Turkish influence under the Ottoman Sultans had never been fully unleashed on the populace of the subcontinent during the reign of different Arab and Central Asian Muslim warriors, but now things have changed and Turkish influence, especially the cultural one in our society, can’t be denied and will remain unabated even if political influence may waver in future owing to certain differences over foreign policy endeavours of both nations (Pakistanis may get irked from their Turkish brothers if in near future Turks may shift their focus towards strengthening ties with the emerging Asian economic and political power India as a necessity of time).

Undoubtedly, there will hardly be a soul who didn’t fall in adoration of Behlul-Bihter’s amorous duo paired with a twist of lechery, greed, envy, hankerings and agony. Ishq Mamnu – Ask i memnu, was a wildly popular modernized tale of surreptitious lust adapted from an Ottoman-set novel of the same name. It centered on the claustrophobic situation of a young wife (Bihter) conducting an affair with the dishy nephew (Behlul) of her old, rich husband under the noses of everyone in the house.

The heroine (Bihter) duly killed herself and the debonair nephew got engaged to Bihter’s stepdaughter. Stolen embraces, laden silences and remorseful glances filled every episode. My whole family was also crazy about this particular Turkish soap though it seemed to me sometimes that tension had been pulled absurdly, unsustainably high in Ishq Mamnu. But it was somehow very watchable and housewives especially across the Middle East and also to a certain extent in Pakistan weren’t able to get enough of it.

The atmosphere of stifled lust and the pressure of social restrictions prevalent in different parts of the Muslim world (including Pakistan) are dramatically reproduced on screen with improbably daring characters playing out the housewife’s wildest dreams. According to Pakistani rating network, “Media logic”, Ask I memnu was watched by more than 55 million people on its last episode and it averaged 45 million viewership from the rural and urban market. This was the first time a foreign drama had such a high viewership in Pakistan.

Several Turkish soaps have hit Pakistani screens since then, quite astoundingly overshadowing even some of the great Pakistani serials with their splendor and with narratives revolving around family issues, seductive romance, historical dramas etc. When it comes to love and family, and deception and intrigue, there seem to be no geographical boundaries. The second most popular series in Pakistan after Ask I Memnu was Fatmagül’ün Suçu Ne? (Fatmagul-After all what is my fault) that aired on the same channel and the third best television series was Muhteşem Yüzyıl (Magnificent Century).

These top three TV Series are said to be the most famous ones ranking highest ratings in terms of TRPS(Television Rating Points).These soaps were also aired again owing to their immense popularity. The actors involved in these soaps were huge heart-throbs, in a way that is almost obsolescent now in the West due to the mushrooming of transient talent-show stars and the myriad avenues of celebrity.

Many of these soaps are typically gilded by a luxurious setting, social competition and purgative falls from grace. These soap operas like Ask i Memnu are set in wealthy houses on the banks of the Bosphorus; with female characters wearing designer miniskirts and flaunting their cleavage which is a far cry from the billowing shalwar kameez garments worn by most Pakistani women that hardly reveal skin.

Turkey is also a majority Muslim country but is generally more liberal than Pakistan. Sometimes Pakistani TV channels blur miniskirts and low-cut tops worn by women in the Turkish shows in the name of propriety. Pakistan is far from the only country to experience the growing influence of Turkish TV shows According to Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) head Mehmet Buyukeksi, Turkey is the second-highest exporter of TV series after the United States, selling to over 75 different countries, with a business volume estimated to exceed $350 million.

The Middle East, South Asia, the Balkans and Russia rank among major importers, redefining a sort of Ottoman Empire territorial expansion through the airwaves. While the traditionally reliable Middle East market has seen demand fall due to political turbulence and conflict(especially in Egypt after strained Turkish-Egyptian relations under Sisi), new markets for Turkey’s popular drama output opened up in regions such as South America which has its own domestic soap opera and Telenovela cultural market and South Asia (starting with Pakistan and now also culturally invading India and Bangladesh).

Turkish TV series have replaced Pakistani ones on Indian channel of Zee Zindagi after the Uri Attack in 2016 which strained Indo-Pak relations and forced the channel to stop airing Pakistani content.The popularity of these Turkish soaps was met by some difficulties in Pakistan as Pakistan’s entertainment industry complained that the airing of Turkish and other foreign TV series diverts funding from local productions. Furthermore, A Senate committee that oversees information and broadcasting initially condemned such shows for their allegedly “vulgar content” and termed their content as contrary to the Pakistan’s Muslim traditions.

Also Turkish soaps didn’t receive higher viewership as they used to receive after 2013 but hopes were tied with Kosem Sultan after it was broadcasted on Urdu 1 in 2016 starring Beren Saat in leading role who was the same actress who played the role of Bihter in the glamorous blockbuster Ask i Memnu and it opened with higher viewership. It was with Kosem Sultan that Turkish content began its demand in Pakistan after three cold years without any significant gain in popularity.

I watched these soap operas with English subtitles before they were being shown on Pakistani channels. I began watching the soaps to improve my Turkish. Schmaltzy classics such as Ask i Memnu(popular in Pakistan as Ishq e Mamnu), Muhteşem Yüzyıl (popular in Pakistan as Mera Sultan) and Adini Feriha Koydum(popular in Pakistan as Feriha) became my linguistic bibles.

I can highly recommend these soaps in Turkish with English subtitles to anyone wishing to improve their Turkish or is in the process of excelling in learning Turkish as they are invariably filled with pregnant pauses (allowing the looking up of new vocabulary) and the kind of acting which renders dialogue largely superfluous- like a nuanced mime artist.The heartrending strings and sinister percussion of traditional Turkish music assisted me in improving my Turkish by expelling any confusion over what is going on and which character has sensed betrayal or has done a switch of allegiance.

This is reminiscent for me of a maid in our house named Fazilah from my childhood who spoke not a word of English, but would never miss an episode of Friends, providing her own specialized interpretation of the plot and scolding the characters in animated Urdu and Punjabi as she watched. Compared to English-language TV dramas, Turkish ones are much slower and scenes are considerably stretched out.

Just as Bollywood incorporates a pristine escape for a large part of the Indian population who can only dream of such opulent and libertarian lives, so too do the Turkish TV series foster the dreams of large pockets of conservative societies from Morocco to Pakistan. Turkish celebrities are being catapulted to cross-continental fame. Their characters have inspired a generation of baby names and their onscreen wardrobes are being copied and sold in the most far-flung souks.

It would seem that the semi-liberal yet not too alien lifestyles idealized in Turkish soaps are perfectly pitched for audiences of Arab world and Pakistan who are yearning for the world to which they can both relate and aspire, an audience which cannot necessarily identify with Western TV featuring series like Game of Thrones with way too much racy and risqué content which may cause an ordinary viewer from this particular part of world to raise his/her eyebrows repeatedly.

Although most soap viewers and fans are female but Middle Eastern men are equally dedicated star worshippers. Beren Saat who played the role of adulterous lover in Ask i Memnu, a rape victim in Fatmagül’ün Suçu Ne? and as the ruling princess in Kosem Sultan has internet forums devoted to her in which Arab men post odes to her eyes and beauty.

Saat’s co-star from Ask I Memnu Kivanc Tatlitug who is popular in Pakistan as Behlul has a cult-like status across the Arab world, where he far outranks Hollywood types like Brad Pitt and Zac Efron.

The confluence of Muslim culture with the European culture in a single package remains the primary source of attraction for many across Pakistan and the Middle East.

*Sarmad Iqbal is a Pakistani writer, blogger and student who has a penchant for reading, writing, learning languages, and studying cultures, religions and geo-political affairs. His articles have been published in Pakistan’s The Nation newspaper, Dunya Blogs, ARY Blogs, Parhlo, the Times of Israel, International Policy Digest, the Algemeiner, BuzzFeed, Youth Ki Awaaz, the Jerusalem Post, in the Armenian Weekly,Massis Post, The Quint and also in American Comeback magazine. He can be reached on Twitter: @sarmadiqbal7.This article was published at Parhlo.com

Pope Francis has been consistent in his condemnation of what he calls “ideological colonization,” or the attempt by developed nations to impose a radical cultural agenda on the poor, including those who live in less developed nations. Such efforts ignore basic human differences, rooted in nature. This agenda inexorably leads to oppression, he said, manifesting itself in religious, political, and cultural persecution.

