was adjacent to a building used by the 16th Division as a base in the area. Both observers said that the only Iraqi armed forces they saw while they were in the area were from the 16th Division.

US Defense Department officials have said that they trained and provided support to the Iraqi 16th Division. In November 2015, Maj. Michael Hamilton, an officer of the 82nd Airborne Division, which took a lead in training Iraqi units, told Breaking Defense, an online defense magazine, that, “The 16th Division…was a new unit when we first came in country” and that the 82nd Airborne guided them from “rudimentary training” all the way through operations in Ramadi. He added that, “they were probably the most successful Iraqi army unit participating in that operation.” Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm whether US training and support is ongoing.

The Iraqi 16th Division has been implicated in other extrajudicial executions. On the same day they saw the four men being led away, both observers saw a body lying on the rubble near the division’s base that appeared to be of a boy about 14. Photos of the body, which Human Rights Watch examined, seem to show a deceased male wearing only underwear, with a gunshot wound to his head and his hands bound by a plastic zip tie. A soldier from the 16th Division told one observer that his fellow soldiers had recently executed the boy because he had been an ISIS fighter.

The next day, two 16th Division soldiers escorted one observer through an area of rubble along the Tigris River and showed the observer the severed head of what the soldiers said was an American female ISIS sniper whom they had decapitated. It was not clear whether they decapitated her alive or after her death. The soldiers then led the observer to a nearby area and showed the observer at least 25 bodies lying on mounds of rubble, and bragged that these were ISIS fighters whom they and their fellow soldiers had executed.

The observer shared photos of the severed head and the bodies with Human Rights Watch.

One of the observers said they saw several bulldozers in the area running over and burying bodies under rubble. The soldiers told them they were aiming to block the exits of any underground tunnels where ISIS fighters might still be hiding.

Throughout the military operation to retake Mosul, Human Rights Watch has documented Iraqi forces detaining and holding at least 1,200 men and boys in inhumane conditions without charge, and in some cases torturing and executing them under the guise of screening them for ISIS-affiliation. In the final weeks of the Mosul operation, Human Rights Watch has reported on executions of suspected ISIS affiliates in and around Mosul’s Old City, including the discovery of a mass execution site.

Under the “Leahy Law,” the US government is required to suspend assistance to the 16th Division until the Iraqi government takes three steps, which are often known as “remediation components”: impartial and thorough investigations; impartial and thorough prosecutions or administrative actions, as appropriate; and proportional sentencing or comparable administrative actions.

Despite acknowledging that Iraqi forces committed violations of the laws of war during the Mosul operation and promising to punish those responsible, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has yet to demonstrate that Iraqi authorities have held any soldiers accountable for executing, torturing, and abusing civilians or captured fighters.

Iraqi criminal justice authorities should investigate all alleged crimes, including unlawful killings and mutilation of corpses, by any party in the conflict in a prompt, transparent, and effective manner, up to the highest levels of responsibility. Those found criminally responsible should be appropriately prosecuted. Extrajudicial executions and torture during an armed conflict are war crimes. Despoiling dead bodies and other outrages on personal dignity are violations of the laws of armed conflict and may amount to war crimes.

“The US military should find out why a force that it trained and supported is committing ghastly war crimes,” Whitson said. “US taxpayer dollars should be helping to curtail abuses, not enable them.”

Fear And Trepidation In Tel Aviv: Is Israel Losing Syria War? – OpEd

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Israel, which has played a precarious role in the Syrian war since 2011, is furious to learn that the future of the conflict is not to its liking.

The six-year-old Syria war is moving to a new stage, perhaps its final. The Syrian regime is consolidating its control over most of the populated centers, while ISIS is losing ground fast – and everywhere.

Areas evacuated by the rapidly disintegrated militant group are up for grabs. There are many hotly contested regions sought over by the government of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus and its allies, on the one hand, and the various anti-Assad opposition groups and their supporters, on the other.

With ISIS largely vanquished in Iraq – at an extremely high death toll of 40,000 people in Mosel alone –  warring parties there are moving west. Shia militias, emboldened by the Iraq victory, have been pushing westward as far as the Iraq-Syria border, converging with forces loyal to the Syrian government on the other side.

Concurrently, first steps at a permanent ceasefire are bearing fruit, compared to many failed attempts in the past.

Following a ceasefire agreement between the United States and Russia on July 7 at the G-20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, three provinces in southwestern Syria – bordering Jordan and Israeli-occupied Golan Heights – are now relatively quiet. The agreement is likely to be extended elsewhere.

The Israeli government has made it clear to the US that it is displeased with the agreement, and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been leading strong efforts to undermine the ceasefire.

Netanyahu’s worst fears are, perhaps, actualizing: a solution in Syria that would allow for a permanent Iranian and Hezbollah presence in the country.

In the early phases of the war, such a possibility seemed remote; the constantly changing fortunes in Syria’s brutal combat made the discussion altogether irrelevant.

But things have now changed.

Despite assurances to the contrary, Israel has always been involved in the Syria conflict. Israel’s repeated claims that “it maintains a policy of non-intervention in Syria’s civil war,” only fools US mainstream media.

Not only was Israel involved in the war, it also played no role in the aid efforts, nor did it ever extend a helping hand to Syrian refugees.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have perished in the merciless war; many cities and villages were totally destroyed and millions of Syrians became refugees.

