By Richard Kocur*

Recently, Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled a single-payer healthcare plan called “Medicare for All.” Sanders titled his approach for nationalizing one-sixth of the American economy as “Medicare for All” in order to offer a template for his vision of the U.S. healthcare system. Unfortunately, using Medicare as the template for the nation’s healthcare system is a little like using the production model for the Lada, the “people’s car” of the former Soviet Union, as the blue-print for the U.S. auto industry.

The “Medicare for All” proposal would transition millions of Americans to a Medicare-style system over the course of four short years, all the while promising to expand benefits, eliminate deductibles, and cut costs. If that sounds too good to be true, it is. The assumption that Medicare can be a long-term, sustainable model capable of absorbing quadruple the number of current enrollees is flawed from the start..

Medicare covers approximately 57 million Americans and is projected to cost nearly $700 billion this year. Revenue for the Medicare trust fund is generated via beneficiary premiums, which Sanders wants to eliminate, and general tax revenue, which he wants to increase. According to the 2016 Medicare Trustees Report, the Medicare trust fund faces a “substantial financial shortfall.” In fact, the report forecasts that within 12 years the trust fund will be depleted unless further legislation is enacted. Sanders’s proposal would place a significant burden on an already financially shaky system.

Another aspect of Medicare on which the senator’s plan relies is its provider-fee structure. Medicare reimbursement is significantly lower than the reasonable and customary fees routinely charged by those providing care. Providers make up the difference by shifting costs to non-Medicare patients. By moving all Americans to “Medicare for All,” Sanders’s plan would artificially set provider fees well below market levels. Payments below the cost of doing business would likely result in fewer providers as physicians and hospitals are forced out of business and fewer new providers enter the market. Providers that remain would essentially become government employees. From a patient perspective this would mean longer wait times, less control over healthcare decisions, and lower quality of care. Think of it as the disruption caused by Obamacare but on steroids.

Lastly, the senator’s plan makes the case that eliminating the private healthcare insurance industry and utilizing a Medicare model would mean lower administrative costs resulting in substantial savings. While proponents for single-payer healthcare cite a lower percentage spent on administrative costs, the calculation of these percentages is skewed by significantly higher beneficiary spending. On a per-capita basis, however, Medicare administrative costs are nearly equal to private insurance. This despite a greater number of private insurance providers, variability in their administrative efficiency, and higher marketing and promotion costs.

The good news in Sanders’s “Medicare for All” plan is that it has no chance of passing. The bad news: It now partially fills the vacuum created by a collapsing Obamacare and the absence of market-based reform alternatives. As a healthcare option now or in the future, “Medicare for All” would be good for none.

About the author:
*Richard D. Kocur is an assistant professor of business at Grove City College. He specializes in marketing and business strategy and has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

Inured by decades of propaganda and blackmails, South Koreans remain apathetic to Kim’s nuclear bombast.

By Shim Jae Hoon*

Newspaper headlines and grave warnings from TV anchors about nuclear cataclysm in the Korean Peninsula may give travelers pause. But surprisingly in South Korea, few people discuss the issue openly, including inside the halls of government or on the parliamentary floor. The North Korean threat tops headlines for sure, but most news reports focus on reactions from Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo and Washington – including Donald Trump suggesting that the US secretary of state is “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korea.

For average South Koreans, the news is no more exciting than daily weather reports.

The Kim Jong Un regime may have adopted a new tactic to rouse South Koreans from their somnolent response. Recently, in Seoul’s Sinchon area, where several university campuses are located, students alerted police to retrieve scattered leaflets containing North Korean propaganda threats and boasts of its nuclear weapons power. “Our hydrogen bombs will wipe out Americans,” asserted one handbill, apparently floated to the south in balloons to target students. Possessing North Korean material is against law and the students didn’t bother to look. Instead, police carted off the materials, probably for incineration.

Average people, accustomed to blood-curdling threats from Pyongyang, remain nonchalant. So Man Du, a retired construction company manager expresses disdain: “If they think they can impress and frighten us with simplistic message of this kind, they’re pretty naïve!”

Professionals such as medical doctors are more scathing and cynical. “It’s no boast when you develop these bombs at the cost of starving your people,” commented Choi Jong Min, a dermatologist practicing in Seoul. He suggests that South Korea send its own balloons with leaflets and points to the Soviet Union, which collapsed despite hundreds of atomic and hydrogen bombs in its possession. “Poor North Koreans,” he clucked, “they’ve got no idea the nukes will not bring them foods.”

To be sure, Seoul is left apprehensive about the progress achieved by Kim Jong Un and his intercontinental missile technology. South Korean media were especially jolted by the September 3 launch, indicating the regime may have tested a variant of a thermonuclear device. Subsequently, a continental ballistic missile flew over Japan before falling into the Pacific Ocean, for all purposes confirming that Pyongyang nears completion of a carrier that could move a bomb close to the West Coast of the United States.

That ended South Korean cynicism about the nuclear threat. Neighboring Japan is more nervous than South Koreans, given the geography and the fact that a nuclear war between the two Koreas or with the United States is suicidal. In Japan, schools have begun air-raid trainings, with primary schoolchildren practicing to take cover against incoming missiles. In a recent emergency call, Japanese officials took less than 10 minutes to call an alert.

Seoul shows no signs of such panic. Reports suggest that some foreign investors have begun divesting South Korean government bonds and selling off shares as the so-called Korea risk heightens. At the political level, repeated missile launches have touched off demands, especially from right-wing conservatives, that South Korea should exit the nonproliferation regime and strike an independent course on nuclear weapons. That’s obviously easier said than done: Seoul is tied to a US nonproliferation watchdog system that for all practical purposes makes it impossible to undertake clandestine activity. South Korea did try once during the 1970s, only to be discovered and stopped.

So instead of an independent nuclear option, the right-wing conservative Liberty Korea Party is calling on the Trump administration to restore the tactical nuclear weapons withdrawn by the United States during the 1990s. The weapons were removed after North and South Korea signed a mutual denuclearization treaty in 1991, which Pyongyang later broke by going nuclear.

As for President Moon Jae In, he remains largely unperturbed by the security risks posed by the North. One indication of his lax attitude – the recent decision to approve a 10-day national holiday for the traditional Autumn Crops Festival, prompting millions of travelers jamming the highways for family reunions and a record number of 1 million leaving the country for overseas vacation. For most South Koreans, nuclear threats are notional, not existential.

Such attitudes may amount to a carefree extravagance, indicating how phlegmatic people have become despite perennial nuclear threats. It also demonstrates how far South Koreans have come in prosperity and political self-confidence. As South Koreans become more economically savvy and politically diverse, they seem less encumbered by the North’s propaganda power and feel only pity about the costs of North Korea keeping its masses hungry and blocked from news of an outside world.

The regime sometimes issues threats to cover up failures or mark achievements. According to recent intelligence reports, the North’s threat to shoot down US aircraft flying just beyond its territorial space came after its radars failed to detect US B-1 bombers flying north of the demarcation line.

South Koreans are less troubled by threats from the North and more so by political divisions in their own country. The right recently criticized Moon for claiming that he would defend the peace even at the cost of divisions within the alliance. His equally dovish security advisor, Moon Chung In, the ambassador-at-large for International Security Affairs at the South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and not related to the president, has come under harsh attacks from the media for saying the United States and South Korea should legitimize and accept the North’s nuclear status in exchange for a negotiated settlement.

These policy differences are expected to leave the public more perplexed. For young and nationalist supporters of the left, North Korean nuclear weapons are essentially a paper tiger directed chiefly at the United States to force peace talks and concessions. Moon, the ambassador, has declared that nothing is more important than maintaining peace, even at the cost of abandoning the US alliance. He has called for withdrawal of the US high-altitude missile-defense system known as THAAD, to which China objects, as a price for easing tensions.

“That’s highly risky and naïve proposal,” says Rhee Young Il, a former conservative party member of parliament and head of its committee on foreign affairs and national reunification. Although he agrees that spatial distance is too close for North Korea to make optimal use of its nuclear weapons against the South, he rejects any proposal for allowing the North to keep its nuclear arsenal.

Still, some US analysts propose recognizing North Korea as a “nuclear state” similar to Pakistan, but this is a dangerous analogy.  Pakistan developed its capability to achieve parity with India.  For the North, nuclear weapons are justified not only for protection of the Kim regime, but also as leverage for negotiating withdrawal of US troops from South Korea. That’s an unacceptable proposition for the United States and Japan, as it challenges the current strategic balance in East Asia. North Korea threatens attacks on US territory and Japan as a means of overwhelming South Korea and pursuing reunification under its terms, something it failed to achieve by conventional military invasion in 1950.

*Shim Jae Hoon is a journalist based in Seoul.  

By Cornell Overfield*

(FPRI) — Two words capture a broad swathe of U.S. and European political concerns over the past twelve months: elections and Russia. However, in a year when it seemed that every election threatened potentially dire consequences for American interests, the European Union, or the liberal post-war order if Russian interference had its way, the finale has been reassuringly anti-climactic.

Germany’s federal parliamentary elections took place on Sunday, September 24, and the contest between the mainstream parties was so bland that some labeled it a Schlafwahlkampf, a “sleeping campaign.” Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) enjoyed a steady double-digit lead over Martin Schulz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the polls and those who tuned into their sole debate could be forgiven for thinking they were campaigning together. This should not be much of a surprise, since their parties have been governing together in a coalition for eight of the past twelve years.

In the background, however, lurked the fear that Russia might interfere with the election, as it has been accused of doing in Britain, France, and the United States. On November 8, 2016, Angela Merkel established the Russia-election nexus in Germany, saying that Russian meddling “could play a role during the election campaign.” Immediately following the French election’s second round, Clint Watts, a Robert A. Fox Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, sounded the alarm over the seeming inevitability of Russian interference in the German election. In his view, the Russians influenced the American election and tried tipping the French election in favor of Marine Le Pen—now, they would replicate these tactics in the lynchpin of Europe. In Congressional testimony on June 28, Brookings Senior Fellow Constanze Stelzenmüller suggested that Germany enjoys natural resilience to information warfare thanks to its healthy institutions, genuine political pluralism, and independent, trusted, quality media, but warned that the threat of Russian influence remained very real. Indeed, had Russian information warfare managed to convince German voters to throw out Merkel and the CDU, Russia might have won a respite from the anti-Russian sanctions and unity which Merkel’s principled leadership has imposed on Europe.

When the promised hacking and interference failed to materialize, experts attributed Russia’s low profile to the surety of Merkel’s reelection and the degree of attention which Russian interference and influence drew during and after the U.S. and French elections.