In his homily today, the pope singled out abortion as an example. He called it a “sin” that results in “killing children.” As if to prove the pope right about his concerns, California and Pennsylvania recently filed suit seeking to turn back the Trump administration’s rejection of President Obama’s Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate. It would force Catholic non-profits to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.

The Little Sisters of the Poor are fighting back. Yesterday, they asked the 19th Circuit Court of Appeals to prevent the two states from undoing the rollback of the HHS mandate.

The pope’s remarks are prescient. His love for the least among us, and his contempt for elites who seek to impose their corrupt ideas on society, should be welcomed by all Catholics, especially at Thanksgiving.

Emboldened by perceived White House support, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appears to have stepped up his risky, so far faltering effort to counter Iranian influence in the Middle East.

The kingdom, despite Prime Minister Saad Hariri complicating Saudi efforts to curb the political and military power of Hezbollah, the country’s Shiite militia, by putting on hold his decision to resign, is signalling that it is looking beyond Lebanon to fulfil Prince Mohammed’s vow in May that the fight between the two rivals would be fought “inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia

Speaking earlier this month, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir warned that “any way you look at it, they (the Iranians) are the ones who are acting in an aggressive manner. We are reacting to that aggression and saying, ‘Enough is enough. We’re not going to let you do this anymore.’”

Militant Iranian Arab nationalist exiles this week started broadcasting promos for an allegedly Saudi-funded satellite television station that would target Iran’s oil-rich province of Khuzestan. It was the latest indication that Saudi Arabia was mulling an effort to undermine the government in Tehran by capitalizing on grievances among Iran’s ethnic minorities. Ahmad Mola Nissi, a 52-year old exile associated with the television, was mysteriously shot dead in The Hague earlier this month.

Pakistani militants in the province of Balochistan have reported a massive flow of Saudi funds in the last year to Sunni Muslim ultra-conservative groups while a Saudi thinktank believed to be supported by Prince Mohammed published a blueprint for support of the Baloch and called for “immediate counter measures” against Iran.

Prince Mohammed’s track record in confronting Iran more aggressively is at best mixed. The kingdom’s 2.5-year old intervention in Yemen has driven Iran and the Houthis closer together and raised the spectre of the rebels organizing themselves on Saudi Arabia’s border with Hezbollah as their model.

Saudi backing of Syrian rebels failed to turn the tables on President Bashar al-Assad, a key Iranian ally, while the kingdom reversed its 13-year boycott of Iraq in a bid to counter Iranian influence through engagement with Baghdad.

In Lebanon, the odds are against Hezbollah bowing to pressure that it disarm and halt its military involvement beyond the country’s borders even if the group appeared to want to avert a crisis by announcing that it was withdrawing forces from Syria and Iraq. Hezbollah also denied that it was supplying weapons to the Houthis, including a ballistic missile fired at the airport of the Saudi capital Riyadh earlier this month.

“So far, the Iranians have effectively won in Lebanon, are winning in Syria and Iraq, and are bleeding the Saudis in Yemen… There is precious little evidence to suggest that the Saudis have learned from their earlier failures and are now able to roll back Iranian influence in the Middle East,” said researcher and Jerusalem Post columnist Jonathan Spyer.

If Prince Salman’s apparent strategy and track records risks escalating regional tensions and raising questions about Saudi Arabia’s ability to successfully confront Iran, it also may be based on a misreading of the dynamics of US policymaking.

Prince Salman appears to believe that he can ignore signals from the State Department, Pentagon and members of Congress, who have been counselling greater caution, as long as he is backed by US President Donald J. Trump and Jared Kushner, a senior advisor and the president’s son-in-law. The Saudi crown prince appears to be reinforced in this belief by his United Arab Emirates counterpart, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, with whom he coordinates closely.

The evolution of the US approach to the six-month old UAE-Saudi-led boycott of Qatar suggests a complexity of policy making in Washington that both princes have so far failed to take into account or effectively address.

Al-Monitor Washington correspondent Laura Rozen reported that UAE ambassador Youssef al-Otaiba in June called then-US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones in the middle of the night to give him advance notice of the boycott. “What are you guys doing? This is crazy,” Mr. Jones told the ambassador. To which Mr. Otaiba responded: “‘Have you spoken to the White House?’”

Despite Mr. Trump’s expressed support for the Saudi UAE position involving a refusal to negotiate or lift the boycott unless Qatar accepts demands that would compromise its ability to chart its own course, US policy administered by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ has pushed for a negotiated resolution – a position far closer to that of Qatar.

Speaking at conference in the UAE, Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers urged Gulf countries to broaden their outreach in Washington from one narrowly focused on Mr. Trump’s White House to other branches of government as well Democrats in Congress. “I made the point that lobbying efforts and Washington should not ignore the Democrats in Congress and that they may be coming back in one house or another in 2018,” Mr. Rogers told Al-Monitor.

The US House of Representatives last week, in an indication of the risk of relying exclusively on the White House, set the stage for a debate of US military support for Saudi Arabia’s ill-fated Yemen by overwhelmingly adopting a non-binding resolution that recognized that the aid was being provided without Congressional authorization. The resolution noted that Congress had exclusively authorized operations against jihadist militants in Yemen, not against domestic rebel groups like the Houthis.

The Saudi and UAE reading of the lay of the land in the US capital and singular reliance on the White House is somewhat surprising given that both Mr. Al-Otaiba and Mr. Al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, have a track record as savvy Washington operators, and the fact that a host of public relations and lobby firms are paid hefty fees to advise the kingdom.

Widely viewed as one of the most well-connected and influential foreign diplomats in Washington, Mr. Al Otaiba has been ambassador to the United States for almost a decade. Educated in the US, Mr. Al-Jubeir served in the kingdom’s Washington embassy, and years later became ambassador to the US before being appointed foreign minister.

The Saudi and UAE focus on the White House is rooted in Prince Salman’s efforts, dating back to his initial rise in early 2015, two years before Mr. Trump came to office, to counter President Barak Obama’s policy of reducing US engagement in the Middle East.

“The United States must realise that they are the number one in the world and they have to act like it,” Prince Mohammed told The Economist in early 2016. He suggested that the sooner the US re-engages the better. Reengagement meant to the Saudi leader, aggressive US support for the kingdom’s efforts to shape the Middle East and North Africa in its image.

Mr. Trump’s policy priorities in the region, including confronting Iran, fighting extremism, and solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a bid to open the door to overt Israeli-Saudi cooperation, stroked with those of the crown prince. Those goals are shared in Washington beyond the White House, but many in the administration and Congress worry that Prince Mohammed’s way of achieving them may either backfire or be counterproductive.

In a sign of concern, the State Department this week cautioned Americans travelling to Saudi Arabia. In a statement, it warned “US citizens to carefully consider the risks of travel to Saudi Arabia due to continuing threats from terrorist groups and the threat of ballistic missile attacks on civilian targets by rebel forces in Yemen.”

Salman Al-Ansari, the head of the Washington-based Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), advised Saudi Arabia, days after Mr. Trump was inaugurated, to reach out to different segments of American society in what he described as the kingdom’s real battle.

“One of Saudi Arabia’s glaring weak points is public diplomacy, especially with regards to communicating its economic and national security concerns to the American public. The Kingdom’s media efforts remain woefully behind where it needs to be… In an age where information is disseminated so rapidly, the Kingdom has no excuse but to reach out to the American people,” Mr. Al-Ansari said.

By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan

With the international attention on the ongoing Rohingya crisis and Suu Kyi under pressure from all sides, it is but natural that the peace process which is very vital for the country’s stability has taken the back seat. It is said that the third Panglong Conference is unlikely to be held in end November as envisaged.

A leading daily (Frontier) has come out with an article that the peace process is in crisis or at the least facing serious difficulties. It has also suggested that Myanmar will need to find a new way towards peace “if the guns are to be silenced forever.” This statement was provoked by the fact that the expectations have been high particularly from the government side in the hope that with Aung San Suu Kyi in charge of the process peace could be achieved “faster” than might otherwise be possible.

Another article by Joe Kumbun a very knowledgeable Kachin analyst who goes by this pseudonym has described the National Cease fire agreement as a “forlorn hope” and cited the view of one of Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) member Sai Kyaw Nyunt who complained that the cease fire agreement has become “even more complex” and convoluted in the two years since the eight groups that had first signed.

In the same article the writer has commented that the success of the NCA is dependent on four groups- the Myanmar Army, the civilian government, NCA-signatory ethnic armed groups and non NCA-signatory armed groups.