While tiny and poor Lebanon has hosted over a million Syrian refugees, every country in the region and many nations around the world have hosted Syrian refugees, as well. Except Israel.

Even a symbolic government proposal to host 100 Syrian orphans was eventually dropped.

However, the nature of the Israeli involvement in Syria is starting to change. The ceasefire, the growing Russian clout and the inconsistent US position has forced Israel to redefine its role.

A sign of the times has been Netanyahu’s frequent visits to Moscow, to persuade the emboldened Russian President, Vladimir Putin, of Israel’s interests.

While Moscow is treading carefully, unlike Washington it hardly perceives Israeli interests as paramount. When Israel shot down a Syrian missile using an arrow missile last March, the Israeli ambassador to Moscow was summoned for reprimand.

The chastising of Israel took place only days after Netanyahu visited Moscow and “made it clear” to Putin that he wants to “prevent any Syrian settlement from leaving ‘Iran and its proxies with a military presence’ in Syria.”

Since the start of the conflict, Israel wanted to appear as if in control of the situation, at least regarding the conflict in southwestern Syria. It bombed targets in Syria as it saw fit, and casually spoke of maintaining regular contacts with certain opposition groups.

In recent comments before European officials, Netanyahu admitted to striking Iranian convoys in Syria ‘dozens of times.”

But without a joint Israeli-US plan, Israel is now emerging as a weak party. Making that realization quite belatedly, Israel is become increasingly frustrated. After years of lobbying, the Obama Administration refused to regard Israel’s objectives in Syria as the driving force behind his government’s policies.

Failing to obtain such support from newly-elected President Donald Trump as well, Israel is now attempting to develop its own independent strategy.

On June 18, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel has been giving “secret aid” to Syrian rebels, in the form of “cash and humanitarian aid.”

The New York Times reported on July 20 of large shipments of Israeli aid that is “expected to (give) ‘glimmer of hope’ for Syrians.”

Needless to say, giving hope to Syrians is not an Israeli priority. Aside from the frequent bombing and refusal to host any refugees, Israel has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967 and illegally annexed the territory in 1981.

Instead, Israel’s aim is to infiltrate southern Syria to create a buffer against Iranian, Hezbollah and other hostile forces.

Termed “Operation Good Neighbor,” Israel is working diligently to build ties with various heads of tribes and influential groups in that region.

Yet, the Israeli plan appears to be a flimsy attempt at catching up, as Russia and the US, in addition to their regional allies, seem to be converging on an agreement independent from Israel’s own objectives or even security concerns.

Israeli officials are angry, and feel particularly betrayed by Washington. If things continue to move in this direction, Iran could soon have a secured pathway connecting Tehran to Damascus and Beirut,

Israeli National Security Council head, Yaakov Amidror, threatened in a recent press conference that his country is prepared to move against Iran in Syria, alone.

Vehemently rejecting the ceasefire, Amidror said that the Israeli army will “intervene and destroy every attempt to build (permanent Iranian) infrastructure in Syria.”

Netanyahu’s equally charged statements during his European visit also point at the growing frustration in Tel Aviv.

This stands in sharp contrast from the days when the neoconservatives in Washington managed the Middle East through a vision that was largely, if not fully, consistent with Israeli impulses.

The famed strategy paper prepared by a US study group led by Richard Perle in 1996 is of little use now, as the region is no longer shaped by a country or two.

The paper entitled: “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, saw a hostile Arab world masterfully managed by US and Israel.

For a fleeting moment, Tel Aviv hoped that Trump would bring about change to the US attitude.

Indeed, there was that euphoric movement in Israel when the Trump administration struck Syria. But the limited nature of the strike made it clear that the US had no plans for massive military deployment similar to that of Iraq in 2003.

The initial excitement was eventually replaced by cynicism as expressed by this headline in the Monitor: “Netanyahu puts Trump on notice over Syria.”

In 1982, taking advantage of sectarian conflicts, Israel invaded Lebanon and installed a government led by its allies. Those days are long gone.

While Israel remains militarily strong, the region itself has changed and Israel is not the only power holding all the cards.

Moreover, the receding global leadership of the US under Trump makes the Israeli-American duo less effective.

With no alternative allies influential enough to fill the gap, Israel is left, for the first time, with very limited options.

With Russia’s determined return to the Middle East, and the decided retreat by the US, the outcome of the Syria war is almost a foregone conclusion. Surely, this is not the ‘new Syria’ that Israel had hoped for.


Ralph Nader: Can The World Defend Itself From Omnicide? – OpEd

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Notice how more frequently we hear scientists tell us that we’re “wholly unprepared” for this peril or for that rising fatality toll? Turning away from such warnings may reduce immediate tension or anxiety, but only weakens the public awareness and distracts us from addressing the great challenges of our time, such as calamitous climate change, pandemics, and the rise of a host of other self-inflicted disasters.

Here are some warnings about rising and looming risks.

  1. The opioid epidemic is here now, and poised to become further exacerbated. It is the US’s deadliest drug overdose crisis ever, taking over 1000 lives a week. Even that figure is underestimated, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). These fatalities, many of them affecting people in the prime of their life, stem from legally prescribed drugs taken to relieve chronic pain. Tragically ironic!

Congress is figuring out how to budget for many billions of dollars to combat this toll – much greater than the deaths by traffic crashes or AIDS. Republican and Democratic state officials are suing the drug companies for excessive, misleading promotion for profit. Still, the awful toll keeps rising.