The understandable obsession with Russian actions towards Germany largely overshadowed the other half of the Russian-German relationship: what Germany’s parties think of Russia. The uncritical assumption in press reports is that a Merkel victory ensures continuity in German foreign policy. However, both within her own party and in the other parties, there are a variety of attitudes toward Russia, and as Merkel attempts to build a new governing coalition, it is worth exploring how they may shape the policy of whatever government emerges from these elections.

While Angela Merkel and the CDU claimed first place in the elections by a hefty margin, they also fell well short of an outright majority. Instead, as has been the general rule in German politics, she will have to forge a coalition to govern Germany for the next five years. As Stelzenmüller points out, each party has its Putinversteher—“Putin Whisperers”—who lobby for a stronger German-Russian relationship by promising that they will manage Putin while German firms reap profits. But the whisperers take on different accents and volumes in each party. Thus, which parties Merkel partners with and their positions on Russia may prove to be the real Russia question of this election.

Since 2014, Angela Merkel has persistently stood up to President Vladimir Putin, whether through leading Europe to impose sanctions on Russia or calling out the possibility of Russian interference in the German election. Horst Seehofer, the chairman of the Bavarian CSU, sister party to the CDU, may admire Russian social conservatism and call for lifting sanctions in the name of Realpolitik, but a drastic shift in the CDU’s willingness to hold Russia to account is unlikely as long as Merkel remains at the helm.

Each party’s vision for Germany’s relationship with Russia can be found in their party platforms and the recent behavior of their leadership. Combining this analysis with the possible political constellations will highlight the possible paths along which Russian-German relations could evolve in the coming years.

The Outliers

The Alternative für Deutschland and die Linke are both highly unlikely to enter government, which bodes well, as they toe friendly and soft lines, respectively, on Russia.

Alternative für Deutschland (Blue)

The right-wing populist AfD is well known as the most Russophile party in German politics. In its 2017 party program, the AfD proclaims that peace rests on a friendly relationship with Russia, and calls for deeper Russo-German economic cooperation. The program also explicitly supports an end to sanctions and proposes a new European security structure which includes Russia and accommodates Kremlin interests.

Notably, the AfD uses its warm relationship with the Kremlin to appeal to the sizeable population of Russian-German voters. The party recently drew fire and ridicule for publishing a Russian-language xenophobic ad in Hamburg, which tapped Russia’s “Tatar-Mongol yoke” narrative to encourage Russian-speaking Germans to vote for AfD in order to secure Germany’s borders.

Die Linke (Red)

Although the Left does not embrace Russia to the same degree as AfD, its position as the leftist umbrella party yields a 2017 election platform sympathetic to Russian concerns and interests. This softer line is occasionally branded a legacy of the party’s origins in the Sozialistiche Einheitspartei Deutschlands, the East German governing party, but its position seems to be based more on anti-imperialist ideology than Cold War allegiance to the Soviet Union’s “successor.” The platform blames NATO expansion for renewed confrontation between Russia and the rest of Europe and laments that talk of a Cold War peace dividend has been supplanted by retaliatory sanctions and arms buildups.

Die Linke’s proposals center around the proposition that “security in Europe can only be security with, not without or against Russia.” The platform demands an end to military maneuvers, the withdrawal of German soldiers from Eastern Europe, and a NATO treaty forswearing further expansion. The party stakes no explicit position on sanctions, but calls for a new security structure, inclusive of Russia, to replace NATO and work towards European disarmament.

The Likely Partners

The Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP), and die Grünen all take the critical step of clearly denouncing Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and display a willingness to maintain sanctions for as long as Russian behavior warrants such a response. However, as their party platforms and leadership illustrate, they each approach the German-Russian relationship emphasizing slightly different method and goals.

The Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Red)

In its party platform, the SPD notes that Russia’s actions in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea strained the Russian-German relationship and violated fundamental principles undergirding European peace and security. The platform commits to maintaining sanctions in the absence of progress in implementing the Minsk Accord (a 2014 agreement which implemented a ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine, to be followed by the withdrawal of Russian forces from and decentralization for the region), but also suggests that dialogue and détente must be the goal of Germany’s diplomacy towards Russia. Indeed, like die Linke, the SPD also declares that “peace and security are only possible with, not without or against, Russia.”

Going back to the 1950s, the SPD has historically emphasized more cordial ties with Moscow than did the conservative Christian Democrats. Those who view the SPD as a possible force for a softer German approach to Russia also point to former SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s resurgent popularity in some party circles. Near the end of his term, Schröder hastily approved the Gazprom-controlled Nordstream natural gas pipeline (which links Germany and Russia by way of the Baltic Sea, bypassing Central Europe), then accepted an offer to chair the project’s board shortly after leaving office. Last month, he was appointed an independent director of Rosneft, the Russian state-controlled oil company, and the CDU pounced on the opportunity to tar the SPD as pro-Russia and Schultz as a weak leader.

However, this overstates the SPD’s position on Russia. Whatever its historic tendencies or willingness to engage in dialogue with Putin in 2014, it was part of the government which supported and imposed sanctions on Russia. Furthermore, Martin Schulz is a firm Europeanist who has promised to be an obstacle for Trump’s agenda and tweeted criticism at U.S. President Donald Trump over Trump’s attempt to downplay his son’s meeting with a Russian attorney. His survival as party chairman is an open question, but as long as he leads the SPD, it seems implausible that it would embrace Russia at the expense of defending the European community.

The Freie Demokratische Partei (Yellow)

The FDP platform posits that the peaceful European order rests on non-negotiable principles of “the sovereign equality of states, the inviolability of their borders, the peaceful resolution of conflicts, as well as free elections, democracy and regard for human rights.” It explicitly condemns Russia’s war in Ukraine as a violation of Kyiv’s right to sovereignty and territorial integrity. The inclusion of free elections and regard for human rights as non-negotiable principles implicitly criticizes Moscow for its tarnished reputation in those fields. On sanctions, the FDP proposes loosening or lifting sanctions if Russia substantially changes its behavior, but promises intensified sanctions in the case of a military escalation.

The FDP notes that Germany and the EU remain closely bound to Russia and propose a medium-term goal of “arriving at a new partnership with Russia.” This is to be achieved through dialogue, whether formally through the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe or informal contacts between German and Russian civil society, which will foster trust, and thus, security.

More than any other party, an analysis of the FDP’s position on Russia is incomplete without taking its leadership’s actions and statements into consideration. After a disastrous 2013 election, which left the FDP out of the Bundestag for the first time in its history, Party Chairman Christian Lindner’s dynamism and flair have led the FDP back into political relevance, and occasionally, controversy.

On August 5, Lindner whipped up a furor by suggesting that a “permanent provisional arrangement” recognizing Russia’s occupation of Crimea might be necessary so Germany could have a constructive relationship with Russia. Some attributed this comment to the FDP’s pro-business slant and a desire to reopen the historically-important Russian market to German firms. The CDU, SPD, and Greens all roundly condemned Lindner for apparently softening on Russia.

Much less publicized, however, have been Lindner’s qualifying clarifications and promises of even harsher punishment for Russian recalcitrance or aggression. In an August 28 interview, he unequivocally confirmed that the FDP would not accept Russia’s claim to Crimea, but suggested that there was an urgent need to engage in dialogue with Russia to avert spiraling escalation and eventually solve the Ukraine conflict. He has also taken to proposing the cancellation of the Nordstream 2 pipeline expansion if Putin fails to moderate his behavior or offer concessions.

The Greens (Green)

In its party platform, the Greens condemn Russia for fueling a rise in conflict and commit to maintaining sanctions against Russia as long as Russia maintains its posture in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. However, the Green party emphasizes that a solution for Ukraine’s conflict can only be reached through politics and diplomacy, beginning with the full implementation of the Minsk Accords. The platform also criticizes Russia, alongside China and Turkey, for suppressing freedoms and undermining the rule of law.

The Green party has consistently opposed Russia in statements beyond its party platform. For example, it recently disparaged Russia’s UN Security Council resolution proposing a peacekeeping mission in the Donbas as a “poisoned suggestion.” Indeed, the party’s staunch and determined opposition to Putin prompted Sputnik to run an article examining “[The] Greens as a danger for the German-Russian relationship.”

Peering into the Coalition Crystal Ball

The election is now behind us, and while the complicated process of establishing exactly how many seats will even be in the Bundestag is still underway, the general results are in. The CDU/CSU took 33%, the SPD a paltry 20%, AfD stormed to 13%, the revived FDP took 10.5%, and the Greens and the Left each took roughly 9%. The possible options for a governing coalition have become clearer, with the CDU/CSU facing two possible paths back to the chancellery, while the left hypothetically could still form a minority government. Each arrangement would bring a different angle and approach to German-Russian relations, as explained for each coalition below, ranked by the number of seats each coalition would control.

Grand Coalition (CDU/CSU-SPD): A continued CDU/CSU-SPD government with Merkel as Chancellor would likely bring little change to Germany’s Russia policy under current conditions. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is typically given to the junior partner of a coalition, but even with the SPD nominally in charge of foreign policy, Merkel would continue to set a firm tone with respect to Russia. The polling was indeed correct, and this arrangement would command a majority in the Bundestag, but this would be a reluctant marriage.

The SPD is chafing under the current arrangement, which constrains their ability to differentiate from the CDU as Merkel swings it to the center. The rapid decline of SPD fortunes over the last decade has already demonstrated the danger. Party members may reject this alliance out of fear that another 5 years of the grand coalition could drain the SPD of what little distinctiveness it has remaining. Indeed, as the results came in, Schulz quickly asserted that the SPD would go into opposition, but it is not inconceivable that a collapse in the “Jamaica” talks, the prospect of political instability, and an attractive coalition deal could lure the SPD back to the CDU/CSU. Whether or not the grand coalition is renewed, this election might drive the SPD to slide closer to the Left on Russia, particularly on sanctions, in order to establish clear differences between themselves and the CDU. The SPD and the Left party platforms already share similar language emphasizing the need to include Russia in security projects rather than design security projects against Russia.

Given the drawbacks to the grand coalition, Merkel will probably first try to form a coalition with the smaller parties. In the run up to the election, pundits floated CDU alliances with the Greens (Black-Green), with the FDP (Black-Yellow), and with both the Greens and the FDP (Black-Yellow-Green – or “Jamaica,” on account of the colors of their national flag). With the results in, only the Jamaica coalition would corral a majority of Bundestag seats.

Jamaica (CDU/CSU-FDP-Greens): In a Jamaica coalition, a partnership with the FDP and the Greens might encourage Merkel to condemn human rights abuses in Russia more consistently. Furthermore, if Lindner is serious about cancelling the Nordstream 2 expansion in the event of Russian obstinacy, the Greens would likely welcome an opportunity to punish Putin while also fighting Germany’s fossil fuel habit. Both encourage dialogue and promise an end to sanctions in exchange for substantive change in the Ukrainian situation, but, like Merkel, neither party is eager to grant Putin unconditional leniency.