There are a few issues involved in this analysis:

First, the expectations which have been unnecessarily raised in the last two years were not based on either the ground realities or the history of the ethnic insurgency movement in Myanmar.

Second, while the four groups are the primary actors, the external factor of China’s involvement and support to the insurgent groups is not being mentioned though it is known to everyone. Two individuals- China’s Special Envoy Sun Guoxiang and the Chinese Ambassador in Yangon Hong Liang have been very active from the beginning. It may be recalled that it was only due to personal intervention of Sun Guoxiang with the Army that the representatives of the Northern Alliance now expanded to “Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) waiting in Yunan could attend the second Panglong Conference (now named 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference) as observers. The duos are fully in the picture as they appear to be briefed and debriefed by groups close to them regularly on the meetings.

One example of the influence of the Chinese can be gauged by the fact that the Wa group which is the largest (30000?) and best-armed group is supported by China and is in possession of an area that is “no go to the Myanmar Army.” One could argue that in a conventional mode of conflict, a force of 30,000 is nothing against a three hundred thousand regular army of Myanmar – but can Tatmadaw take on a group that is close to the Chinese border and supported by China?

Third, the very fact that the administration led by Suu Kyi was able to get all the disparate groups into one conference is by itself a success. In the second conference, agreement was reached on 37 points-12 of which related to politics which is another positive outcome.

Credit should also go to the administration for managing to talk to most of the groups individually despite the insistence of some groups that they would like to talk jointly!

The point one would like to make is that Myanmar has been experiencing ethnic conflicts from its very inception and both sides carry a lot of baggage which cannot be given up in a few months. The peace process will necessarily be a slow one. One should not forget that the civil administration is not fully in control- One example would suffice to stress on this point.

In the third week of July Suu Kyi had talks with the KBC (Kachin Baptist Convention) and to one question Suu Kyi was asked as to what barriers were in peace process- the reply was that the assaults of Tatmadaw were the main barrier. They urged her government to handle this seriously. She replied- 1. The government was still trying to amend the 2008 constitution and 2. They had only formal relations with the Tatmadaw (the Army) according to the constitution and the government therefore was not in a position to exercise direct control over the Tatmadaw.

In another instance cited by Joe Kumbun, Suu Kyi is said to have admitted the same thing that she cannot control the Tatmadaw under the military drafted 2008 Constitution when she met the New Mon State Party (NMSP) in early September.

The Tatmadaw is in no mood to relent on its hold on the government and its status of being independent of government under the 2008 Constitution.

There is no doubt that the Tatmadaw is the major “linchpin” in the peace process and that Peace or conflict depends on how it responds to the demands of ethnic groups. For example the Army’s (Tatmadaw) insistence that three of the Northern Alliance- the TNLA (Ta’ang National Liberation Army), the AA (Arakan Army) and the MNDAA ( Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army) should first surrender their arms before they sign the cease fire agreement. In normal circumstances (unless defeated in the field) no armed unit would surrender its arms before a cease fire. Now these groups have joined the alliance formed by the most powerful of the groups- The United Wa State Army.

The result has been that fighting has been going on between these smaller groups and the Army even after the meeting in the second Panglong Conference. In the latest incident, the Arakan Army is said to have ambushed an army boat carrying troops resulting in the deaths of two officers and nine troops. In retaliation the Army is said to have called in helicopter gunships to launch offensives against the group in Rakhine State’s Buthidaung Township.

The AA is now part of the FPNCC led by the Chinese speaking United Wa State Army which in turn looks for support and sustenance from Ruili of Yunan! Similar is the fate of the second largest insurgent unit- the KIO/KIA which is also now part of the FPNCC.

Intermittent fighting continues in the Kachin area too and KIA has been pushed to seek the support of the Wa group. A seventeen-year cease fire agreement with the Kachins fell apart on June 9, 2011 when the Burmese Army attacked a KIA post.

The instances mentioned are not to criticise the Burmese Army (Tatmadaw) but to emphasise how crucial the support of the Army is needed to continue the peace process.

The success of the peace process would also depend upon the eight groups who were signatories to the cease-fire agreement and they seem to be frustrated. After signing the agreement they expected the cease fire process to proceed fast so that they could focus more on development projects besides continuing with the political dialogue to a positive conclusion. In a recent meeting held in the third week of November, the members pointed out the difficulty they were facing about the military whose stance and position have not changed.

A second group- the UNFC which was expected to sign the cease fire agreement soon, is now facing serious differences with the Army on the eight point (nine?) demand they had put forth. The demands relate to cease fire monitoring, code of conduct for the military, troop relocation etc. The group has differences with the government even on the nomenclature of the country to be named as “Federal democratic Union” where as it is reported that the government wants it to be “Democracy and Federal Union.” The UNFC which was once powerful and important enough with 11 members in 2011 is now reduced to just four members – the New Mon State Party, the Karenni National Progressive Party, the Lahu democratic union and the Arakan National Council. They are all light weight groups who do not appear to realise that their demands and the clout they expect to have are not reflective of their strength. It is expected that sooner or later they would sign the cease fire.

The third group-the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee headed by the UWSA- the United Wa State Army whose members also include another powerful ethnic group- the Kachins. In terms of numbers, the FPNCC would account for 80 percent of the ethnic groups fighting the government. The UWSA first declined to sign the cease fire agreement on the ground that they already had a separate cease fire agreement with the government. Later it changed its stand and is now demanding political autonomy for its Wa self-administered region. As one analyst has pointed out (Sithu Aung Myint of Frontier) – this would tantamount to establishing a separate state for the Wa territory that will never be acceptable to the Army and the government.

The UWSA in having established an alliance with other more important groups has now questioned the fundamentals of the cease fire process on which the two Panglong conferences were held. It is now demanding a separate narrative for the process – first to deal with them as a group and second – stop all offensives and have a political dialogue with them together. The government that spent over two years to bring the peace process forward is not inclined to accept both the demands. This is also one group that has openly called for involvement of China in the peace process.

On the second anniversary of the peace process, State Councillor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi observed that “despite criticism of the NCA, there has been noticeable progress.” She said that they (the government) have successfully decreased conflicts in the regions of the ethnic armed organisations of signatories and as a result the socio-economic lives of the people have improved. She added that there are no reasons to retreat but to go forward towards the desired goal.

Conclusion:

Given the constitutional constraints, the long history of the ethnic conflicts, the inflexible stand of the Army in fighting certain groups and calling for all to sign the cease fire agreement, it is but natural to feel that the peace process is going nowhere. Before political dialogue, discussions on security sector reforms, demobilisation etc, the first fundamental requisite is to have an all inclusive, well monitored, verifiable and enforceable cease-fire. Unless this happens and people in the unfortunate ethnic regions realise the dividends of a long cease fire, no agreement would ever be possible. Suu Kyi may not succeed immediately but she has made a positive beginning for ethnic reconciliation that needs to be carried on by all the stake holders without outside interference.

During the spring of 1999, as part of Voices in the Wilderness’s campaign to end indiscriminately lethal U.S./U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq, the Fellowship of Reconciliation arranged for two Nobel Peace laureates, Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Mairead Maguire, to visit the country. Before their travel, Voices activists helped organize meetings for them with a range of ordinary Iraqis affected by an economic warfare targeting the most vulnerable: the elderly, the sick, and most tragically of all, the children. Perez Esquivel studied the itinerary. His voice and face showed clear disappointment. “Yes,” he said, shaking his head, “but when do we meet with the teenagers?” He advised to always learn from a region’s young people, and seek clear, inquisitive views not yet hardened by propaganda. We quickly arranged for Maguire and Perez Esquivel to meet with young women at Baghdad’s Dijla Secondary School for Girls.

It was the spring of 1999. After eight years of deadly economic sanctions, the 2003 U.S. invasion was still the haziest of looming future threats.  I was there with them at the school, and I remember Layla standing up and raising her voice. “You come and you say, you will do, you will do. But nothing changes. Me, I am sixteen. Can you tell me, what is the difference between me, I am sixteen, and someone who is sixteen in your country? I’ll tell you. Our emotions are frozen. We cannot feel.” But then she sat down and cried.

Other Iraqi students wondered what their country had done to deserve this treatment. What would happen to them if the UN said Iraq’s foreign policy directly contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children, in another country, under age five?  “Who are the criminals?” they asked.