  1. Cyberattacks and cyberwarfare are increasingly becoming a facet of daily life. Although IBM and other firms are trying to develop more effective defenses, the current scale of cyberattacks is “crazy”, according to specialist Christopher Ahlberg. As he said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, “If you told anybody 10 years ago about what’s going on now, they wouldn’t believe it.”

Negotiations are not even underway for a cyberwarfare treaty among nations. The sheer scale and horrific implications of this weaponry seems to induce societies to bury their heads in the sand. Former ABC TV host of Nightline, Ted Koppel, discusses this emerging threat in his recent, acclaimed book, “Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared”:

“Imagine a blackout lasting not days but weeks or months. There would be no running water, no sewage, no electric heat, refrigeration, or light. Food and medical supplies would dwindle. Banks would not function. The devices we rely on would go dark. The fact is, one well-placed attack on the electrical grid could cripple much of our infrastructure. Leaders across government, industry and the military know this…yet there is no national plan for the aftermath.”

Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director, Leon Panetta, says Koppel’s book is “an important wake-up call for America.” Yet neither he nor the enormous military-industrial complex, of which he remains a supportive part, are doing much of anything about this doomsday threat to national security. The big manufacturers are too busy demanding ever more taxpayer money for additional nukes, aircraft carriers, submarines, fighter planes, missiles and other weaponry of an increasingly bygone age.

  1. “The World is Not Ready for the Next Pandemic,” headlined a recent Time Magazine article. The authors note that the “US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks H7N9 as the flu strain with the greatest potential to cause a pandemic – an infectious disease outbreak that goes global.” They predict the disease could claim “tens of millions” of lives.

In between his Twitter-tantrums, President Trump approved an insanely myopic proposed budget cut of over $1 billion in the CDC’s programs used to predict and combat rising pandemics from China, African countries and elsewhere. Fortunately cooler heads may prevail in Congress, backed by some private foundations.

The number of new diseases per decade, Time reports, has increased nearly fourfold over the past 60 years. Antibiotics are being overridden by adaptive mutations of bacteria. Dr. Trevor Mundel of the Gates Foundation, asserts, “There’s just no incentive for any company to make pandemic vaccines to store on shelves.” That profit-driven rejection is exactly why government must act to produce the drugs, as the Department of Defense it has successfully done with new anti-malaria drugs in the seventies and eighties.

University of Minnesota Professor Michael Osterholm, one of the nation’s leading experts on infectious diseases, warns that for all our world-class scientists and high-tech isolation units, the US health care system is not ready for the stresses of a major pandemic. Not even close.

  1. It isn’t just Elon Musk, founder of the Tesla company, who is warning that the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is “the greatest risk we face as a civilization.” In 2015, hundreds of other scientists, like renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, and technologists, like Steve Wozniak, signed a public letter that was a one day story, instead of an alarmed world turning it into a galvanizing event. Professor Hawking warns us: “Success in creating Artificial Intelligence would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. In the near term, world militaries are considering autonomous-weapon systems that can choose and eliminate targets.” We humans, Hawking adds, “are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded by AI” In short, the robots race out of control, become self-actuating and are not held back by any moral boundaries.

From Lincoln to Einstein, we have been counseled that new situations require new thinking. A massive reversal of our world’s priorities toward reverence for life and posterity, toward diplomacy and waging peace, toward legal and ethical frameworks for exploding science and technology (including biotechnology and nanotechology) must receive our focus, from families nurturing their children to the philosophers, ethical specialists, engineers and scientists pausing from their exponential discoveries to ponder the serious adverse consequences of their creations.

Our present educational systems – from Harvard Law School, MIT to K-12 – are not rising to these occasions for survival. Our mass media, wallowing in trivia, entertainment, advertisements and political insults, is not holding the politicians accountable to serious levels of public trust and societal safety. Time for new movements awakening our best angels to foresee and forestall. Do any potential leaders at all levels want to be first responders?

Is Closing Guantánamo Still Possible? – OpEd

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Just a few days ago, we passed a forlorn milestone: six months of the presidency of Donald Trump. On every front, this first six months has been a disaster. Trump humiliates America on the international stage, and at home he continues to head a dysfunctional government, presiding by tweet, and with scandal swirling ever closer around him.

On Guantánamo, as we have repeatedly noted, he has done very little. His initial threats to send new prisoners there, and to revive CIA “black sites,” have not materialized. However, if he has not opened the door to new arrivals, he has certainly closed the door on the men still there.

These include, as Joshua A. Seltzer, the senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council from 2015 until Trump took office, wrote in “Is Closing Guantánamo Still Conceivable?,” a recent article for the Atlantic, “the five still held at Guantánamo despite being recommended for transfer.” He added, “This official designation refers to those still believed to be lawfully detained under the law of war, but unanimously recommended for repatriation or resettlement by an interagency group of career officials. In other words, their continued detention has been deemed unnecessary, assuming an appropriate country can be identified to accept them under conditions that ensure their humane treatment and address any lingering threat they might pose.”

Seltzer continued: “Trump has couched his refusal to continue with this process as part of his near-wholesale rejection of Obama and his presidency. His campaign pledge to fill the detention facility was preceded by a direct reference to his predecessor: ‘This morning, I watched President Obama talking about Gitmo,’ Trump began, before making clear that his desire to keep it open was diametrically opposed to Obama’s wish to close it.”