As mentioned, the secondary party in a coalition traditionally takes up residence in the foreign ministry. Christian Lindner’s presence in government could cause certain headaches for Merkel as she seeks to set a consistent Russia policy because Lindner is known for his fluctuating statements and because the FDP platform’s emphasis on dialogue with Russia. While Merkel is unlikely to approve Lindner’s Crimea proposal or give the FDP autonomy in foreign policy (and Lindner himself has indicated he might prefer the finance portfolio), he might create headaches if he were to offer divergent views and alternative policies during interviews. However, in the event of any further Russian aggression, the FDP is also the only party on record for supporting harsher sanctions and other punishments.

Red-Red-Green (SPD-Greens-the Left): The SPD’s potential tie-up with the Left and the Greens seems highly unlikely, considering that it would require the two mainstream-left parties to tolerate both an unstable, minority government and the Left’s radical leftism. In the unlikely event that Schulz’s desire to become chancellor overcomes those drawbacks, this arrangement would probably result in a softer position on Russia, but the Left might prefer domestic portfolios which allow party members to promote its vision for Germany. Furthermore, considering Schulz’s EU background, it seems unlikely that he would countenance the Left running German foreign policy.

AfD might have stormed to a new national high, but with the votes counted, Angela Merkel has avoided any serious challenge, whether from a German competitor or Russian information warfare. Each possible coalition would bring a different flavor of Russia policy, whether the souring status-quo of the grand coalition or the Jamaican emphasis on human rights. But the worst case scenario has not and (apparently) will not come to pass. Rather than orienting away from Western Europe and towards Moscow, Germany might even emerge from the 2017 election with a government even more firmly opposed to Kremlin aggression.

About the author:
*Cornell Overfield, an intern at FPRI for the summer of 2017, studies International Relations and History at the University of Pennsylvania.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

As articulated by John Daniel Davidson, Matt Taibbi and Natasha Bertrand, the much ballyhooed “Russiagate”, has increasingly added something to the belief (as initially and dubiously claimed by the Democratic National Committee and its partisan cybersecurity source CrowdStrike) of a clandestine Russian government effort (perhaps with Donald Trump) to defeat Hillary Clinton in the last US presidential election.

The scenario gaining momentum spins a broadly presented questionable claim about the Kremlin sowing discord in the US, with multi-pronged activity, which wasn’t exclusive to backing Trump. Of the aforementioned three commentators, Taibbi responsibly presents that view as a possibility, unlike Davidson and Bertrand, who suggest it as a fact

RT came out with a listing of the top Russophobes. The RT selection has John McCain topping the list followed by NATO, Louise Mensch, Hillary Clinton, Anne Applebaum, Edward Lucas, Morgan Freeman, Rob Reiner, Buzzfeed and Molly McKew. Knowing thy adversary is strategically important and should therefore not be casually chronicled. Some additional points can be added to RT’s selection.

McCain is essentially the dean of such Russia bashing politicos as Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio. A somewhat similar linkage can be made between NATO and the Atlantic Council.

Some surprise was expressed concerning Morgan Freeman’s ridiculous rant against Russia and its president. This shock brings to mind the “don’t judge a book by its cover” saying. The ability to speak and act well isn’t (by default) indicative of a great intellect. Freeman and his fellow Hollywood political activist Rob Reiner, don’t have an extended track record of fostering hatred towards Russia/Russians. As I recently noted, Freeman and Reiner constitute those Democrats, clinging for an excuse on why Clinton lost to Trump.

With this in mind, their recent Russia bashing manner appears less developed (more Johnny come lately) than Clinton’s stance on that nation. She developed a noticeable enough anti-Russian attitude before her presidential bid. This reality has been used to prop the suspect claim that the Russian government (especially its president) made a covert effort against her presidential bid.

Yes, the Russian government and much of Russia’s population understandably didn’t like Clinton playing to the anti-Russian audience. Along with some anecdotal missives (distorted and otherwise), that sentiment isn’t evidence of an underhanded Kremlin plan (with or without Trump) to wreck her campaign.

Anne Applebaum and Edward Lucas are anti-Communist neocon leaning sorts, who aren’t in the Russophile category. At the same time, they aren’t as prone as some others to being stridently across the board anti-Russian, regardless of Russia’s pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet periods. This observation is made, while disagreeing with those emphasizing a considerable similarity between the negative aspects of the Soviet Union with contemporary Russia – something that Applebaum and Lucas periodically suggest.

If anything, Paul Goble comes across as being more anti-Russian than Applebaum and Lucas, among some others on the RT list. Goble is regularly promoted at Johnson’s Russia List. His common theme is the struggle that non-Russian former Soviets face with Russia/Russians – minus any grievances from Russians. (After writing this essay, I came across Joel Harding’s reply to the RT list in question. Harding leans in a Russia unfriendly direction. In a roundabout way, he kind of supports my view of Goble.)

Louise Mensch is considered “batshit crazy“ by the Russia unfriendly Malcolm Nance. Some others in the Russia unfriendly grouping have also been critical of Mensch. Her suspect claims and overall questionable knowledge of Russia related issues probably explains why she isn’t as likely to get the call to do TV hit jobs on that country as Julia Ioffe, Natasha Bertrand, Masha Gessen and Bianna Gilodryga – all of whom have former Soviet roots.

Of the RT rated, Molly McKew comes closest to resembling Mensch’s persona. Along with Goble, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour is a constant Russia basher not making RT’s list. Upon further thought, one can find others like them in mass media, academia and body politic.

In terms of cranking out anti-Russian commentary, the RT rated Buzzfeed doesn’t carry the same weight as The New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and CNN.

Michael Averko is a New York based independent foreign policy analyst and media critic. The article was initially placed at the Strategic Culture Foundation’s website on October 3.

By Jim Garamone

The certainty engendered by US President Donald J. Trump’s South Asia strategy already is paying dividends in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee  Tuesday.

The president announced the strategy in August.

The strategy, designed to end the stalemate in the region, replaces time constraints with a conditions-based approach and will seek to ensure Afghanistan never becomes a haven for terrorists again, Mattis told the senators.

“While we continue to make gains against the terrorist enemy in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, in Afghanistan we have faced a difficult 16 years,” the secretary said, adding that the strategy is aimed at improving conditions on the ground and putting in place Afghan forces that can protect their fellow citizens.

“Beginning last month, and for the first time in this long fight, all six Afghan military corps are engaged in offensive operations,” Mattis said. “During these recent months, there have been fewer civilian casualties as a result of coalition operations, although regrettably, Taliban high-profile attacks on civilians continue to murder the innocent.”

The Taliban are still a threat, he said, and Afghan forces are taking them on with support from U.S. and NATO advisors, air power and resources.

Afghan Forces Provide Main Effort

The United States has roughly 11,000 troops in Afghanistan, and NATO and partner nations have deployed 6,800. There are 320,000 Afghan forces. “From these numbers, you can see the Afghan forces remain the main effort, and we are supporting them, not supplanting or substituting our troops for theirs,” Mattis told the committee.

“Violence and progress in Afghanistan continue to coexist, but the uncertainty in the region and the NATO campaign has been replaced by certainty due to the implementation of President Trump’s new South Asia strategy,” the secretary said. “This strategy has been welcomed almost uniformly by leaders in the South Asia region as well as the 39 countries contributing troops to the NATO-led campaign.”

The goal, he added, is a stable and secure region and that can only happen if the Taliban reject support or conduct of terrorism. The bumper-sticker version of the strategy is “4R+S,” the secretary said: regionalize, realign, reinforce, reconcile and sustain.

“Regionalize” recognizes that challenges exist beyond Afghanistan, Mattis explained. “The strategy adopts a geographic framework with a holistic, comprehensive view,” he told the senators. “India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia and China were considered at the outset, rather than focusing only on Afghanistan and then introducing external variables late in our strategic design.”

“Realign” is a shift in emphasis in advising Afghan forces to lower levels. Advisors will support or teach at the battalion and brigade level. “The fighting will continue to be carried out by our Afghan partners, but our advisors will accompany tactical units to advise and bring NATO fire support to bear when needed,” the secretary said. “Make no mistake, this is combat duty, but the Afghan forces remain in the lead for the fighting.”

More Support

“Reinforce” refers to the increase of 3,000 U.S. troops now arriving in Afghanistan. The secretary said he expects more forces will come from NATO and partner nations. “In light of our new strategy, 15 nations have signaled that they will increase their support,” he told the panel. “Again, certainty having replaced uncertainty, we are now looking to our partners to provide even more troop and financial support.”

“Reconciliation” is the desired outcome from military operations. “Convincing our foes that the coalition is committed to a conditions-based outcome, we intend to drive fence-sitters and those who will see that we’re not quitting this fight to reconcile with the Afghan national government,” Mattis said. “Our goal is a stabilized Afghanistan, achieved through an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process.

“War is principally a matter of will,” he continued, “and the international community is making clear that it will stand alongside the Afghans committed to this fight.”

Mattis, who just returned from a visit to Afghanistan, said the psychological impact of this new strategy already is being felt militarily and politically.

“Our South Asia strategy reinforces to the Taliban that the only path to peace and political legitimacy is through a negotiated settlement,” he said. “It is time for the Taliban to recognize they cannot kill their way to power, nor can they provide refuge or support to trans-national terrorists who intend to do us harm.”

(RFE/RL) — A U.S. Senate committee says there is a consensus that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election but is still investigating whether there was any collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign team.

Senator Richard Burr (Republican-North Carolina), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in Washington on October 4 that the committee “continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any evidence of collusion…but we are not there yet.”

Burr said the committee had conducted more than 100 interviews — including numerous members of the administrations of Trump and former President Barack Obama — and reviewed more than 100,000 documents in their investigation.

He said they are scheduled to interview 25 more people and hope to finish the investigation this year.

Senator Mark Warner (Democrat-Virginia), the deputy chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said there is a “consensus” that the Russians “hacked into [U.S.] political files” and released information in an effort “to sway the election.”

Burr said that, although Russia had meddled in the election, he can say “certifiably” that no vote totals were altered as a result.

Warner said the effort by the Russians to influence the presidential election included attempts to “test the vulnerabilities” of the election systems in 21 states by “trying to open the door.”

Trying To Create ‘Chaos’

The committee, Burr said, has determined that the Russian involvement in buying ads on social media was “indiscriminate” and did not benefit “one side of the ideological spectrum or the other.”

He added that the ads “tried to create chaos [and] I would say they have been pretty darn successful.”

Burr said many social-media companies did not take seriously the threat by Russia to influence the democratic process ahead of the elections, and added that officials from Google, Twitter, and Facebook will appear in a public hearing “so that Americans can hear how they are going to protect [the election process in the future] and know whether an ad was generated by a foreign entity.”