In 1999, young Layla’s voice was both pleading and accusing when she said, “Nothing changes.” A change did occur in 2003. The 13-year economic war turned into a fierce bombing and invasion called “Shock and Awe.” U.S.-led foreign troops battered the nation. With its cities and reservoirs wrecked, its power lines downed, and its police and economy abolished, chaos broke out. Occupying troops watched the country convulse into escalating violence, replicable anywhere. The long smother of the sanctions was lifted from the crushed windpipe of a nation struggling even harder to breathe, its desperate flailing summoning ever more violent responses. The young people’s question, then, should persist: “Who are the criminals?”

As they do each month, my young friends in Kabul, Afghanistan, hosted a three-hour international internet call on November 21^st, 2017, focused on ways to survive the psychological traumas inflicted on people living in a war zone. They spoke about how war causes mistrust, fear and a constant anxiety because there is no safe space. They said what they most need are relationships. Trauma destroys connections, makes people feel alone and isolated. Healing involves connection.

Through self-education, they’ve learned to connect and care deeply about people in Yemen where seven million people, according to CBS’s Sixty Minutes, face famine. Meanwhile, a Saudi-led coalition, backed and joined by the U.S., continues blockading and bombing civilians. Despite their own destitution, the Afghan Peace Volunteers collected what they could for relief efforts in Yemen, raising about $48.00.

“The quality of mercy is strained in the Middle East,” reads a New York Times editorial from mid-November, 2017, turning to literature to point out the unspeakably brutal throttling of Yemen where, according to the NYT op-ed,  “Saudi Arabia closed off the highways, sea routes and airports in war-torn Yemen, forbidding humanitarian groups from even shipping chlorine tablets for the Yemenis suffering from a cholera epidemic…The International Red Cross expects about a million people to be infected by cholera in Yemen by December.” The editorial clearly links the epidemic to U.S. policy and emphasizes the Saudi-led campaign’s dependence on military assistance from the U.S.
Mark Weisbrot, an analyst with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, urges ordinary U.S. people to speak up about Yemen, “because this is the world’s best chance of ending what UN aid chief Mark Lowcock called “the largest famine the world has seen for many decades with millions of victims.” Last week, 120,000 people watched a brief video of Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin risking arrest to protest U.S. participation in Saudi war crimes. Now, as local groups in the U.S. and other countries plan vigils, legislative action, civil disobedience and education campaigns, we have a chance to end the nightmare fears of Yemenis facing starvation, disease, and war.

As I watched in 1999, Layla stood before her class to ask two renowned peacemakers what difference there was between her and a sixteen-year-old living in a more secure part of the world. The answer, in terms of her basic human rights and her irreplaceable human value, should be manifestly clear: there is no difference whatsoever. And yet, while U.S. warlords and military contractors collude with their counterparts in other lands, they earn former president Dwight Eisenhower’s blistering evaluation. This world in arms “is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists and the hopes of its children.” Among the most vulnerable children sacrificed are those forced into poverty by military blockade and military occupation, who steel themselves as the bombs tear through their towns and their neighborhoods and their neighbors, through their traumatized memories, and through their prospective futures when they dare to hope for one.

The comfortable nations often authorize the worst atrocities overseas through fear for their own safety, imagining themselves the victims to be protected from crime at all costs. Such attitudes entitle people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen to look in our direction when they ask, “Who are the criminals?” They will be looking at us when they ask that, until we at last exert our historically unprecedented economic and political ability to turn our imperial nations away from ruinous war, and earn our talk of mercy.

Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has resigned after 37 years in power. He resigned in a letter sent to parliament as it began impeachment proceedings. His ally turned rival, former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, has returned from neighbouring South Africa and could be appointed as the new president within hours.

MPs erupted in applause and cheers, and citizens took to the streets in celebration. The briefly-exiled former vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is expected to be appointed interim president. His dismissal led both the party and the military to intervene and force an end to Mugabe’s 37-year long rule.

Mugabe’s shock resignation came in the form of a letter read out by the speaker of parliament. In it, Mugabe – who had so far resisted pressure from the public, the army and his own party to step aside – said he was resigning to allow a smooth and peaceful transfer of power, and that his decision was voluntary. The announcement abruptly halted an impeachment hearing that had begun against him on Tuesday.

Lawmakers from the ruling party and opposition roared with glee, and spontaneous scenes of joy erupted in the streets with people dancing, singing, honking car horns and waving flags. “I’m so happy, wonderful, feeling so much excited, this is the greatest moment for our country,” Julian Mtukudzi told the AFP news agency. “We have been having sleepless nights hoping and waiting and we are so happy. It’s over and it’s done.”

Jubilant Zimbabweans have celebrated late into the night after Robert Mugabe resigned as president. He held power for 37 years and once said “only God” could remove him.
Zimbabwe’s former vice-president, whose sacking led to the shock resignation of long-time leader Robert Mugabe, could be sworn in as the new president within hours, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who fled to South Africa two weeks ago, is due to arrive back on Wednesday, the Zanu-PF says. It is not clear how that affects his replacement, current Vice President Mphoko. Multiple sources say Mnangagwa will be appointed on Wednesday or Thursday. Reuters had quoted another party official as saying that Mnangagwa would serve the remainder of Mugabe’s term until elections are held next year.

The news sparked wild celebrations across the country late into the night.

The announcement that the 93-year-old was stepping down came in the form of a letter read out in parliament on Wednesday, abruptly halting impeachment proceedings against him. In it, Mugabe said he was resigning to allow a smooth and peaceful transfer of power, and that his decision was voluntary. A Zanu-PF spokesman said Mnangagwa, 71, would serve the remainder of Mugabe’s term until elections which are due to take place by September 2018.

Nicknamed the “crocodile” due to his political cunning, Mnangagwa issued a statement from exile calling on Zimbabweans to unite to rebuild the country. “Together, we will ensure a peaceful transition to the consolidation of our democracy, and bring in a fresh start for all Zimbabweans and foster peace and unity,” Mnangagwa told Zimbabwe’s NewsDay on Tuesday. His firing by Robert Mugabe two weeks ago triggered an unprecedented political crisis in the country.

It had been seen by many as an attempt to clear the way for Grace Mugabe to succeed her husband as leader and riled the military leadership, who stepped in and put Mugabe under house arrest.

Mugabe, 93, was until his resignation the world’s oldest leader. According to the constitution his successor should be the current Vice-President, Phelekezela Mphoko, a supporter of Grace Mugabe. But a ZANU-PF official Larry Mavhima told Reuters Mnangagwa is to return home for 11:30 GMT, where he is later expected to be sworn-in.

Despite welcoming the news, Zimbabwean opposition and civil society figures have warned that the political culture needs to change. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told the BBC he hoped that Zimbabwe was on a “new trajectory” that would include free and fair elections. He said Mugabe should be allowed to “go and rest for his last days”.

Prominent Zimbabwean opposition politician David Coltart tweeted: “We have removed a tyrant but not yet a tyranny.” African Union president Alpha Conde said he was “truly delighted” by the news, but expressed regret at the way Mugabe’s rule has ended.”It is a shame that he is leaving through the back door and that he is forsaken by the parliament,” he said.

Under the constitution, the role of successor would normally go to the serving vice-president, Phelekezela Mphoko. However, Mr Mphoko – a key ally of Grace Mugabe – is not believed to be in the country, and there are reports that he has been fired by Zanu-PF.

Some have questioned whether the handover to Mnangagwa will bring about real change in the country. He was national security chief at a time when thousands of civilians died in post-independence conflict in the 1980s, though he denies having blood on his hands.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said he hoped that Zimbabwe was on a “new trajectory” that would include free and fair elections. He said Mugabe should be allowed to “go and rest for his last days”. Prominent opposition politician David Coltart tweeted: “We have removed a tyrant but not yet a tyranny.”

African Union president Alpha Conde said he was “truly delighted” by the news, but expressed regret at the way Mugabe’s rule has ended. “It is a shame that he is leaving through the back door and that he is forsaken by the parliament,” he said.

At 93, Mugabe was – until his resignation – the world’s oldest leader. He once proclaimed that “only God” could remove him. His dismissal led both the party and the military to intervene and force an end to Mugabe’s 37-year long rule. Lawmakers from the ruling party and opposition roared with glee, when the resignation letter was read aloud in parliament on Wednesday.

Activist and political candidate Vimbaishe Musvaburi broke down in tears of joy speaking to the media. “We are tired of this man, we are so glad he’s gone. We don’t want him anymore and yes, today, it’s victory,” she said. Driving through Harare, the cheers and the blaring of car horns signaled the end of the Mugabe era.