That was the speech in which Trump said of Guantánamo, “we’re gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me, we’re gonna load it up,” and, even after he took office, the wild rhetoric continued. In March, as we wrote about here, he tweeted an outrageous lie about Guantánamo — “122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!”

As we explained at the time, “That number, 122, was taken from a two-page ‘Summary of the Reengagement of Detainees Formerly Held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,’ issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in July 2016. The summaries are issued twice a year, and, crucially, what Trump neglected to mention is that 113 of the 122 men referred to in that summary were released under President Bush, and just nine were released under President Obama. In the latest ODNI summary, just released, the total has been reduced to 121, with just eight men released under President Obama.” (We should add that, here at “Close Guantánamo,” we also dispute the figures compiled by the ODNI).

“Rebuking a bipartisan project”

However, what is important about Trump’s position is not just his stupidity, or his wholesale opposition to whatever position was taken by President Obama; it is also, as Seltzer explains, that it is in opposition to the settled, bipartisan view of almost the whole of the US establishment.

As he puts it, “closing Gitmo isn’t just an Obama position.” George W. Bush, who opened it, “expressed support for shutting it down in 2006,” and “[b]oth candidates in the 2008 presidential election backed its closure … By breaking with longstanding efforts to repatriate or resettle detainees, Trump has refused to act on the recommendations of career national security professionals. He isn’t simply rejecting an Obama policy, as he claims. He is, instead, rebuking a bipartisan project.”

Seltzer’s sharp analysis continues: “Trump’s Guantánamo policy is a microcosm of his approach to so much, particularly in foreign affairs and national security policy. His reluctance to endorse America’s commitment to NATO’s collective self-defense (a reluctance he seems to have reversed recently), his similarly pointed efforts to rile its NAFTA partners without articulating a credible alternative, his seemingly concerted abnegation of American commitments to international partnerships and assumption of leadership in global affairs — he frames all of this as a rebuke of Obama’s purported ’weakness and irresolution’ when, in fact, it is a stark rejection of vital, bipartisan elements of America’s approach to world affairs. Trump’s foreign policy isn’t anti-Obama. It’s anti-everyone other than his own small and somewhat bizarrely oriented team of advisers.”

Seltzer proceeds to note that, worryingly, Trump’s position on Guantánamo “plays to the small streak of American political discourse that imbues the detention facility’s continued operation with inordinate symbolic value in the war on terror,” a “post-9/11 American toughness towards terrorism, and more specifically, a militarizing of that effort,” which, in turn, “represents an American commitment to ‘taking the gloves off’ when it comes to counter terrorism and minimizing the legal rights afforded to terror suspects.”

As he describes it, “Never mind the federal courts’ well-established, successful track record of prosecuting terrorism suspects; those with an unwavering committment to the Guantánamo project embrace its symbolism, regardless of the history and facts.” He then cites Ed Meese, Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, from 1985-88, who suggested, on the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Guantánamo prison (the very day that “Close Guantánamo” was established), that Guantánamo helps Americans “remember that the United States is engaged in armed conflict and has been since September 11, 2001.” As Seltzer puts it, “In Meese’s telling, the facility is a concrete reminder that the war on terror ‘would be different from all previous wars,’” an echo of the alarming position taken by the Bush administration, which continues to poison America’s commitment to the rule of law (including spurious justifications of Guantánamo’s continued existence).

Seltzer proceeds to note that the current Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has been “[p]erhaps the single most consistently vocal supporter” of the Guantánamo project, pointing out that, “soon after being sworn in, [he] reaffirmed his longstanding view that Guantánamo is ‘a perfect place’ to send newly detained terrorism suspects.”

In Seltzer’s analysis, this is another example of Trump “indulging a fringe view of what threatens Americans and what keeps them safe,” echoing “his determination to take the legal fight over his anti-Muslim travel ban all the way to the Supreme Court, over strong indications from a range of former national security professionals that such a response simply isn’t responsive to today’s actual terrorist threats.” (Seltzer adds that he is one of those former national security professionals).

Moreover, Trump’s position is not merely bad domestic politics; it is also, as Seltzer adds, counterproductive. That is how the former officials describe the Muslim ban, and Seltzer also notes that his “experience as a White House counterterrorism official under Obama confirms others’ observations that continued detention at Guantánamo makes it harder for key partners to help America with real counterterrorism needs.”

In a key condemnation of Trump’s position, he notes, “This is playing politics with national security, not protecting it.”

Seltzer proceeds to concede that “neither of Trump’s predecessors pursued a headlong dash to close the facility,” adding that, under Obama, this was “sometimes to the frustration of those outside government for whom Guantánamo’s closure was an urgent moral issue, even if one that the reality of congressional politics would simply not allow.” That ignores, as we stated from when we first started campaigning in January 2012, the reality that a presidential waiver existed in the legalisation that Congress produced to tie Obama’s hands, which, sadly, he chose never to use.

Seltzer also writes of “a sometimes slow but justifiably cautious process for evaluating which detainees could be transferred and under what conditions, and then for pursuing such transfers.” He adds, “That was what our counterterrorism partners wanted to see from us: the journey, if not the destination. So long as those governments could tell themselves and their citizens that Washington was considering the transfer recommendations of career officials, Guantánamo generally didn’t represent a stumbling block to the type of cooperation on which counterterrorism inevitably relies.”