Facebook said on October 2 that it will hire more than 1,000 people to help prevent deceptive ads from appearing on the social-media site and influencing future elections.

The same day it gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee more than 3,000 ads that it said likely operated out of Russia and pushed divisive issues during the campaign.

Burr said his committee will not release the ads but encouraged Facebook to do so.

“At the end of the day it’s important for the American people to see these ads,” said Warner.

‘Committed And Clever’

Warner also said that the Russian intelligence service activities did not end with the U.S. presidential election on November 8 and that similar acts continued ahead of political elections in Montenegro, Belgium, France, and Germany.

Burr said the Russian intelligence service is “committed and clever.”

Burr also commented on the committee’s investigation of memos written by former FBI Director James Comey after various meetings with Trump that critics said showed obstruction of justice on the part of the president, who fired Comey amid an FBI investigation of collusion by Trump.

Burr said that investigation by his committee had reached “a logical end.”

He added that any further questions about Comey’s firing should be directed to Robert Mueller, who is heading a special investigation into Russian interference in the elections and any possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Burr said his committee had also “hit a wall” on the credibility of the “Steele dossier” — a private intelligence report written by former British spy Christopher Steele, who Burr said has refused to meet with the committee.

The dossier contains unproven allegations of misconduct by Trump and his campaign as well as collusion between it and the Russian government ahead of the U.S. election.

The Steele report has been denounced by Trump as “phony.”

Burr acknowledged that the investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in last year’s presidential election was taking a long time but said it was important to “get it right.”

He said that the “facts of Russia’s involvement in the election” must be made public before the political campaigns begin for the November 2018 U.S. general elections.

By Maria Dubovikova

King Salman arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for a historic and unprecedented state visit to Russia, the first by a Saudi monarch in almost a century of diplomatic ties.

The king was greeted at Vnukovo airport by senior Russian officials and a military brass band. He will have talks with the Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Friday.

The two countries will sign investment agreements worth more than $3 billion during the visit, the Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said. They include a $1.1 billion deal for the Russian petrochemical company Sibur to build a plant in Saudi Arabia, a $1 billion joint technology investment fund, another $1 billion joint fund to invest in energy projects, and Saudi investment in Russian toll roads, including a new one in Moscow.

King Salman and President Putin are also expected to discuss extending oil production cuts ahead of the OPEC meeting in November.

The king is leading a high-powered delegation of government and private-sector figures.

“The potential for economic cooperation between the countries is really unlimited,” Konstantin Dudarev, former Saudi general manager of the Russian oil and gas engineering construction company PJSC Stroytransgaz told Arab News.

“Their economies complement each other, and it is time to gain what was lost during the past years, and to take practical steps to overcome all obstacles to secure a breakthrough in trade and economic relations.”

Ilya Fabrichnikov, head of the foreign affairs group at the Russian Association of Public Relations, said the visit marked a shift in regional and global affairs. “We are witnessing a move from a unipolar world to a more regionalized state of affairs,” he told Arab News.

Anton Mardasov of the Russian International Affairs Council said the two countries were moving to end their “stereotyped perceptions of each other. Taking into account the nature of the Russian economy and the country’s geopolitical position, it is important for Moscow to attract foreign investment and ameliorate the investment climate.

“In this regard, Saudi-Russian business and investment cooperation serves Russian national interests. There are a large number of Muslims in Russia who can benefit from Islamic banking, which is an area of investment for Russia and Saudi Arabia.”

Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said the two countries would seek areas of synergy and aim to exploit their “unique technologies,” for example in desalination and energy efficiency for air conditioning.

He also highlighted Russia’s largest tech company, Yandex, which specializes in Internet-related services and products. “Yandex is an interesting company for us because it is already present in the Middle East and Turkey, and it has a search engine that beats Google in the Russian market by a large margin,” he said.

Dmitriev’s fund will also look at relevant investments outside Russia and Saudi Arabia, he said.

The Council of Saudi Chambers organized a networking meeting in Moscow on Wednesday for more than 100 Saudi and Russian business leader and chief executives, to coincide with King Salman’s visit.

Council Chairman Ahmed Al-Rajhi said he hoped the meeting would boost commercial cooperation and investment between the two countries.

An increase in meetings between Russia and Saudi Arabia “has become a pressing necessity to activate commercial and investment relations,” he said.

King Salman’s visit will conclude on Saturday.

By Diana Moukalled*

When we speak of Hezbollah’s control over decision-making in Lebanon, not only are we referring to political decisions, but also to social aspects. Many matters are being controlled by Hezbollah’s perspective, and this has been increasingly applied to public life in Lebanon in the last few years.

Last week, regions under Hezbollah’s direct rule were commemorating Ashura; rituals associated with this occasion are soaring year after year and nowadays we do not only see black flags and motivational phrases scattered across neighborhoods and roads, but we also hear harsh speeches in the heart of sermons that are broadcast on a daily basis through loudspeakers and screens, to which a broad audience of both genders are invited to attend.

This year, social relationships are receiving more attention than politics and clerics’ speeches give us an idea of what Hezbollah’s approach would be like in the next phase.

In one of his speeches, Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, mocked divorced women and said they were unfit to teach children in schools. While his opinion triggered negative reactions, prompting him to rectify his statement, in fact Qassem’s views of women are in line with Hezbollah’s ideologies.

We can easily see how clerics affiliated with Hezbollah are incessantly discussing social issues, such as criticizing the mixing of sexes at nightclubs and similar venues, comedy shows, and homosexuals. They are also talking about women, their role in society and their attire. What is even more pathetic is how people are shocked by this kind of speech; not only that, some of Hezbollah’s leftist and Christian allies advocated Qassem’s statements, as well as those of other clerics, among which was a statement by Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, who openly called for legislating child marriage. Yet those who claim to be progressive and call themselves leftists continue to support Hezbollah’s regional and social projects.

We should admit that Hezbollah succeeded in another matter alongside controlling Lebanon’s decision-making. It succeeded in building an image that depicts the party as far from being fundamentalist to the point that there are people who believe that the party fighting in Syria for sectarian reasons would allow and tolerate a diverse, free society in Lebanon. Therefore, we see that those who have such beliefs are bewildered when Hezbollah officials utter backward statements about women, arts or homosexuals.

Most likely, “fighting Israel” and how they incessantly speak of it on every TV channel is what is behind this bewilderment, for there is a certain approach that tends to forgive the party’s archaic ideologies and regard it as progressive as long as it is fighting Israel.

Hezbollah is a reactionary party that aspires to bring back bygone times, especially in terms of the role of women, thereby acting like any other religious party. The attempts of leftists to create a “progressive” image for Hezbollah, in comparison with other rising fundamentalist groups, will soon backfire because Hezbollah’s nature is all about fighting and power and, when the party takes full control of power, it will practice and apply what it knows best: Ruling through ideology.

It is ironic when Christian and communist groups in Lebanon justify Hezbollah’s statements by describing them as a slip of the tongue or a minor issue in the face of major ones — like fighting Israel and extremists. Hezbollah’s fight in Syria to help the criminal regime required the inclusion of non-Hezbollah factions to support its battle. However, those who imagine they are partners with Hezbollah in its missions will be its first victims after the mission is over… and the early signs of this are looming on the horizon.

• Diana Moukalled is a veteran journalist with extensive experience in both traditional and new media. She is also a columnist and freelance documentary producer. Twitter @dianamoukalled

Iranian deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs Seyyed Abbas Araghchi emphasized that the global community will no longer tolerate nuclear-weapon states’ lack of commitment to denuclearization.

Araghchi made the remarks on Tuesday while addressing the United Nations General Assembly on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

He pointed at the United States in warning on Tuesday that a new nuclear arms race and new competition to modernize nuclear weapons are starting.

“But despite the cessation of the nuclear arms race for some years, recently we hear an alarming announcement by United States, a nuclear-weapon state that it intends to continuously strengthen and expand its nuclear arsenal to ensure its place at the top of the pack,” he said.

This was a clear reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s comment in February that “a dream would be that no country would have nukes, but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.”

Araghchi called that statement “a clear indication of, and an explicit invitation to, the start of a new nuclear arms race.”

He also warned about the plans of “almost all nuclear weapon possessors for the modernization of their nuclear weapon arsenals” as well as the development of mini-nukes “by a certain nuclear-weapon state.” He said those are alarming trends that increase the danger of nuclear weapons being used.

The official has said that working towards the total purging of nuclear weapons is a “legal, political and moral responsibility” of every state.

“We need to take this responsibility responsibly and continue our collective efforts resolutely. On its part, Iran will continue to remain a strong supporter of nuclear disarmament,” he said.

Araghchi went on to add that nuclear-armed countries have been jeopardizing the Non-Proliferation Treaty by continued violations over the past almost 50 years.

“While nuclear-weapon states are primarily responsible for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals, the non-nuclear-weapon states shall not remain indifferent towards the 47-year non-compliance of nuclear-weapon states with their explicit nuclear disarmament obligations,” he added.

“Non-nuclear-weapon States need to contribute to the work of the United Nations high-level international conference on nuclear disarmament in 2018 and the Review Conference of the States Parties to the NPT in 2020 towards taking concrete actions to rectify this situation,” Iranian deputy foreign minister continued.

Russian outlets are putting out the line that Daghestanis themselves are pleased that the Kremlin has named an ethnic Russian to head their republic because only such a person, they reportedly believe, can navigate the complicated ethnic situation in that North Caucasus republic.

There may be some basis for that conclusion in Daghestan given that it lacks a single dominant ethnic group and that many of the members of one nationality there may prefer an outsider, even an ethnic Russian, in the top job rather than a representative of one of their competitors.

But the claim, circulated by Moscow’s Vzglyad among others, that “many Daghestanis said: send us an ethnic Russian” (vz.ru/politics/2017/10/3/888906.html) almost certainly overstates the enthusiasm of any of them, including the former republic head who urged his replacement not to engage in any sweeping purge of the Makhachkala administration.

However, there is even stronger evidence of feelings about the nationality of the republic head than that. Makhachkala’s Chernovik publishes a story that despite the official biography of the new head which says his mother was a Russian and his father a Kazakh, some in Daghestan are saying he really has “Daghestani roots” (chernovik.net/content/lenta-novostey/u-vrio-glavy-dagestana-vladimira-vasileva-nashlis-dagestanskie-korni).

According to a Daghestani journalist, people in Derbent, a city in southern Daghestan, are celebrating the new man because they say that “the real father” of the new republic head is Abduali Guseynov, an ethnic Azerbaijani and war veteran. According to the journalist, the new governor has often visited the extended family of Guseynov.