The man who dominated Zimbabwe for so long has already begun to fade into history here. It is a city singing with the noise of joy.

Exactly a week after the military first moved against President Mugabe, legislators debated the motion to impeach him. Suddenly, there was cheering.

An usher approached the speaker and handed him a letter. He stood to speak and we strained to hear his words. They were muffled but momentous. On the floor of the parliament jubilant MPs danced. Celebrations spilled into the hallways and out into the street.

Will Mnangagwa revive and steady economy and reduce corruption, if not completely end it?

Of course doubtful!

Terrorist groups are planning another huge terror attack in the US on the same scale as 9/11, the acting US Homeland Security chief Elaine Duke said at the US embassy in London.

“The terrorist organizations, be it ISIS [the Islamic State, Daesh; banned in Russia] or others, want to have the big explosion like they did on 9/11. They want to take down aircraft, the intelligence is clear on that,” said Elaine Duke on October 19.

She also added that terrorists will still use smaller, low-level attacks that include the use of everyday objects like knives and vehicles to remain in the Media and provide the flow of finances.

In confirmation of what was said – after this statement –there were at least two incidents in the US, which are now being considered possible terrorist attacks: the incident with a truck hitting pedestrians in New York on October 31, which killed at least eight people; and a murder of a woman in Manhattan on November 1 by an unknown person who then committed suicide. In addition, one attack was prevented – the FBI counterterrorism detachment arrested a man October 22 on accusations that he planned to detonate a bomb at a mall in Miami.

However, commenting on the likely change of terrorists’ tactics, Professor Clive Williams from the Australian National University stressed that at present the implementation of a large-scale terrorist attack is unlikely.

“No terrorist group today has the capability to mount a major attack on the scale of 9/11. An attack killing several hundred people is a possibility,” the expert told PenzaNews.

In his opinion, most ISIS attacks “are amateurish and do not result in mass casualties.”

“When they have killed large numbers it has been achieved with external assistance or when the perpetrators have gained lethal experience in Syria and Iraq. ISIS seems focused on punishing members of the US-led coalition and setting up new areas of influence. Al-Qaeda (AQ) is in rebuilding mode but planning to take advantage of ISIS’ reverses,” Clive Williams explained.

According to him, the highest level of terrorist threat exists in the states where Muslim minorities are disaffected with government.

“The most vulnerable countries are those with disaffected Muslim minorities, particularly where they have legitimate grievances against the government,” the analyst said.

Meanwhile, Tomas Olivier, Manager Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Amsterdam based company Twickelerveld Intelligence and Investigations, suggested that Elaine Duke’s statement was not quite accurately formulated.

“I would argue that Elaine Duke carefully chose the way to express herself and that her statement is based on information and intelligence obtained by numerous US and foreign intelligence services. Obviously a variety of networks is still trying to execute large-scale terrorist attacks with the possibility to inflict mass casualties. […] At the same a network of terrorist hubs transferred its focus more than ever to a combination of ‘directed and inspired’ terrorist attacks into the Western hemisphere, with a modus operandi, in this endeavor, that seems to be directed at a combination of the ‘melee attack’, the vehicle attack and or the so-called small arms fire attack,” the expert said.

So a quick and continuous cycle of violence with a constant destabilizing effect on western democracies and their population, rather than a lengthy planning process with the singular focus on mass casualties, he said.

“This change in modus operandi is also intrinsically the result of the ‘heat’ these networks feel with regards to more the sophisticated law enforcement and counterterrorist operations,” Tomas Olivier stressed.

Meanwhile, from his point of view, the intensity and the amount of terrorist attacks on a global scale confronted us with a deteriorated security situation in comparison with the pre 9/11 situation.

“The rise of ISIS and the ‘exportation’ of Islamic terrorist hubs into the streets of Western Europe made the world more vulnerable. Additionally the rise if ISIS in the Far East and Boko Haram in Western Africa contributed to the enormous annual growth of terrorist casualties,” the analyst added.

According to him, the most worrying factor at the moment is the re-establishment of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and the rise if Al-Qaeda both on the Arabian Peninsula as well as in Africa.

“So I believe that Elaine Duke provided us with a likely and very possible scenario for the upcoming years. Additionally the focus of organizations like AQ, AQAP and AQIM to initiate ‘catastrophic’ terrorism and their ‘weapon of choice’ will be intensified into the direction of the cyber- and chemical/biological domain,” the expert said.

In turn, Rohan Gunaratna, Professor at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, shared the view on the potential change in the activity of ISIS members in the direction of increasing the number of victims.

“For high impact, ISIS is planning major attacks in parallel with homegrown strikes,” the Singaporean analyst said.

In his opinion, the ISIS militants have now reached a much higher level than the members of Al-Qaeda.

“The threat has grown several folds after 9/11. Al-Qaeda is a kindergarten group compared to ISIS,” Rohan Gunaratna stressed.

In turn, Julian Richards, Co-Director, Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS), University of Buckingham, suggested that Elaine Duke’s statement was not supported by any concrete intelligence about the forthcoming operation.

“Elaine Duke is not communicating a specific piece of intelligence, I suspect, but merely reiterating the fact that we need to expect the unexpected and remain vigilant about ISIS, even when they are losing territory on the ground,” the expert explained.

According to him, terrorists have more recently been concentrating on low-signature, low-sophistication attacks, which are very difficult for states to predict and mitigate.

“Such attacks are very effective in spreading fear and panic, and are cheap and easy to execute. There have also been some more organised attacks, often involving individuals with combat experience and training in Iraq or Syria, such as the attacks in Paris, Brussels and Manchester. [Elaine] Duke’s analysis that these attacks keep things going while the terrorist organisations such as ISIS attempt to plan something much bigger, is probably true. Whether they will manage to mount a ‘spectacular’ on the same level as 9/11 remains to be seen, but it will continue to be very difficult for them to do so given the intensity of counter-terrorist measures,” Julian Richards said.

“In the UK, the chief of the MI5 domestic security agency recently said that the threat now is the most intense he has seen in his 30-years career. This is probably true, as there is, no doubt, a serious threat of sudden, low-sophistication attacks, especially in Western cities, the likes of which we have seen several times over the last 2–3 years,” the analyst added.

ISIS will continue to pose a serious threat as the inspiration and instigator of such attacks despite its military losses in Iraq and Syria, he said.

“Indeed, it could be entering a more dangerous period where it concentrates more on attacking the countries that have been instrumental in its demise on the ground, which very much includes Russia given the very significant role the country has played in pro-Assad operations within Syria. At the same time, we shouldn’t panic too much in my opinion, and we should remember that in the big picture, there have been periods in history where the terrorist threat has been much greater than now, such as the 1970s when Palestinian terrorism was at its height,” the expert reminded.

In his opinion, one of the most interesting things to watch over the next months and years is how the ISIS organisation changes and transforms in the light of its virtual extinction on the ground in Iraq and Syria.

“Most commentators believe that it will increasingly think about expanding into other regions, such as South Asia for example, and that it will try to transform itself into a virtual-world inspirational threat for young jihadists across the world, very much in the mould of the traditional Al-Qaeda organisation in recent years. In some ways, however, it likes to differentiate itself from Al-Qaeda and to concentrate more on obtaining physical presence on the ground, so it might face a bit of a dilemma in competing with Al-Qaeda in the jihadist market. One thing is for sure: we are entering a new period in the terrorist evolution and none of us can be completely sure about what will happen,” Julian Richards concluded.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/64711-2017

The State Duma of Russia unanimously passed a legislative amendment that would allow foreign media to be classified as foreign agents. It is expected that the Ministry of Justice will address every issue on a case-by-case basis, as it was a forced measure which came as a response to the United States’ actions against the American branch of Russia Today (RT) and the Sputnik news agency.

“The adopted framework amendments will have to note in common with the attitude toward the press freedom and foreign media operation in Russia,” stressed Leonid Levin, the head of the State Duma’s Committee on information policy.

According to him, the key and the main reason for adopting the bill were the activities of the US authorities against the Russian media.

“We would like to see in this list as few outlets as possible,” the State Duma deputy said.

Earlier it was reported that the leadership of Twitter banned advertising from RT and Sputnik under the pressure of the US intelligence community engaged in the investigation of the alleged “Russian interference” in the election of the US president. Meanwhile, Washington has not yet provided any real evidence to its allegations.