That latter point may well be true, but on the review process, Seltzer’s position ignores the layers of unjustifiably extreme caution that meant that men approved for ongoing imprisonment under Obama’s 2009 review process (the Guantánamo Review Task Force), when they were designated as being “too dangerous to release,” had to wait, in many cases, for another six or seven years until the second Obama review process, the Periodic Review Boards, decided that, after all, they were not too dangerous to release, and, in many cases, the supposed intelligence used to justify their ongoing imprisonment was hopelessly flawed.

In conclusion, Seltzer claims that, although “it’s easy to view [Guantánamo] as a place frozen in time,” it “remains a dynamic place. Reviews of detainees and the threat they may pose are ongoing, and those may yield additional recommendations for transfers beyond the five detainees already in that category. And, just last month, new military commissions charges were filed against a detainee, making him the 11th current detainee to be at some stage of military commissions proceedings.” As we noted in a recent article, however, the decision to charge alleged al-Qaeda terrorist Hambali in the military commissions is nothing to celebrate, as the system remains irreparably broken. As a Trump administration official told Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast, “This system doesn’t work.”

A federal court trial that punctures Trump’s rhetoric

Since Seltzer filed his article for publication, there has been a development that shows, more appropriately, Trump’s rhetoric being undermined by political reality. Despite his bombastic claims that he would bring new prisoners to Guantánamo, he has just “brought a man suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda to the United States to face trial in federal court, backing off [his] hard-line position that terrorism suspects should be sent to the naval prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, rather than to civilian courtrooms,” as the New York Times put it.

The Times added, “The suspect, Ali Charaf Damache, a dual Algerian and Irish citizen, was transferred from Spain and appeared on Friday in federal court in Philadelphia, making him the first foreigner brought to the United States to face terrorism charges under President Trump,” also noting that he is a suspected recruiter for al-Qaeda, who “was charged with helping plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad in cartoons.”

The Times also noted, “With Mr. Damache’s transfer, Attorney General Jeff Sessions adopted a strategy that he vehemently opposed when it was carried out under President Barack Obama. Mr. Sessions said for years that terrorism suspects should be held and prosecuted at Guantánamo Bay. He has said that terrorists did not deserve the same legal rights as common criminals and that such trials were too dangerous to hold on American soil. But the once-outspoken Mr. Sessions was uncharacteristically quiet on Friday. He gave a speech one block away from the Philadelphia courthouse where Mr. Damache appeared and did not address the case.”

This is one commendable instance of reality intruding on Trump’s fantasy view of justice — echoing what happened with his enthusiasm for torture, when even his own appointees opposed him — but it remains clear that, in general, his approach to Guantánamo remains disastrous. As Seltzer notes, in closing, “another six months of Trump’s approach to Guantánamo will, whatever his rhetoric professes, leave the country less safe — not more.”

I wrote the above article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with the US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

‘Shari’ah-Compliant Jihad’: A More Complex Post-ISIS World – Analysis

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In a post-ISIS world, some terrorist organisations have had to balance violence against rejection from the communities they operate in. Their paradoxical solution to increase recruitment is a terrorist re-interpretation of a more “Islamic” form of “jihad”.

By Jasminder Singh and Muhammad Haziq Bin Jani*

In June 2017, Al-Qaeda in the Subcontinent (AQIS) released a publication entitled “Code of Conduct” (COC) through the As-Sahab Media wing. The publication clarified the strategy that jihadists are to take in their respective theatres of jihad, from India to Pakistan and even Myanmar. AQIS “jihadists” are expected to be “bound to act in accordance with this Code of Conduct” and would be held accountable should they not comply.

AQIS put forward a restricted scope of work for the jihadists within what it defined as “Islamic” and “permissible in Shari’ah” so that jihadists do not conduct activities that are harmful for the jihadi movement. This new strategy involves a “Shari’ah-compliant” modus operandi and target selection for jihadism. With this strategic shift, AQIS revealed that it is relying on an image rebranding to improve relations between jihadists and the “Muslim masses” in a post-Islamic State world. AQIS hopes this new strategy will increase support and improve recruitment numbers.

“Shari’ah-Compliant Jihad”

What does AQIS mean by “Shari’ah-Compliant Jihad”?

Firstly, it opines that “Shari’ah-compliancy” requires Muslims not to be attacked under any circumstance except if there are groups or individuals that participate actively in “war against the mujahideen”. It claims that every effort would be made to invite Muslims on the other side of the war to join it or to reconcile, such that AQIS would not end up having to fight Muslims.

AQIS recognises that fighting Muslims detracts it from fighting the “real enemy” – the United States of America (US) and its infidel allies. Only minimum force would be employed and there will be discrimination between fighters and non-fighters.

Secondly, AQIS intends to discriminate civilians from military personnel in its target selection, except civilians who are enemies of the Prophet (blasphemers), enemies of Islam (secularists) and enemies of the religious section of the society. The latter group was included to make AQIS seem like the defenders of the ulama or scholars.

AQIS now supposedly considers collateral damage of civilians to be “absolutely wrong”, to be “seriously avoided”, and subject to Allah’s punishment. The killing of civilians is to be avoided such that even wives and children of military personnel would be considered wrong to kill. Non-Muslim civilians and their places of residence or worship are also not to be harmed.