On the one hand, this may be an attempt to “domesticate” the new governor and to gain an upper hand for one group within Daghestan. And on the other, it may be nothing more than the kind of wishful thinking many people engage in when change happens. But at the very least, it highlights the continuing importance of nationality whatever Moscow thinks.

A member of the student wing of Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League has been arrested over the kidnapping and detention of a Catholic priest in Dhaka.

Firoz Talukdar, officer-in-charge of the Tongi police station where the victim Father Shishir Gregory lodged the complaint, said the arrested man was a member of Chhatra League, the student arm of the governing party.

He said further police raids would be conducted in the hunt for four other men allegedly involved in the attack.

The gang allegedly phoned Father Gregory, 40, the vice-rector of St. Joseph’s seminary in Dhaka, on Oct. 2 and told him to come to Tongi, an industrial suburb near the capital, to see his “seriously ailing” sister.

Upon arrival, the priest was detained in a room with the gang grabbing his money, mobile phone and motorbike.

The abductors allegedly also demanded a huge ransom before the priest managed to escape and ran screaming for help. A group of locals rescued Father Gregory, captured one of the abductors and handed him over to police.

The priest later filed a case against five unnamed persons at Tongi police station, accusing them of abduction and extortion.

“As far as we know there was no sectarian motive behind the crime but extortion. There might be other motives that we don’t know yet and we can determine once the probe is completed,” police chief Firoz told ucanews.com.

Father Gregory declined to comment on what happened other than to say he was “psychologically distressed.”

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin held talks with the President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro in the Kremlin on Wednesday.

Bilateral cooperation, as well as political, trade and economic issues, were discussed, according to the Kremlin.

While Putin acknowledged that Venezuela is going through challenging times, he said that, “one gets the impression that you have nonetheless managed to establish some kind of contact with the political forces that are opposing you.”

According to Putin, Russia and Venezeula continue working in the economic sphere, and while there has been a small decline in trade, “we believe it is beyond our control. There are some positives as well, including our continued work on our major projects.”

For his part, Maduro said that, “Attempts were made to impose on Venezuela a model that would shackle us and not allow us to use the resources that we have. The only way to deal with this is by actively working to resolve this issue and sincerely believing that our homeland will be able to take command.”

Iraq’s former president Jalal Talabani died on Tuesday at the age of 83 after a long illness.

An ethnic Kurd, Talabani was Iraq’s first non-Arab president. He held this position between 2005 and 2014, as well as the President of the Governing Council of Iraq.

Talabani was one of the founding fathers of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two leading associations of Iraqi Kurds.

The Russian Foreign Ministry in a press statement, said that, “In the new Iraq led by Talabani, the legitimate interests of all ethnic and religious groups, including Kurds, were respected. Jalal Talabani was a true patriot of his nation who consistently advocated federalism, unity and territorial integrity, as well as the implementation of the Kurds’ rights in a broad autonomy. This civil position plays a key role at this moment in light of the current developments concerning Iraqi Kurdistan.”

“Jalal Talabani was always sympathetic towards Russia and called for strengthening the traditionally friendly relations between Iraq and Russia. His contribution to the restoration of Russian-Iraqi relations as well as to their consistent improvement in the new period of Iraqi history is worthy of high praise.”

The European Commission on Wednesday launched plans for the biggest reform of EU VAT rules in a quarter of a century.

According to the Commission, the reboot would improve and modernize the system for governments and businesses alike. Overall, over€150 billion of VAT is lost every year, meaning that Member States miss out on revenue that could be used for schools, roads and healthcare.

Of this, around €50 billion – or €100 per EU citizen each year – is estimated to be due to cross-border VAT fraud. This money can be used to finance criminal organizations, including terrorism. It is estimated that this sum would be reduced by 80% thanks to the proposed reform.

The proposed VAT reform would also make the system more robust and simpler to use for companies, the Commission said.

The Commission wants a VAT system that helps European companies to reap all the benefits of the Single Market and to compete in global markets. Businesses trading cross-border currently suffer from 11% higher compliance costs compared to those trading only domestically. Simplifying and modernizing VAT should reduce these costs by an estimated €1 billion.

A definitive VAT system that works for the Single Market has been a long-standing commitment of the European Commission. The 2016 VAT Action Plan explained in detail the need to come to a single European VAT area that is simpler and fraud-proof.

Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, responsible for the Euro and Social Dialogue said: “Today, we are proposing to renew the current VAT system, which was set up a quarter century ago on a temporary basis. We need a definitive system that allows us to deal more efficiently with cross‑border VAT fraud. At the European Union level, this fraud causes an annual tax revenue loss of around €50 billion.”

According to Pierre Moscovici, Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs,  “Twenty-five years after the creation of the Single Market, companies and consumers still face 28 different VAT regimes when operating cross-border. Criminals and possibly terrorists have been exploiting these loopholes for too long, organising a €50bn fraud per year. This anachronistic system based on national borders must end! Member States should consider cross-border VAT transactions as domestic operations in our internal market by 2022. Today’s proposal is expected to reduce cross-border VAT fraud by around 80%. At the same time, it will make life easier for EU companies trading across borders, slashing red tape and simplifying VAT-related procedures. In short: good news for business, consumers and national budgets, bad news for fraudsters.”

With the package, the Commission proposes to fundamentally change the current VAT system by taxing sales of goods from one EU country to another in the same way as goods are sold within individual Member States. This will create a new and definitive VAT system for the EU.

By Jorge Valero

(EurActiv) –Catalonia is looking for an international mediator who would help build a minimum of “mutual trust” between Madrid and Barcelona following the region’s independence referendum on 1 October, Catalan Permanent Representative to the EU told EURACTIV.

Amadeu Altafaj said the mediator would not take part in political negotiations. The priority would be to agree on sending 12.000 policemen deployed in the region back to their original posts to calm down the situation.

In addition, the mediator would assist in releasing Catalonian officials arrested for their involvement in the referendum and in restoring the money transfers to the regional government (Generalitat).

Finally, the mediator would suggest measures to avoid further escalation and build trust.

The referendum was declared illegal by Spain’s constitutional court. Catalonia’s government decision to neglect the judges’ ruling and pursue the vote provoked a dozen of arrests. In addition, payments to regional civil servants were made directly from the central government to avoid any misuse of the funds to finance the vote.

Altafaj went to Barcelona on Tuesday to discuss the next steps with the members of the Generalitat.

The mediation proposal is less ambitious than the initial request made by Catalonia’s pro-independence President Carles Puigdemont, who had initially called on the EU to intervene quickly and find a political solution, after hundreds of people were injured in disturbances across Catalonia on the referendum day.

But both the European Commission and the Spanish government rejected any involvement of EU institutions.

“The mediation is not going to happen. The EU does not want to take this role. Besides, it has a tradition of not interfering in domestic issues of its member states,” recalled Dave Sinardet, a professor of political science at the Free University of Brussels and an expert on nationalism.

Altafaj said the mediation role could be played by a non-EU entity, a foreign institution or personality that inspires “trust and consensus”.

“If other formulas have been rejected, let’s find new ones,” he said, as he emphasised that “the issue is now part of Europe’s public agenda”.

He explained that the Catalan government is working on some options and a proposal could be made public in the next few hours.

The proposal came as tensions rose further in Barcelona after Sunday’s violence. Thousands of Catalans took the streets since then, businesses remained closed and public services operated with restrictions after a strike was called.

In some Catalan cities, local authorities forced hotels to kick out police officers hosted as part of the security operation ordered by Madrid.

In an unprecedented address to the nation on Tuesday evening, King Felipe VI called on the central government to “ensure the constitutional order”. He described the situation as “very serious for our democratic life”.

The institutional fight and tensions on the street took their toll on the stock market, with the Catalan banks losing around 15% since Friday.

Puigdemont was expected to speak at noon but postponed his speech for the evening.

MEPs debate

The deteriorating situation came against the backdrop of a growing concern in the EU institutions about the political crisis shaking the fourth-largest eurozone economy. A large number of MEPs brought up the issue during a plenary debate about the next EU summit, held in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

Most of the legislators called on both sides to return to dialogue, while many expressed support to Spain and to the legal order.

But some MEPs also criticized the police intervention to abort the referendum, which left almost 900 people injured according to the Generalitat.

“We reiterate the condemnation of the police intervention seen over the last days. Fundamental rights are being violated in Catalonia, and the only proposal on the table is beating”, said Ernest Urtasun from the Catalan Greens (ICV).

“We don’t need tutelage or political mediators with insurgents”, said Esteban Gonzalez Pons, the head of the PP delegation in Parliament. “If Spain remains united or breaks up is for the Spanish people to decide”, he stated.

In a debate on Catalonia held later on Wednesday, Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans insisted on the need to respect the rule of law in the EU.

“You can oppose the law, you can change the law, but you cannot ignore the law. It is fundamental that the constitutions of every of our member states are upheld and respected”, he said. “Catalonia ignored the law”, he lamented.

He reminded that the Catalan dispute belongs to Spain’s legal order. But he called on both sides to “move from the confrontation to dialogue”.

The Dutch commissioner criticised the violence – “never an answer, never a solution”- but said that the “proportionate” use of force in some cases is needed to protect the law.

And while he acknowledged the right for the freedom of expression, he stresssed that it exists for everybody. “One opinion is not more valuable than another just because it is expressed more loudly,” he said referring to the pro-independence camp.

By Giancarlo Elia Valori*

The Communist Party of China (CPC) – in the phase in which it is governed by Xi Jinping and by Prime Minister Li Kekiang – is changing rapidly. This is a geopolitical and strategic factor of great importance also for Europe and the United States.

Just a few years before its centennial, the Party founded in Shanghai in 1921 is still a “hircocervus”, both for the Communist tradition resulting from the Third International and for the evolution and, sometimes, the disappearance of the Communist Parties in power in the Soviet Union, in its Eastern European satellite countries and in many Asian countries.

Indeed, the CPC is both a large mass Party and a political organization that, following the Third International’s tradition, presides over the State and defines its political direction.

Lenin thought of a small Party of militants and officials who developed the policy line and, through the State, imposed it on society.

In fact, in the Soviet Union, the CPSU destroyed itself by entering civil society. Conversely, in China, the CPC grows stronger by acquiring and selecting the best elements of society and representing the great masses inside and above the State.

We can here recall the sarcastic smiles and the biting jokes that the CPC leaders – and, at the time, the Deng Xiaoping of the “Four Modernizations” was already in power – reserved for Gorbachev paying an official visit to China while the “Tien An Mien” rebellion of the students who wanted “democracy” was underway.

As is well-known, the repression was very harsh. The CPC does not delegate to others the power to reform the Chinese society.

Hence a Party like the CPC, which is fully traditional in its relationship with the State and the masses, appears to be completely new in turning itself into a mass organization, thus also remaining the source for legitimacy of the Chinese State.