Analyzing the current situation, Kurt Opsahl, the Deputy Executive Director and General Counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, reminded that Twitter is not a state actor, and has the right to moderate its platform, but it should use this right wisely.

“Twitter was reacting to an assessment by the United States intelligence community that RT and Sputnik interfered with the U.S. election on behalf of the Russian government, as well as Twitter’s non-public internal research. Many may be tempted to celebrate Twitter’s decision as a move to protect democracy from an authoritarian state. We fear it’s just the opposite,” the expert said.

From his point of view, a ban on all advertising from a particular entity, knocking out everything from articles covering a cheese rolling festival to coverage of an election, would be an over-broad prior restraint on speech.

“What is worse, the ban is likely to lead to further pressure on anonymous speech. […] To make it really effective, Twitter may have to adopt new policies to identify and attribute anonymous accounts, undermining both speech and user privacy,” Kurt Opsahl suggested.

“By simply removing particular media outlets from the opportunities to promote themselves that other outlets enjoy, Twitter slides further down the slippery slope toward a world where the social media platforms on which we all rely abandon any pretense of neutrality. Neutral platforms with strong policies against content censorship, especially those with worldwide reach, are vital for freedom of expression, and necessary for a free and open society,” the analyst added.

Meanwhile, according to Ashraf Aboul-Yazid, President, Asia Journalist Association, Editor-in-chief, the Silk Road Literature, Western politicians are concerned about social media’s increased influence on public opinion.

“I got the chance to watch some of the aggressive investigative with Facebook. The huge influence of the giant social media made politicians question their ability to control its content. From time to time we observe Facebook Team revise its rules to obey the societal values, against what threats religions, women, children and so on, but using it commercially by putting ads raised the suspicious fingers against it. As governments were not prepared to the power of social media, they are trying now to seize it,” Ashraf Aboul-Yazid said.

At the same time, he negatively assessed the use of state control in the sphere of information.

“In a supposed to be a free country, censorship should not be used. Otherwise, no one could blame the third world dictators to do the same,” President of Asia Journalist Association stressed.

At the same time, in his opinion, all social networks pursue the goal of monetary enrichment.

“As all social media are racing for money, values are not priorities. If governments pay more than commercial ads, they will subsequently be able to modify the rules, remove the opposition contents, and so on,” the expert said.

In his opinion, the best way out of this situation is to improve the level of education of citizens.

“We must grow awareness among readers, users, and members of social media against fake news. As Facebook and other social media resources are recycled everywhere in printed media, TV and radio channels, we must create a way to stop virtual lies from spreading. I called for criminalizing fake news, and creating a black list of those who misused media by spreading lies as one of the penalties,” the analyst explained.

In turn, Pal Steigan, Norwegian politician, publisher, writer, independent entrepreneur in the field of culture and information technology, expressed confidence that the US social networks were “founded and funded by US intelligence, namely CIA and its venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel.”

“Facebook is working hand and glove with CIA on developing psy-op techniques to manipulate public opinion. CIA uses Facebook data to chart people and human relations. Amazon is running the cloud computing service for the US war machinery. Google and its YouTube service are also wholly integrated in the military-industrial media complex,” the politician explained.

From his point of view, censorship in the US is part and parcel of a much larger intelligence system.

“Big media and government are trying to monopolize the Internet and intelligence uses it as the most massive manipulating tool in human history. Independent people will try to find havens elsewhere. And yes, US government, NATO, the EU commission already have given orders to social media companies to suppress alternative and critical views and forward only the ruling class narrative,” Pal Steigan said.

He also stressed that he stands for an open exchange of different points of view.

“What is fake news? Main Stream Media is fake news on steroids. I am for freedom of speech and the open exchange of ideas. Trying to prohibit ideas is a very wrong strategy; neither will it be successful in the long run,” the analyst said.

Democracy is not in vogue these days, he said.

“The principles of enlightenment of democracy, human rights and free speech are under severe attack. The ruling elite that run global capitalism are so few, only 0,01% of the population. The only way they can maintain their power is by different forms of dictatorship,” Pal Steigan added.

In turn, Fernand Kartheiser, Luxembourg Parliament member for the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR), shared the view that Western political parties and the main media see their power largely contested.

“Those who fight today for restricting the freedom of the social media often use ‘politically correct’ arguments such as the fight against ‘hate speech’, and so on. The true reason is however that they try to take back control about the public opinion through a better steering of the publicized opinion. There is no doubt, that a censorship is established in many countries,” the politician said.

What is at stake is the credibility of the Western democratic system and its ideals of freedom and justice, he stressed.

“The ‘Russian interference debate’ could easily be done away as a peanuts discussion, if it wouldn’t be used to justify a return of the Cold War and the creation of a Government, NATO and EU propaganda machinery. I often look at Russian sources and I regret deeply that, indeed, there is a lot of fake news and unfortunately stupid propaganda in their content. In my view, this is neither reasonable nor worthy of a country of great culture such as Russia. But this does of course not mean that the West isn’t spreading propaganda of its own. As a matter of fact, it does so continuously and massively. Freedom loving people both in Russia and the West should encourage their media and their authorities to stick courageously to the truth and not to support those who do their utmost to restrict the freedom of expression in order to get their hands free for implementing their political agenda,” Fernand Kartheiser said.

From his point of view, the best weapons against so-called “fake news” are a good education and a pluralistic media landscape.

“Over the last years, we have entered a world of surrealistic terminology, in which a ‘populist’ is everybody who doesn’t agree with you and ‘fake news’ is every piece of news that causes you some discomfort. Who would define what fake news is? Sometimes, of course, fake news is easy to identify but most of the time it is a matter of pure political judgment. Even some scientific matters today are largely politicized and difficult to discuss in an objective way, for instance the climate debate. Punishing the media or people in the social networks is the wrong way; freedom and education are the better answers,” the politician concluded.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/64767-2017

By Erna Mackic

The UN court in The Hague convicted former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic of the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladic guilty on Wednesday of genocide and crimes against humanity, convicting him of some of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II and jailing him for life.

Mladic, 74, was convicted of genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, the persecution and extermination of Bosniaks and Croats across the country, terrorising the population of Sarajevo with a campaign of shelling and sniper attacks, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

But he was acquitted of committing genocide in six other Bosnian municipalities in 1992.

“The crimes committed rank among the most heinous known to humankind, and include genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity,” said judge Alphons Orie as he announced the life sentence.

Mladic was removed from the courtroom at one point after he disrupted proceedings by shouting at the judges.

He became angry after they refused his defence lawyer’s request to cut short the proceedings because of his high blood pressure.

Judge Orie said that after a marathon trial which lasted four years, Hague Tribunal prosecutors had proved that Mladic was involved in a joint criminal enterprise whose goal was to kill Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995.

Orie said that Bosnian Serb forces were given orders by the defendant who was in the field on July 11, 1995 when Serb troops and police overran the UN ‘safe area’ and subsequently killed more than Bosniak 7,000 men and boys.

“Mladic had effective control over both members of police and military who committed crimes. Without his actions the aim of the joint criminal enterprise would not have been achieved in the same way,” the judge said.

Orie also highlighted Mladic’s words to Bosniaks who met him in the days after Srebrenica was taken, when he said that Bosniaks could either “survive or disappear”. According to the judge, statements like this showed his intent.

Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic – who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity last year – gave an order to create “impossible living conditions” for Bosniaks in Srebrenica, then Mladic “implemented these orders”, said Orie.

He explained that the campaign of massacres in was organised and systematic, as was the attempt by Mladic to hide the crime, by hiding the mass graves.

“The Bosnian Serb forces tried to hide the [Srebrenica] crime, by digging up and reburying Bosniak victims in mass graves,” said the judge. “Their attempt… ultimately failed.”

On the second genocide count – genocide in 1992 in six other Bosnian municipalities – Orie said that the court found that mass crimes did take place and there was “a plan to destroy” Bosniaks.

However, he added, the targeted group represented a “relatively small number of the protected group of Bosniaks in total”.

During the siege of Sarajevo, Orie said the Bosnian Serb Army’s Sarajevo Romanija-Corps “intended to spread terror among the population of Sarajevo”.

“The city was indiscriminately attacked,” he said.

The judges found that Mladic exercised “direct” control over members of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps who committed the atrocities.

Mladic also had the intent to persecute Bosniaks and Croats and create ‘ethnically clean’ territories, Orie said.