No Guarantee

There is no guarantee AQIS would ensure that its jihadists and affiliated groups toe its new strategy. However, regardless of whether the COC is more than just propaganda, its so-called shari’ah-compliant jihad would probably be the most deceptive terrorist ideology to date.

On the one hand, by downplaying the un-Islamic nature of terrorism and white-washing the extremism that AQIS propagates, AQIS has the potential to radicalise the naïve, vulnerable and action-oriented individuals in its recruitment campaigns and drives for support for Muslim fighters, supporters and financiers. On the other hand, any counter-ideological response that hinges solely on Muslims being victims or collateral damage would be rendered ineffective.

AQIS relies on the violence of others in countries where the US or its allies could be easily conceived as an occupying force, or where Muslims are unjustly treated, to fuel radicalisation and justify violence. The selective targeting of uniformed personnel is also a form of dehumanisation to allow terrorists, supporters and sympathisers to normalise and socialise violence in their respective societies.

Regional Security Implications

Besides AQIS, the Harakah al-Yaqin, also known as the Faith Movement, has equally undergone an image reform in its insurgency in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Having been previously linked to al-Qaeda affiliated groups, the movement has renamed itself as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).

On 30 May 2017, Ataullah, its commander-in-chief, denied and condemned any form of terrorism on civilians regardless of ethnicity or religion in a press release. Ataullah also argued that ARSA is fighting a legitimate defensive war which he claims is backed by international norms and principles.

Through this rebranding, groups such as AQIS and ARSA, have launched a new propaganda of what they stand for and aim to achieve, including through violence. In fact, through their new declarations of target selection, it would make it harder for laypersons to differentiate between support for terrorist groups and causes with those groups that are fighting for democratic and inalienable rights.

It would also mean that terrorist groups would be able to disguise their claims and activities as championing of legitimate social causes, as seem to be undertaken by some radical groups in Indonesia. This was most evident in the role of groups such as Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) in the anti-Ahok demonstrations in November and December 2016.

More Complex Post-ISIS World

Through this new modus operandi, a net effect could be increased radicalisation of society. More people can be expected to join radical groups as they will have great difficulties in distinguishing between terrorist and radical groups from those that are legitimately championing bona fide causes.

In many ways, it is through championing of what appears to be innocent and legitimate causes that terrorist groups are formed with broad-based mass support. With the free flow of information that champions legitimate social causes, moderate leaders and groups would have to be careful about what they are accessing online.

While societal anger may be fuelled further through these means, at the same time, governments have to be determined and clear that no room should be given to these groups to develop, what more, gain support for violent discourses and actions.

Clearly, the post-ISIS world is likely to become more complex as terrorist groups become polymorphic by finding and developing new ways to survive and mobilise support. AQIS and ARSA have clearly confirmed that terrorist groups are ‘learning organisations’ and to neutralise these groups, the authorities must always be a few steps ahead in the learning curve.

*Jasminder Singh is a Senior Analyst and Muhammad Haziq Jani a Research Analyst with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

North Indian Politics: High Drama In Bihar – OpEd

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Janata Dal (United) supremo Nitish Kumar has dramatically taken oath as the chief minister of the northern Indian state of Bihar, a day after dramatically resigning from the post. Nitish has scripted and directed the episode to make himself look like a ‘Mr. Clean’ of course in the world of corrupt politicians. Bihar is one worst affected by corrupt politicians. How far Nitish could change the corruption scenario during his tenure as CM remains a mystery.

Citing irreconcilable differences with ally RJD, Nitish Kumar resigned as Chief Minister of Bihar. He said he “knocked every door” to salvage the alliance, but in vain. Nitish Kumar told reporters that he had a “zero tolerance” policy on corruption, and had asked his deputy to explain the charges against him to the public. He added that Yadav refused to follow his advice.

The RJD man Tejaswi has been shunted, angering his father Lalu Prasad. Nitish had been insisting that either RJD give a clarification on the CBI case against Lalu’s son and Nitish’s Deputy CM Tejashwi, regarding a land-for-contract scam, or Tejashwi should step down on moral grounds. Lalu also reiterated his stand that Tejashwi Yadav’s resignation is out of question.

BJP announced support for JD (U) and Nitish Kumar as chief minister. The party also adds that it will be part of the government. BJP leader Sushil Modi will be the deputy chief minister of Bihar and will take oath will Nitish on Thursday. Lalu Prasad Yadav says Nitish had “betrayed” him. He said that Nitish was afraid of his son Tejashwi’s rise in politics.

Nitish took oath as Chief Minister of Bihar the very next day after striking a deal with BJP, while Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Modi took oath as Bihar Deputy Chief Minister. BJP’s Sushil Modi is thus back as his deputy. News reports suggest that the BJP has handed over a list of 14 MLAs for ministerial posts. However, other ministers will take oath only after the trust vote, which is scheduled for Friday the July 28.

The Bihar CM needs this dramatic step to come closer to Modi and to bet his domestic foes -mainly his new foe Lalu Prasad Yadav with whose poll alliance he won the state elections and become the CM as a common candidate for the same against the wish and will of the BJP and PM Modi but now they are his ‘beloved” comrades.

PM Modi tweeted lauding Nitish Kumar for dropping corrupt parties led by Congress and “joining the fight against corruption.”