The Chinese official sources tell us that, when it was founded in 1921, the Party counted only fifty members.

Today – considering that the CPC has been able to understand the new phase of globalization – it counts 87.7 million members, one every sixteen Chinese citizens.

More than the population of the whole Germany.

75% of the current members are male; 43% have at least a high school diploma; 30% are farmers, shepherds and fishermen; 25% are employed, 18% are retired, but only 8% are civil servants.

On the contrary, the 50 or more probably 57 founding members of the CPC in Shanghai were all members of the ruling classes, with 27 students, 11 journalists and 9 professors.

In 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party was already controlled by Mao Zedong and took power by wiping out the nationalists, the members were almost four millions.

From the outset the CPC has chosen the best of the Chinese society, by changing its targets year after year: sometimes intellectual elites or, in other years, rural masses and working classes.

The traditional dilemma of “Red” versus “Expert” that the CPC would never solve, not even in the harshest moments of the “Great Cultural and Proletarian Revolution”.

With Deng Xiaoping, who put an end to the phase of the “Red Guards”, by often sending them to terrible work camps, the CPC reached a 50% of technicians, specialists, teachers and “experts”.

Currently the university students are 40% of the Party’s new recruits.

A CPC that does not renounce at all to be a mass Party, but also organizes the elites: it is one of the most significant traits of what the Chinese leaders called “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”.

Furthermore, Xi Jinping no longer wants a Party “taking everyone on board” or joining militants without qualifications, but he tends to gradually turn the CPC into a more selective organization than it currently is.

The selection is always conducted silently by the Party that listens to the candidates’ friends and colleagues and asks them whether they are “frugal”, “honest” and “correct”.

For the sources of the CPC inspectors, silence and secrecy are a must.

Otherwise, the Party will “not forget this.”

All State companies and all foreign companies have a Party unit inside them and this allows better relations between companies and State power.

Hence if we were to analyze the CPC according to Giovanni Sartori’s modern theory of political Parties, we should say that the Chinese Communist Party is both a “social brokerage body” and a “mechanism of representation”.

The Soviet Communist Party (CPSU) collapsed because it played only a social brokerage role, but was not representative, while the CPC is expanding because it plays both roles effectively.

The goal set by Xi Jinping is to create a “moderately prosperous society”.

It is the evolution of Xi Jinping’s theory of the “Four Comprehensives” announced in early 2015.

The Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy is based on the following Four Comprehensives: “comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society”; “comprehensively deepen reform”; “comprehensively govern the nation according to law” and “comprehensively strictly govern the Party”.

It is worth recalling that moderate prosperity is a fully Confucian concept. Said moderation is that of the equilibrium of man’s faculties and of the relationship between mind and desire. It is not an anti-Epicurean “moderation” in the Western sense.

Hence the primary factor is prosperity.

According to the usually reliable Chinese official statistics, over the past thirty years 700 million Chinese have come out of poverty.

Currently this happens mainly in rural areas, after Deng Xiaoping’s dismantling of rural communes – indeed, the First Modernization was the agricultural one.

Chinese farmers, however, account for 56-68% of the total population or for 12-14% of the world’s population.

Nevertheless Deng’s modernization of rural areas did not fully work and, in the early 1990s, the Chinese rural society was still stratified, impoverished and characterized by low productivity, while the cities grew disproportionately and weighed ever more on rural resources.

Cities and rural areas, the two terms of Mao Zedong’s theory both within Communist China and in foreign policy – the two extreme of the Third International’s eternal dilemma, from the 1932-33 rural crises in Ukraine until Stalin’s famine of 1950.

Hence Xi Jinping, who knows that the crisis of the Chinese rural world has certainly not disappeared with the semi-privatization of land and prices, has sent 770,000 officials and Party leaders to Chinese rural areas to eradicate poverty and hence stabilize said areas even politically and socially.

This avoids the excess of rural population reforming a kind of Lumpenproletariat in the urban suburbs.

With terrible effects on China’s political and social stability.

A society with excessive income differences is never “harmonious” – just to use a Confucian concept that has now become typical of the CPC.

And the operation has worked – at least for the time being.

In fact, from 2013 to 2016, other 56 million people living in rural areas came out of poverty – and the process to which Xi Jinping attaches particular importance is going on.

With a view to having a CPC functioning as a backbone of the State and, at the same time, of civil society, corruption must be eradicated – as we have seen since Xi Jinping has been in power.

Approximately one million Party officials punished, in various ways, for corruption until 2016 and as many as 210,000 already punished in 2017 alone.

Currently Xi Jinping is the ultimate arbiter of the Party and its members’ careers – perhaps even Mao Zedong never had such power.

However, instead of destroying all his competitors, Xi Jinping is creating a new blood of young executives, all coming from the CPC, who will quickly replace the old satraps of bureaucracy.

Besides repressing corruption however, the mechanism of political scrutiny needs to be renewed and strengthened, as the CPC is doing.

Created when the CPC was founded, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) has always had very strong power, but it was abolished in 1969 following the Party’s well-known internal struggles.

It was revived in 1977 and – as happened since 1949 – it has been included in the Party Constitution.

Even before Xi Jinping’s rise to power, from 1982 to 1986 the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection expelled 25,000 Party members and imposed a series of disciplinary sanctions on other 67,000 CPC members.

A structure that has never reduced its specific powers and is the arbiter of the main careers inside the Party and the State.

In Xi Jinping’s mind the fight against corruption – which, with his leadership, has reached unimaginable levels and has hit high-ranking executives, such as Bo Xilai and Ling Jihua – the cleansing inside the Party combines with the refoundation of the Party’s working style and the strengthening of internal discipline.

The Politburo’s “Eight Guidelines” of December 2012 already pointed to a sober and modest lifestyle for all officials and leaders. Furthermore, Li Keqiang has imposed new standards for the transparency of public budgets and reduced the number of government approvals and authorization for spending, thus eliminating evident possibilities of generating bribes.

Currently the CPC inspectors are included – often secretly – in all government bodies and in all regional and local structures.

The system is such that the inspectors are directly responsible for the mistakes or “oversights” of the various Party and government members’ behaviours.

Before Xi Jinping’s rise to power (and before Wang Qishan, his anti-corruption Chief) the incentives to national or local officials and leaders were based on reaching specific economic targets. Nowadays the granting of cash prizes or of career advances is linked to the overall behaviour of officials and, above all, to their honesty – which overlaps with loyalty and obedience to the Party, the Central Committee and, obviously, Xi Jinping’s line.

Moreover the inspections have the strictly political purpose of safeguarding the Central Committee’s joint and centralized authority and leadership.

Xi Jinping knows all too well that any corruption activity is a de facto form of secession from the “political centre” – as demonstrated by the studies on organized crime in the South of Italy.

Hence return to the Party’s centralism, without the “federalist” nonsense that is destroying Europe; maintenance of the CPC leadership role on the whole Chinese society and of Xi Jinping’s role as undisputed leader of the Communist Party of China.

Three factors which are closely interwoven.

So far there have been 12 cycles of inspections within the Party – inspections regarding the CPC organizations at all levels, State companies, banks and financial companies, as well as universities.

The revision of part of the Constitution has started from this process of political and moral restructuring.

The next 19th National Congress will constitute the last and final Sinicization of Marxism.

A stronger and more authoritative CPC, but, above all more integrated in civil society – and here is the novelty compared to the Third International’s Western tradition.

Hence development of Socialism “with Chinese characteristics”, which means Socialism in a society that has not been industrialized by the national bourgeoisie, but by foreigners – a society which is largely rural, while Marxism thinks above all of industrial workers (that is highly traditional), while Western socialism has inherited the most radical aspects of the bourgeois Enlightenment.

The aim of this CPC exercise – made authoritative by the struggle against corruption – is that of Xi Jinping’s “moderately prosperous” society, namely a balanced progress of the economy and of political organization, as well as of the cultural, social and environmental evolution.

Hence self-control of the Party, and – for the first time in the CPC history – reaffirmation of a typical concept of the Western political tradition, namely the “rule of law”.

As recently stated by Xi Jinping at the Interpol General Assembly in Beijing on September 26 last, China’s inclusion in Interpol is a tool for building a world integrated collective security system both strategically and for the repression of personal crimes and offences.

The new security – and here Xi Jinping spoke of international policy between the lines – shall be common, global, cooperative and sustainable in the future.

Hence support for the security of developing countries and perception by all actors of the others’ interests.

We could speak here of Confucian geopolitics.

Thinking also of the others is not a difficult process. The issue lies in changing the thinking style and putting ourselves in other people’s shoes, to avoid excessive reactions and, above all, dangerous for the best interest of nations, i.e. world stability.

Hence, stability and security at internal level, with the centralization and moralization of the CPC; security and stability in the international context, with Xi Jinping vigorously defending globalization in Davos, against the resurgence of economic nationalism in the United States; security and centralization of the Chinese interests in Central Asia, which will soon become the launching pad of China as great global power, far beyond its already significant economic potential.

About the author:
*Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “La Centrale Finanziaria Generale Spa”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group and member of the Ayan-Holding Board. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title of “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

By Michael Lelyveld

A mammoth merger of state-owned coal and power companies in China may create the world’s largest electric utility, but what it will do for the environment remains to be seen.

Under an agreement approved by the cabinet-level State Council on Aug. 28, China’s leading coal company Shenhua Group Corp. will join with generating giant China Guodian Corp. to form National Energy Group, Reuters reported.

The combination will control 1.84 trillion yuan (U.S. $280 billion) in assets, the companies said.

Shenhua brings 420 million metric tons of coal mining capacity to the table, adding to Guodian’s 65 million metric tons, the South China Morning Post said. Combined coal production this year may exceed 336 million tons, based on company reports.

Guodian’s installed generating capacity of 145 gigawatts (GW) includes 26.17 GW of wind power, the world’s largest source. Shenhua’s installed power capacity stood at 82 GW at the end of 2015, Bloomberg News said, citing the energy analysis firm BNEF.

The merger of the two state-owned enterprises (SOEs) includes a slew of other assets including rail lines and port facilities.

The new company accounts for 13 percent of China’s power generation and coal mining capacity, according to a Citigroup estimate cited by Bloomberg.

Despite Guodian’s investments in wind power and other renewables, the merged company’s output will continue to rely heavily on coal.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimated that 77 percent of National Energy Group’s generation will be coal-fired, with 14 percent coming from wind, 8 percent from hydropower and 1 percent from solar.

It is unclear how many of the company’s generating plants will be affected by the National Energy Administration (NEA) plan last November to close or delay 103 coal-fired plants and projects with capacity of 150 GW by 2020.

But the company is expected to keep building and opening new coal power plants.