In relation to the accusation that Mladic was responsible for taking UN peacekeepers hostage, Orie said that there was a joint criminal enterprise to detain UN officials and hold them in specific areas to stop NATO attacking Bosnian Serb positions.

The court found that Mladic ordered his subordinates to hold the UN peacekeepers.

Sentencing Mladic to life in prison, Orie said that the defence had suggested that Mladic’s “benevolent treatment” of some war victims, as well as his “good character and diminished mental capacity, poor physical health and advanced age” should be seen as mitigating factors.

However, Oric said, these factors “carry little or no weight” in determining the sentence.

Wednesday’s first-instance verdict is not final and can be appealed, and Mladic’s legal team has already announced that it will launch an appeal.
“We will certainly appeal and it will be successful,” Mladic’s lawyer Dragan Ivetic told media.

In a sign of continuing post-war divisions, Bosniak survivors of the conflict welcomed Ratko Mladic’s life sentence for genocide and crimes against humanity, but Bosnian Serbs accused the Hague Tribunal of anti-Serb bias.

Starkly opposing reactions from Bosniaks and Serbs to the conviction of former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic on Wednesday again highlighted how ethnic divisions remain deeply rooted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 22 years after the end of the war.

Representatives of war victims’ associations who attended the verdict at the Hague Tribunal cheered when Mladic was sentenced to life imprisonment; some also shed tears.

“It shows that you cannot commit crimes with impunity,” said one of them, Fikret Grabovica from the Association of Parents Whose Children were Killed in Wartime.

Mladic was convicted of the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in 1995, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity, although he was acquitted of responsibility for committing genocide in six other Bosnian municipalities in 1992.

The former mayor of Srebrenica, Camil Durakovic, a Bosniak, said he regretted that Mladic was not also found guilty of the 1992 genocide charge.

“I think we can be partially pleased with the life sentence for the person most responsible of commanding the army that committed all those crimes, on the order of politicians, but not with the fact that genocide hasn’t been confirmed in other places,” Durakovic said.

Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, told a press conference that he was “certain that the silent majority of Bosnian Serbs do not accept the crimes” committed by Mladic.

“Ratko Mladic is a criminal and a coward because only a coward can imprison civilians, women and children,” Izetbegovic said.

But the reaction in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska was strongly negative.

The current Serb mayor of Srebrenica, Mladen Grujicic, said that the verdict confirmed that the Hague Tribunal was set up to persecute Serbs.

“Mladic will be remembered in history and this sentence only strengthens his myth among the Serb nation, which is grateful to him for saving it from persecution and extermination,” Grujicic told media.

Republika Srpska’s President Milorad Dodik said that the verdict was an insult and that Mladic will continue to be perceived by the Serb people as someone who saved them from genocide.

“We see this as a slap in the face for Serb victims, of whose suffering no one has been convicted,” Dodik told a press conference.

The Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, Mladen Ivanic, also said that the verdict showed that the Hague Tribunal is biased against Serbs.

“When you look at the hundreds of years [in sentences] that Serbs have received, and compare it with the 50 years that the Hague gave for crimes against Serbs, that says enough about this court,” Ivanic told FENA news agency.

However Bosnian Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic insisted that Mladic’s verdict was a judgment on “an individual, not his people”.

Zvizdic said the verdict should be “a message for future generations to move towards peace, cooperation in the region, a common European future and economic prosperity”.

‘No tears’, says Serbian president

The conviction of Mladic also caused mixed reactions in Serbia, angering right-wingers but encouraging rights campaigners.

Senior officials in the country, which is seeking to join the EU, tried to avoid encouraging nationalist passions without endorsing the verdict either.

President Aleksandar Vucic – who was once responsible for putting up a commemorative Ratko Mladic street sign in Belgrade before claiming to have renounced his nationalist politics – said that Serbia should not “choke on tears over the past”.

“My call to people in Serbia today is to start looking to the future,” Vucic told local media.

He also said that “unpunished crimes” against Serbs could not diminish the magnitude of those committed by Serbs.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic echoed Vucic’s comments about the verdict, saying it did not come as a surprise.

“We need to turn to the future in order to finally have a stable country. We need to leave our past behind,” Brnabic told media during a visit to Norway.

Human rights NGOs saluted the sentence and called on Serbia to face up to its past.

Pacifist NGO Women in Black called on the current government – “whose officials shared the policies that inspired and assisted genocide”, it alleged – to stop denying the Srebrenica genocide.

The Youth Initiative for Human Rights meanwhile urged the Serbian parliament to adopt a declaration on the Srebrenica genocide and express “utmost respect for the victims”.

Meanwhile Serbian right-wing parties slammed the Hague Tribunal’s verdict, claiming that the court had confirmed its ‘anti-Serb’ stance.

“The verdict is political, and it’s mostly directed against the Serbs who took part in the war,” said the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj, who is also a war crimes defendant.

The leader of the right-wing Dveri party, Bosko Obradovic, called Mladic a “war hero” and said that the sentence was a “scandal”.

Dveri called on Serbs to demonstrate in central Belgrade on Wednesday evening, but only a few dozen protesters turned up to show support for the former Bosnian Serb military chief.

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo should order Indonesia’s police chief and armed forces commander to immediately ban so-called “virginity tests” of female applicants, Human Rights Watch said. By ending the practice, the Indonesian government would be abiding by its international human rights obligations and honoring the goals of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, 2017.

Senior military and police officers with knowledge of the “virginity testing” policy told Human Rights Watch that the security forces continue to impose these cruel and discriminatory “tests,” which are officially classified as “psychological” examinations, for “mental health and morality reasons.”

“The Indonesian government’s continuing tolerance for abusive ‘virginity tests’ by the security forces reflects an appalling lack of political will to protect the rights of Indonesian women,” said Nisha Varia, women’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “These tests are degrading and discriminatory, and they harm women’s equal access to important job opportunities.”

Virginity testing is a form of gender-based violence and is a widely discredited practice, Human Rights Watch said. In November 2014, the World Health Organization issued guidelines that stated, “There is no place for virginity (or ‘two-finger’) testing; it has no scientific validity.” Human Rights Watch first exposed the use of “virginity tests” by Indonesian security forces in 2014, but since then the government has failed to take the necessary steps to prohibit the practice.

An Indonesian military doctor told Human Rights Watch that senior military personnel were well-aware of the arguments against “virginity tests,” but were unwilling to abolish them. The doctor suggested that stopping the tests required the direct and explicit intervention of Indonesian Armed Forces commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo to order an end to the practice. “The military is a top-down organization. We have to follow orders.”

Jokowi should declare an immediate prohibition of “virginity tests” by the military and police and create an independent monitoring mechanism to ensure that security forces comply, Human Rights Watch said.

The testing includes the invasive “two-finger test” to determine whether female applicants’ hymens are intact, findings that are scientifically baseless. While Human Rights Watch found that applicants who were deemed to have “failed” were not necessarily penalized, all of the women with whom we spoke with described the test as painful, embarrassing, and traumatic.

Several Indonesian military and police officers told Human Rights Watch that both security forces have also sought to justify the “two-finger test” as means of determining if applicants are pregnant. The “two-finger test” cannot determine pregnancy status, and employment discrimination based on pregnancy status is in any event a form of sex discrimination prohibited by Indonesia’s international legal obligations.

All branches of the Indonesian military – air force, army, and navy – have used “virginity tests” for decades and, in certain circumstances, also extended the requirement to the fiancées of military officers. In May 2015, then-commander of Indonesia’s armed forces, General Moeldoko, responded to criticism of “virginity tests,” by saying to the media, “So what’s the problem? It’s a good thing, so why criticize it?”

Indonesian military spokesman Fuad Basya that same month asserted that “virginity tests” are a means of screening out inappropriate female recruits. “If they are no longer virgins, if they are naughty, it means their mentality is not good,” Basya told The Guardian. Current Indonesian Armed Forces chief Nurmantyo has taken no steps to ban the practice.

Human Rights Watch has documented the use of abusive “virginity tests” by security forces in Egypt, India, and Afghanistan as well as in Indonesia and criticized calls for “virginity tests” for school girls in Indonesia.

“Virginity tests” have been recognized internationally as a violation of human rights, particularly the prohibition against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” under article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and article 16 of the Convention against Torture, both of which Indonesia has ratified. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the international expert body that monitors compliance with the ICCPR, states in a General Comment that the aim of article 7 is “to protect both the dignity and the physical and mental integrity of the individual.” Coerced virginity testing compromises the dignity of women and violates their physical and mental integrity.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and other human rights treaties prohibit discrimination against women. Because men are not subjected to virginity testing, the practice constitutes discrimination against women as it has the effect or purpose of denying women on a basis of equality with men the ability to work as police officers.