A stung Lalu, in a dramatic press conference claims that Nitish’s decision to break the alliance is because he is facing trial for murdering a man in 1991. He accused Kumar of working slyly with the BJP-led NDA to destabilize the coalition. His son and Dy CM Tejashwi Yadav sought appointment with governor saying that he will also stake claim to form the next government. Tejashwi Yadav marched to the governor’s house while Lalu requested the governor to postpone the oath-taking ceremony but drew a blank.

The RJD has accused Nitish of “betrayal”. Former chief minister and federal minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, who leads the RJD, said Kumar had colluded with the BJP to tarnish his party’s image. Yadav and his son Tejaswi, who was the deputy chief minister in Kumar’s government, are being investigated for corruption by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation. They have denied any wrongdoing.

In Bihar Lalu and Nitish fought elections against formidable BJP alliance in 2015 and won. Now the Grand alliance is breaking down as BJP has stepped up to use a pro-Hindutva pretending leader Nitish. Kumar said on Wednesday that he had to resign because of corruption probes against the leaders of his alliance partner, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Kumar has found a new partner in PM Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which he defeated in 2015 in a bitterly contested state election.

Though the CBI raids and corruption cases against Lalu and his clan triggered Mahagathbandhan’s demise, the JD (U) and BJP leaders had begun secret talks in March itself.

Interestingly, Nitish had quit the NDA in 2013 citing differences with the BJP’s decision to announce Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections..Now they are “friends”. PM Modi has quickly praised Nitish for his “honesty” in standing up to corruption.

Earlier in the day, the Congress aimed potshots at Nitish Kumar and dubbed his resignation and collaboration with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as ‘disappointing’. Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh questioned Kumar that was he not aware about Lalu and his family before he agreed to be a part of grand alliance.

Meanwhile, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav fired sardonic salvo on Bihar’s political upheaval, where senior Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar has severed ties with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and is ready to form next government with his former ally- the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Son of former CM and former Union military minister Mulayam Singh, Akhilesh mocked Nitish Kumar and said that the latter could not resist separation from his former ally.

The split of RJD and JDU took the Congress party by surprise if not shock. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi MP attacked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, saying he defied secular mandate for personal gain. He said the party knew that it was being planned for the last three to four months,” said Rahul Gandhi speaking to media. Stating that the mandate was given to Nitish ji for the anti-communal fight, Rahul added, “But now Nitish has joined hands with them (BJP) for his personal politics.”

The Congress leader also attacked Nitish Kumar saying, people can do anything to be in power. JD (U) leader Neeraj Kumar said that there was no question of compromising on corruption.

The Congress was too late, maybe deliberately, to rush its senior leader CP Joshi to Patna to explore the possibility of calling a meeting with JD (U), RJD and Congress legislatures to chalk out the possibility of forming a new government and saving the alliance. A senior Congress leader admitted that there was already a high degree of trust deficit with Nitish after he ditched Meira Kumar to support Ram Nath Kovind as presidential candidate. “We know political blackmail and witch-hunt are part of Narendra Modi’s strategy to break Opposition unity and Nitish has fallen into the trap,” said a senior Congress leader. He said that Nitish has been engaging with the BJP central leadership over the past few days at a time when communication with Lalu had virtually collapsed. If there is no suspicion about the JD (U)’s intentions, various ways could have been explored to save the coalition.

Even though it was believed that Nitish was in secret talks with the BJP, political observers question the role of the Congress, which could have saved the alliance. Nitish met Rahul twice when he arrived in Patna, asking him to impress upon the RJD to withdraw deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav from the government or at least explain allegations levelled in the CBI FIR. Failing, he put last hopes on Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who during the UPA-II regime, was instrumental in removing many central ministers after allegations surfaced against them. But she had indicated that sacking a minister on the basis of an FIR didn’t appear reasonable against the backdrop of the BJP’s refusal to drop any of its tainted leaders. When Tejashwi met her at the insistence of his father, she did express worry about the fate of the alliance, but didn’t appreciate Nitish’s “stubborn” attitude.

While, Congress and RJD call Nitish a traitor of the cause of secularism and democracy, BJP leaders call his new brand politics of twists Nitish’s ‘ghar wapsi’ and hope to give a stable and capable government in Bihar. Opposition leaders, cutting across many divides, were looking at Nitish to repeat the magic of VP Singh, who had in 1989 successfully ousted Rajiv Gandhi from power.

With Congress party reeling under the corruption image, its leader and vice-president Rahul Gandhi still to find acceptability as a leader of any potential grouping, Nitish was an ideal choice due his “impeccable” image. The Congress has 27 MLAs, all of whom have come out in vocal support of RJD leaders.

Nitish Kumar’s walking out of Bihar’s Grand Alliance extinguished the flicker of hope in the secular camp to take on the BJP-led NDA under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2019 general elections.

Kumar’s new stint also marks his return to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). His party voted for BJP’s presidential candidate while RJD’s MPs and MLAs supported the Congress led UPA candidate and lost.

Now the Nitish is back as CM with BJP’s backing and he has to prove his majority in the assembly which he says is not very difficult.