Shenhua alone is likely to commission nine new coal-fired plant sites in 2017-2018. All will be “ultra-supercritical” generators, which rely on high temperatures to use coal more efficiently, the Global Energy Research service of consulting firm Enerdata said.

The changes come as China appears to be on the verge of reversing a declining trend in coal consumption which, according to official figures, has lasted for three years.

In the first half of this year, China burned 1.83 billion tons of coal, a slight increase from year-earlier consumption of 1.82 billion tons, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in separate reports.

The figures from the government planning agency may be an early sign that coal use is on the rise again this year along with the economy.

Last year, coal consumption fell by a substantial 4.7 percent. In the first half of 2016, coal use dropped 5.1 percent from a year before, the NDRC said last year.

The turnaround in consumption is taking place against a backdrop of conflicting forces.

On the one hand, China’s government has ordered cuts in production overcapacity in industries including coal and steel, while downsizing generating plans.

On the other, China is facing rising demand due to the increase in economic growth rates to 6.9 percent in the first half of 2017 from 6.7 percent last year.

Power consumption in the first half rose 6.3 percent, up from a 5-percent pace in 2016.

The forces have combined to drive up prices for coal and steel, triggering increased production. Coal output through August climbed 5.4 percent, while crude steel production gained 5.6 percent.

Onset of winter smog

The environmental effects have been evident this year.

In the first half, the concentration of fine smog-causing particles known as PM2.5 rose 5.4 percent from a year earlier in 28 monitored northern and central cities, marking the first increase since 2013, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) said.

In early September, the MEP warned that the onset of winter smog had started early in Beijing this year, prompting new limits on coal.

On Sept. 16, the official Xinhua news agency reported that only natural gas, electricity and renewable energy would be used for heating in the 28 cities, but it did not say how the rule would be enforced.

Beijing authorities have also promised to suspend most construction activities to ease pollution pressures from Nov. 15 to March 15, Xinhua said.

Steel production is to be reduced by half in the nearby port city of Tianjin this winter, but it was unclear whether wider seasonal cuts ordered last March by key agencies and six provincial governments for steel, cement and aluminum would be put into effect.

Despite the new environmental measures, the joining of large coal and power interests suggests that the merged company will have a strong incentive to utilize its own resources and boost coal-fired power.

The government has targeted a reduction in coal’s share of primary energy use from 62 percent last year to 58 percent by 2020. But the proportion is now “around 80 percent” in China’s north, according to Xinhua.

In a blog posting, China energy expert Philip Andrews-Speed said that one of the government’s aims in promoting the merger is to further its goals of reducing coal-fired power capacity, cutting coal production and consumption, and curbing emissions.

Those aims have met with local resistance, in part because coal mining and power provide more jobs than renewable energy, said Andrews-Speed, a principal fellow at National University of Singapore.

“In undertaking the merger of Shenhua and Guodian, the government seems to have shifted the responsibility to the new company,” he said. “Even within the company, the business logic will continue to support coal use, at least in the short-term, as the merger reduces the impact of fluctuating prices.”

The environmental effect of the merger appears to have been a secondary consideration at best as the government pursues its separate goal of restructuring its bloated state-owned giants and reducing the number SOEs.

In July, the State Council unveiled its broad plan to register all of its centrally-administered SOEs, except those in financial and cultural enterprises, as limited liability companies or joint-equity corporations in an effort to make them more competitive.

It is unclear whether the program will succeed in reforming the heavily-indebted SOE sector under modern management with participation of private capital. But the government claims that 92 percent of SOE subsidiaries had already been “restructured into modern companies” by the end of 2016.

Part of the goal has been to reduce the number of centrally-administered SOEs to under 100 by the end of the year.

That target was reached in August with the announced merger of Sinolight Corp., a light industry and financial services group, with China National Arts and Crafts Corp., incorporated in turn under China Poly Group Corp., which is engaged in activities ranging from real estate to defense equipment.

While the logic may seem less than obvious, the merger allowed the government to claim that the number of SOEs had dropped to 99 from 102 at the start of the year and 196 in 2003.

In time for the party congress

The speedup of SOE merger activity appears to be aimed at advancing claims of success in reform efforts in time for the Communist Party of China (CPC) 19th National Congress, scheduled for this month.

The Shenhua-Guodian deal may have clearer logic, but it is part of the same process, reducing the number of central SOEs to 98.

China analysts say the mergers do little for competition and may succeed only in creating bigger SOEs, leaving the size of the state sector unchanged.

Andrews-Speed said it was uncertain what part environmental considerations may have played in the Shenhua- Guodian merger plans.

“I guess it is a case of mixed motives will lead to mixed outcomes,” he said.

“Although one of the (secondary?) official reasons for the merger is the reduction of thermal power, it is far from clear how this will be achieved other than through the ongoing program of enforced closures,” he said by email.

In an upbeat assessment last week in the run-up to the party congress, the chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), Xiao Yaqing, announced record rates of revenue and profit growth for the sector in the first eight months of the year.

Debt risks at the companies are “totally under control,” Xiao said, according to Xinhua, citing an average debt-to- asset ratio of 66.5 percent.

Separately, the Ministry of Finance reported that total SOE assets in the eight-month period climbed to 146.3 trillion yuan (U.S. $21.9 trillion), while liabilities rose to 96.5 trillion yuan (U.S. $14.4 trillion). Both increased by 11 percent from a year earlier, Xinhua said.

Thank god for the US Department of Homeland Security!

Thanks to its $40-billion annual budget, and Homeland Security laws like the PATRIOT Act that Congress passed quickly after the horrific attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we have not had a major terrorist attack in the US in the ensuing 16 years.

Oh, wait a minute. My bad.

We have had some major mass murders over the ensuing years, haven’t we, including some being officially labeled “acts of terrorism.”

There was the sniper shootings of 10 people in suburban Washington, DC back in 2002. There was the execution of 5 Amish schoolchildren in their one-room schoolhouse by a gunman in 2006. There followed the 32 students and faculty killed at the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the lone gunman who opened fire at an open-air meet-and-greet session hosted by an Arizona Congresswoman which killed six people and gravely wounded the Congresswoman in 2011, the 12 killed in the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting in 2012, the Vietnamese immigrant who shot and killed 13 people in Binghamton, NY in 2009, the 20 grade-school kids and a teacher murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, also in 2012, and the Navy contractor and former sailor who killed 13 in a Washington, DC industrial complex, the murder of 9 people in their church in Charleston, SC in 2015, and now this latest killing of over 58 people in Las Vegas. I’m just naming the big ones here, or particularly outrageous one like those that focused on killing little kids.

Thank god not one of these horrible incidents was considered an act of terrorism!

Of course there were some at least nominally terrorist mass killings too — the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three or four depending on whether you count the killing of a police office during the later manhunt part of the deal, the 2014 attack at Fort Hood by a deranged Army psychologist, the 2015 San Bernardino rec center attack, and the 2016 murder of 49 at a disco in Orlando, but in most of these cases the link to organized terror was tenuous at best, and in the Orlando case in particular, which was touted at the time as the worst mass killing in modern US history (at least until this latest Las Vegas incident), the killer appears to have had no connection to ISIS and was probably just claiming a link in order to ensure that he would be killed by police, and not captured (he succeeded in that plan). We know these were acts of terrorism not just because the government calls them that, but because, well, they were committed by Muslims.

The few actual or supposed “terrorist’ attacks aside, what all these mass murders in the US not committed by Muslim terrorists have in common, along with many more that I did not list either because the number killed was less than 10, or because the cause was so mundane — worker laid off, family dispute, road rage or whatever — is that they were the work of lone usually deranged (and usually white) men using guns — and often guns designed for killing people.

The New York Times reports that since 2000, mass shootings and the deaths caused by mass shootings in the US have been on the rise, with the rise being especially sharp in the last six years ended in 2014 when the article was published (and when Homeland Security was supposedly fully staffed up and running like a finely oiled machine), and that rise has continued since over the next three years, especially with the help of this week’s epic Las Vegas slaughter.

So what has all that money spent on “homeland security” gotten us? What has the surrender of our right to private phone and internet conversation, our right to be left alone in our homes, our right not to be monitored in our travels, and our right not to have massive dossiers gathered on our lives, what has the militarization of our local police forces, and the training of cops to behave as occupiers and centurions instead of peace officers gotten us?

Are we more safe now?

Actual terrorist attacks have occurred, or at least the government is calling them that, while most of the alleged planned terror attacks the FBI says it “foiled” have turned out to be the creations of FBI “informants” — that is, people paid and planted among unfortunate low0-wattage or psychologically vulnerable people the Bureau hoped to induce into attempting some act of terror that the FBI could then swoop in and bust up, then claiming to have saved the day. That means that for all its awesome invasive technology and its multi-billion-dollar assets and interlinked law enforcement personnel, America’s Homeland Security Industrial Complex has been remarkably unable to prevent terrorism.

And meanwhile, mass shootings — terrible even if they don’t get called terrorism because they are committed, for the most part, by American white men like Stephen Paddock— are becoming increasingly common and also increasingly deadly.

To me, it appears obvious that the War on Terror has been a spectacular bust — and not just the $40 billion a year spent on Homeland Security, but the $10 billion a year (at least) that we are told is spent on the National Security Agency, as well as a fair amount of what is spent on both the FBI the CIA, the National Security Council’s Office of Counterterrorism, and of course all the anti-terror budgets of state and local police.

What is really making this country unsafe, let’s just face it, is the ready availability of really deadly firearms — let’s call them Guns of Mass Destruction (GMDs).

The only reason so many people died in Las Vegas is that wack-job Las Vegas mass killer Stephen Paddock was reportedly able to obtain and bring, unimpeded, into his hotel room, some 19 high-powered rapid-fire rifles and handguns, including at least one fully-automatic rifle capable of firing dozens of rounds per second. (That’s in addition to some 20 more such weapons police found in his home and car, including, reportedly, explosives.)

What’s nuts is that in some parts of this country, Nevada being one of them, guns, including military weapons, are so ubiquitous and so unregulated that the sight of someone checking into a hotel with two golf bag’s worth of lethal weaponry suitable for mass murder wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. Heck, he probably asked at check-in for a bellhop to carry them for him. No doubt they just figured the old duffer was headed for a gun show or was a salesman with product to show to gun dealers.

Hey, if the guy doesn’t look or dress like a Muslim, what’s to worry, right? Nice older white dude with a friendly southern accent? He should be okay.

Maybe now that we have a case of a friendly-seeming older white guy mowing down good decent white folks attending a good-ol’ American country and western music concert, the pro-National Rifle Assn. crowd will start to re-evaluate their absolutist position on GMDs.