With Trump In White House, Korean Peninsula Poised To Be On Knife’s Edge – Analysis

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If the war of words between the US and North Korea leads to any armed action, South Korea will be caught in the crossfire with unimaginable devastation

By Skand Tayal*

The increasingly bitter rhetoric between the Donald Trump Administration and North Korea has put South Korean (Republic of Korea) President Moon Jae-in in a serious predicament. Earlier this month, after the test of an alleged ICBM by North Korea, US Permanent Representative to UN Nikky Haley told the UN Security Council: “The world is on notice.. (US is) prepared to use the full range of our capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies, one of our capabilities lies with our considerable military forces. We will use them if we must, but prefer not to go in that direction.”

If the war of words between the US and North Korea leads to any armed action, South Korea will be caught in the crossfire with unimaginable devastation. Trapped in this dilemma, on 17 July, South Korea sought to open a direct line to North Korea and proposed to North Korea military talks on 21 July to avoid hostile acts near the heavily militarised border. The proposed talks were to be held at Panmunjom truce village on the border used also for previous inter-Korean talks.

North Korea did not respond to the proposal but in an article in the North Korean official newspaper Rodong Sinmun on 20 July, it signalled to South Korea that “The US imperialist aggressors present in South Korea will be primary target of the Korean Peoples’ Army’s strikes once it opens fire.” Attempting to drive a wedge between US and ROK armies, the article also alleged that, “Their (US) sinister intention is to ignite a war against the North at any cost by reducing the South Korean puppet army into cannon fodder and fanning up the military confrontation between the North and the South.”

The Commander of the US Forces in Korea (USFK) also serves as C-in-C of the UN Command as well as the ROK/US Combined Forces Command (CFC).

For a long time since the Korean War (1950-53), the ROK armed forces were under the US Command. As the ROK grew in self confidence, an integrated headquarters for ROK/US Combined Forces Command was established in 1978; which is now responsible for planning for the defence of South Korea.

Major USFK components include the Eighth Army, Seventh Air Force and US Naval Forces in Korea. USFK control more than 85 active sites in ROK and about 28,500 US military personnel are deployed in South Korea. US armaments on Korean Territory include 140 M1A1 Tanks, 100 advanced fighters, 70 F-16s, 70 AH-64 Helicopters etc. The formidable capacity of US 7th Fleet, Pacific Fleet and Seventh Air Force Command is within reach to augment the US strike capacity at short notice in case of need.

The mission statement of CFC is “Deter hostile acts of external aggression against the Republic of Korea by a combined military effort of the US and the ROK; and in the event deterrence fails, defeat an external armed attack against the ROK”. The CFC is commanded by a US General who reports to the national commands of both US and ROK.

The CFC now has operational control (OPCON) over more than 600,000 active duty military personnel of all services from both the countries. In wartime, some 3.5 million ROK reservists could also be called for action. It may be noted that two year military duty is compulsory for all South Korean males.

For recruitment, training and budget, the Korean units are independent and under the command of ROK Generals during peacetime. Only during the time of war, do the Korean units come under the command of CFC.  Peacetime control over its forces had been returned to South Korea in 1994 after the advent of real democracy in South Korea.

During the Presidency of Rho Moo-hyun (2002-2007), South Korea had initiated negotiations with the US for the transfer of full operational control over its forces — even during wartime — to South Korea. An agreement was finally reached in 2008 to establish two complementary coordinated commands with the ROK as the ‘supported nation’ and the US as ‘supporting nation’. The left leaning Rho Moo-hyun administration sought a more independent security relationship with the US. One of the objectives was to acquire a stronger hand in dealing with North Korea. A time frame of 5 years was fixed to complete this command transfer. However, in 2010, the transfer date was pushed back to 2015, after North Korea was accused of torpedoing a South Korean warship ‘Cheonan’.

After the 2007 elections, South Korea saw two successive rightist conservative administrations till 2016, first under President Lee Myung-bak and later under the truncated administration of Park Geun-hye. Under their rule, the relations with North Korea sharply deteriorated. North Korea also embarked on an aggressive programme of nuclearisation and missile launches exacerbating the tension in the Korean peninsula.

In these tense circumstances, the conservative South Korean government in October 2014 thought it prudent to delay the return of wartime control of the South Korean military to itself. Instead of setting a new target date for the transfer of command the two sides adopted a “conditions-based approach” to transferring control “to ensure the combined defence posture remains strong and seamless.” When President Park Guen-hye was criticised by the liberals for breaking her election promise to retake wartime control by 2015, her spokesman said that, “We must deal with this issue in a realistic and coolheaded manner, considering national security.”

The newly installed liberal President Moon Jae- in had pledged during his campaign to achieve OPCON transfer during his term. President Moon was Chief of Staff to liberal President Rho Moo-hyun and is his political heir. The South Korean Ministry of Defence is now working on completing the OPCON transfer by 2022 — before the completion of President Moon’s term. In a policy roadmap prepared by the Presidential Advisory Committee released on 19 July, it was stated that the Government would seek transfer of wartime operational control as soon as possible.

It is axiomatic that for a sovereign country, it makes no sense to cede control over its own armed forces to another country in a wartime situation where its own citizens’ lives are at stake. Analysts have rightly noted that: “Putting the US in command in the event of a war on the Korean peninsula means US global strategy will take precedence, while South Koreans’ interest become secondary.”

Now, with an increasingly beleaguered Trump in the White House, the Korean Peninsula is poised on a knife’s edge. For President Moon Jae-in, the top priority would be to prevent any conflict between US and North Korea at any cost.

*The author, a former IFS officer, was India’s ambassador to the Republic of Korea.

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