My suggestion would be not banning guns, an extremist idea which will never happen in this country and which isn’t even done in Europe, but at least registering every single weapon from its point of import, sale or manufacture until it ends up in private hands. I would make it illegal to transfer a gun to someone else without that transfer being registered with the government. I’d eliminate the gunshow loophole to registration too. I have little hope that such measures could be passed, though. There is to much political opportunism among Republicans in Congress who want that National Rifle Assn. money and the votes of the gun-toting yahoos of Middle America who think registration is akin to giving up their right vote (though they want everyone to have to register to do that).

But if we could at least limit our American-grown terrorists to single-round-per-trigger weapons, and outlaw high-capacity clips that allow them to kill more than, say, five people without reloading, we’d all be a hell of a lot safer in America. At least more of us would be able to run out of a crowded area safely when an attack happens, and there’d be more opportunity for heroic types to tackle a guy who has to stop and reload all the time.

Also, keeping America safe wouldn’t cost us $50 billion a year for an army of spooks and federal investigators, or require the surrendering of our hard-won freedoms either, so more money could be made available for treating mental health problems.

We should give it a try. It’s obvious that the Homeland Security/War on Terror approach has been a bust. It sure hasn’t provided security in the “homeland,” and, as the spread of ISIS and al Qaeda/al Nusra or whatever they’re calling themselves demonstrates, the “War” on terror has clearly been lost. (There’s another example of wasted treasure. With just a fraction of the trillion-plus dollars spent on the 16-year US war in Afghanistan to date, the US could have paid that country’s impoverished 10 million families, who eke by on an average of $400 a year, an income of $2500 a year back in 2001 for the next decade— enough to turn the country overnight into an economic powerhouse and its people from virtual serfs to a bustling middle class and into America’s BFFs.)

We’ll never be able to prevent the domestic American nut jobs who snap and decide they need to kill a lot of people or do enough damage to be killed by the police. But at least we could reduce the carnage they can do here at home if we made it a little harder and slower for them to cause their desired mayhem.

‘We don’t know what his belief system was at this time.’ — Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, Oct 2, 2017

Those gathered at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas were doing what revellers always do. But the script would not let them persist in their pleasures, to let them be, communing together before their figures of country music.

What instead transpired were shots, lethal sprays emanating from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. This handiwork was carnage incarnate: 500 casualties, with 59 fatalities. The efforts of Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada were certainly one grotesque example of making America, not so much great again as ordinary. For one, they beat Omar Mateen’s exploits at the Orlando Pulse night club last year by resounding ten. (Never doubt the value of initiative.)

Thus began the merry go around about wording, explication, designation. The Nevada statute should have provided ample guidance to the authorities about what had transpired: ‘an act of terrorism means any act that involves the use or attempted use of sabotage, coercion or violence which is intended to cause great bodily harm or death to the general population.’ Down pat, precise, unquestionable.

Las Vegas sheriff Joseph Lombardo preferred to demur from the statute. This is Trumpland, and relativised readings are permitted, adventurous plays in the world of the fake and real. For Lombardo, when pushed on the issue on whether this could be seen as an incident of terrorism, being a local counted. Paddock could not, ‘at this point’ be considered a terrorist; ‘we believe it is a local individual, he resides here locally.’ One can slaughter dozens and still not fall into the neat catchment area of the law on ‘terrorism’.

President Donald Trump was in an even more problematic pickle. It was Trump who insisted that banning individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries was not merely sensible but necessary to protect the United States from ‘Islamic terrorists’. Such incidents of mass terror suggested that he might be looking at the wrong settings.

His words, instead, seemed wooden, disapproving of an individual he otherwise might have admired. (The daring, the nerve!) ‘He brutally murdered more than 50 people and wounded hundreds more.’ There is no mention of Paddock’s background, merely that the shooter was caught with some speed. ‘It shows what true professionalism is all about.’

Trump refused to deviate from the task at hand, the printed words he had to read, unusual for him at the best of times. ‘This is a terrible day. We are all saddened and outraged. We’ll learn more. If any criminals are still at large, we’ll hunt them down.’

Then came the remarks of Jennifer Williams in Vox claiming that the white surge inspired by Trump, those narky, indignant wonders of a certain demographic, had done more than their fair share of killing.

Any history of such incidents is bound to be potted at best, but Williams sketches a few. March 2017 saw the death of Timothy Caughman at the hands of frenetic stabbing, for which the killer was charged with terrorism under New York law. In August, James Alex Fields, Jr. pushed the headlines by killing a woman and injuring some 19 others who participated in an anti-racist protest in Charlottesville. A few titbits from a grim harvest.

Making America Great Again is not merely an enthusiastic project but a deflecting code. The code resists anything that might soil solid flag-bearing credentials, and rules out the initiated as potential terrorists.

Killing and massacres are a terrible thing, but if done under the protection of the Second Amendment, it must surely lack the alien properties of foreign violence. One is killing behind the cloak of the law. If only the man from Mesquite had been a Muslim, then things would have been so much easier.

Shaun King of The Intercept makes the obvious though painful point. ‘Paddock, like the majority of mass shooters in this country, was a white American.’ Skin colour was a perversion of sorts, a type of exoneration, or at the very least mitigating privilege. ‘Whiteness, somehow, protects men from being labelled terrorists.’

It does, however, go deeper. The legal frame of reference is stunted in capturing domestic terrorism. Drafters are reluctant to net such figures. Randall Law’s Terrorism: A History (2009) suggests the need to consider terrorism more broadly. These might be state-directed. But the notion of the ‘American terrorist’ was more problematic, a tougher sell for the US citizen. Insanity is preferred by way of explanation.

‘The problem, of course, with the federal government, is there are multiple definitions of terrorism: from Homeland Security, FBI, governmental bodies that are in some sort of field overseas; the State Department has their own.’ But even in instances, as Nevada shows, where a statute is available, reluctance will froth and bubble.

An act extraneous to the country, inspired by a foreign source, is another matter. Empathy is harder; judgement more easily skewed. Besides, goes this line of reasoning, there is little difference in the outcome.

As FBI Director Chris Wray explained before Congress last month, such distinctions might not matter. The domestic terrorist might not be convicted under terrorism statutes, but that would hardly mean the individual would not be afforded full and appropriate punishment. ‘And so, even though you may not see them, from your end, as a domestic terrorism charge, they are very much domestic terrorism cases that are just being brought under other criminal offenses.’

This, is then, what survivors and those facing charges are left with: a different appropriation, a side-stepping classification that doesn’t rile the patriots or the protectors of the law. And, for that matter, derail the project of MAGA.

By Jonathan Cook *

Palestinians and Israelis watched last week’s referendum of Iraq’s Kurds with special interest. Israeli officials and many ordinary Palestinians were delighted – for very different reasons – to see an overwhelming vote to split away from Iraq.

Given the backlash from Baghdad and anger from Iran and Turkey, which have restive Kurdish minorities, the creation of a Kurdistan in northern Iraq may not happen soon.

Palestinian support for the Kurds is not difficult to understand. Palestinians, too, were overlooked when Britain and France carved up the Middle East into states a century ago. Like the Kurds, Palestinians have found themselves trapped in different territories, oppressed by their overlords.

Israel’s complex interests in Kurdish independence are harder to unravel.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the sole world leader to back Kurdish independence, and other politicians spoke of the Kurds’ “moral right” to a state. None saw how uneasily that sat with their approach to the Palestinian case.

On a superficial level, Israel would gain because the Kurds sit on plentiful oil. Unlike the Arab states and Iran, they are keen to sell to Israel.

But the reasons for Israeli support run deeper. There has been co-operation, much of it secret, between Israel and the Kurds for decades. Israeli media lapped up tributes from now-retired generals who trained the Kurds from the 1960s. Those connections have not been forgotten or ended. Independence rallies featured Israeli flags, and Kurds spoke of their ambition to become a “second Israel”.

Israel views the Kurds as a key ally in an Arab-dominated region. Now, with Islamic State’s influence receding, an independent Kurdistan could help prevent Iran filling the void. Israel wants a bulwark against Iran transferring its weapons, intelligence and know-how to Shiite allies in Syria and Lebanon.

Israel’s current interests, however, hint at a larger vision it has long harbored for the region – and one I set out at length in my book Israel and the Clash of Civilizations.

It began with Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion, who devised a strategy of “allying with the periphery” – building military ties to non-Arab states like Turkey, Ethiopia, India and Iran, then ruled by the shahs. The goal was to help Israel to break out of its regional isolation and contain an Arab nationalism led by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Israeli general Ariel Sharon expanded this security doctrine in the early 1980s, calling for Israel to become an imperial power in the Middle East. Israel would ensure that it alone in the region possessed nuclear weapons, making it indispensable to the US.

Sharon was not explicit about how Israel’s empire could be realized, but an indication was provided at around the same time in the Yinon Plan, written for the World Zionist Organisation by a former Israeli foreign ministry official.

Oded Yinon proposed the implosion of the Middle East, breaking apart the region’s key states – and Israel’s main opponents – by fuelling sectarian and ethnic discord. The aim was to fracture these states, weakening them so that Israel could secure its place as sole regional power.

The inspiration for this idea lay in the occupied territories, where Israel had contained Palestinians in a series of separate enclaves. Later, Israel would terminally divide the Palestinian national movement, nurturing an Islamist extremism that coalesced into Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

In this period, Israel also tested its ideas in neighboring southern Lebanon, which it occupied for two decades. There, its presence further stoked sectarian tensions between Christians, Druze, Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

The strategy of “Balkanising” the Middle East found favor in the US among a group of hawkish policymakers, known as neoconservatives, who came to prominence during George W Bush’s presidency.

Heavily influenced by Israel, they promoted the idea of “rolling back” key states, especially Iraq, Iran and Syria, which were opposed to Israeli-US dominance in the region. They prioritized ousting Saddam Hussein, who had fired missiles on Israel during the 1991 Gulf war.

Although often assumed to be an unfortunate side effect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Washington’s oversight of the country’s bloody disintegration into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish fiefdoms looked suspiciously intentional. Now, Iraqi Kurds are close to making that break-up permanent.

Syria has gone a similar way, mired in convulsive fighting that has left its ruler impotent. And Tehran is, again, the target of efforts by Israel and its allies in the US to tear up the 2015 nuclear accord, backing Iran into a corner. Arab, Baluchi, Kurdish and Azeri minorities there may be ripe for stirring up.

Last month at the Herzliya conference, an annual jamboree for Israel’s security establishment, justice minister Ayelet Shaked called for a Kurdish state. She has stated that it would be integral to Israeli efforts to “reshape” the Middle East.

The unraveling of Britain and France’s map of the region would likely lead to chaos of the kind that a strong, nuclear-armed Israel, with backing from Washington, could richly exploit. Not least, yet more bedlam would push the Palestinian cause even further down the international community’s list of priorities.

(A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.)

*Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit: www.jonathan-cook.net.