“Indonesian women who seek to serve their country by joining the security forces shouldn’t have to subject themselves to an abusive and discriminatory ‘virginity test’ to do so,” Varia said. “The Indonesian police and military cannot effectively protect all Indonesians, women and men, so long as a mindset of discrimination permeates their ranks.”

US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner is facing investigation for contact with senior Israeli officials in an attempt to block a UN resolution condemning Israel’s occupation, the Washington Post has reported.

Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential elections, is reportedly looking into efforts made by Kushner during the transition period between the Obama and Trump administrations at the end of 2016.

The paper claimed that several sources involved in the investigation said that Kushner had spoken with senior Israeli officials who sought to thwart a UN Security Council’s resolution which condemned Israel’s occupying activities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as illegal under international law.

If true, the cooperation would be one of many allegations of conversations between Kushner and foreign leaders during the two-month transition period between the November election and the time that Trump took office.

Former President Barack Obama had caused controversy when he chose to abstain from the vote, rather than veto the bill in December. Israeli officials subsequently turned to Donald Trump, requesting he pressure other countries to block the bill. At one point, it was believed that Russia may have vetoed the bill, although it eventually voted in favor of the motion.

Kushner is also currently under scrutiny by the FBI for undisclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States during and after the 2016 presidential campaign.

Since the inauguration of Trump, Kushner has been charged with spearheading the Middle East peace process. However, a recent report in Politico found that despite carrying information on and conducting some of the country’s most sensitive diplomatic talks, Kushner does not have sufficient security clearance.

Kushner is a strong advocate of Israel and his support for the country, say critics, is odd even by American standards. He has given money to Israeli settlements and his family are close friends of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

By Ronald J. Granieri*

(FPRI) — For more than a month, representatives of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), have been engaged in preliminary discussions about creating a coalition government with two other smaller parties—the pro-business liberal (in the European sense) Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the environmentalist Greens. Following a long German habit of identifying political parties and their coalitions by traditional colors, the linking of Christian Democrats (Black), Liberals (Yellow), and Greens has been referred to as a “Jamaica” Coalition, reflecting the colors of the Caribbean nation’s flag.

Jamaica is a popular vacation spot, an island of tropical dreams. Today, however, it represents a disturbing political reality. The collapse of those negotiations has plunged Germany into its deepest political crisis since reunification.

Such a coalition is a new development in German politics, having been tried out so far only on the state level in Saarland (from 2009-2012) and currently in the far northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. It is a sign of increasing political fragmentation in Germany, as the relative decline of the larger parties has made broader coalitions necessary, and of the desire of centrist parties to cooperate in the face of extremist challenges from both the neo-communist Linke (Left) and the nationalist-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD).

It also happened, in this case, to be Angela Merkel’s only mathematical chance at a majority after the disappointing results of national elections on September 24. Despite her high international profile, the CDU/CSU suffered significant losses, winning barely a third of the overall vote. Merkel’s coalition partner, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), fell even further. The once-proud SPD gained barely 21% of the vote, and on election night, its leader, Martin Schulz, announced that the Social Democrats preferred to go into opposition to regroup than to continue as a shrunken junior partner in another (increasingly less) Grand Coalition. Unwilling to include the AfD, who rode a wave of anti-immigrant and anti-establishment sentiment to 13% of the vote, let alone the Linke, Merkel and colleagues claimed to welcome the chance to make Jamaica a reality.

Supporters of the Jamaica idea have hailed it as a creative solution to political stasis, providing an alternative to the stale cooperation between the CDU/CSU and SPD. The very idea that the CDU/CSU and the Greens could contemplate a coalition would have appeared ludicrous to politicians in the 1980s, when the Greens first emerged out of the peace movement to denounce the pro-NATO policies of CDU Chancellor Helmut Kohl. It certainly says a lot about the changing German political landscape that such cooperation has functioned reasonably well at the city and state level, and has become a national possibility. Both sides have altered their positions on key issues, especially as a degree of environmental consciousness has become part of the mainstream consensus, and they have also displayed a degree of pragmatism in finding common ground. Critics, however, pointing out significant policy differences on migration and environmental policy not only between the CDU/CSU and the Greens but also between the FDP and the Greens, denounced the idea as far-fetched and doomed from the start. Unsurprisingly, the leaders of the AfD have been especially harsh, viewing Jamaica as merely the last bastion of a political elite determined at all costs to keep the AfD from government. But even sympathetic European centrist observers such as Timothy Garton Ash have called it an “improbable pantomime horse.”

Well, that horse broke a leg on Sunday night when the telegenic leader of the FDP, Christian Lindner, announced that his party was abandoning the preliminary coalition talks. The trip to Jamaica has been at best postponed, and at worst canceled.

Two questions come to mind:

• What happened?
• What’s next?

Answering the first question depends heavily on where one stands politically. Lindner portrayed his decision to break off talks as a blow for political principle. Blaming the Greens for their insistence on liberal policies on the reunification of migrant families, Lindner claimed there were compromises he was not prepared to make. “It is better not to govern than to govern incorrectly” (Besser nicht regieren als falsch), was the slogan that appeared with suspiciously immediate ubiquity on all FDP social media platforms. Supporters of the other parties, however, have rejected this portrayal. CSU Chair Horst Seehofer (himself an advocate of stricter immigration policies) claimed that an agreement was “within reach,” while other Christian Democrats and Greens denounced the FDP as inflexible.

Lindner is also pursuing a clear, if risky, political calculation. He succeeded in returning the FDP to the Bundestag with a campaign that hinted at a more pro-business and nationalist liberalism, with enough criticism of Merkel’s immigration policies and of the European Union to appeal to those middle-class voters who were upset with Merkel but perhaps not quite willing to vote for the AfD. Looking around the European neighborhood, Lindner may have seen possible role models in the equally young and telegenic Emmanuel Macron in France (who basically created a new political party riding a wave of frustration with the political establishment) and also Sebastian Kurz in Austria (who has embraced a hard line on immigration to build a center-right coalition). Finishing behind the AfD but slightly ahead of the Greens was a notable but incomplete success. Although a coalition with the CDU/CSU alone would have appealed to many center-right voters, it was not clear that being part of a government with the Greens would be good for the FDP’s long-term strategy of appealing to dissatisfied but respectable conservatives. (Indeed, the AfD was founded by defectors from both the CSU and the FDP, so this would be a kind of reunion strategy.) A few years in parliamentary opposition may serve that purpose better, giving the FDP a chance to hone its message. Indeed, Lindner and the FDP reacted especially strongly to Martin Schulz’s announcement that the SPD would not be available for another Grand Coalition—not out of any affection for the existing arrangement, but because it provided a target-rich environment for the FDP’s rhetorical jabs. After Schulz’s demurral, it would have been hard for the FDP to say no to negotiations. Lindner may have even been serious about participating in the government if the terms were right. Nevertheless, it’s not surprising that Lindner chose this dramatic step, and has even suggested that new elections are necessary. Especially by suggesting that immigration was the sticking point, Lindner is clearly preparing the FDP for a campaign in which it runs hard to capture conservative votes.

As for what happens next, that depends on how the parties and their leaders manage the details of the German constitution. Merkel has met with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has the constitutional responsibility to approve coalition negotiations. Assuming that Steinmeier, who comes from the SPD and served as Merkel’s Foreign Minister in a previous Grand Coalition, cannot convince his old party to return to government, and that the FDP is serious about rejecting Jamaica, the only remaining options would be a minority government (either of the CDU/CSU and Greens, or, less likely, the CDU/CSU alone) or early national elections.

There is no tradition in postwar German history of minority governments at the national level, which would make every parliamentary decision a drama as the government sought supplementary votes from other parties. It is not an appealing prospect now, especially at a time when Germany faces both domestic and international challenges—from immigration to the Brexit negotiations—and has to deal with difficult international interlocutors including Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump.

That makes new elections appear inevitable. Here again, however, the constitutional rules do not make it easy. First, the Bundestag would have to go through the process of voting on Angela Merkel as Chancellor candidate of the largest party. If she fails to receive a majority vote, the Bundestag would have two weeks to reconsider before voting again on whomever is nominated to be chancellor. Only after that second round of voting was complete would it be possible for the Federal President to dissolve the Bundestag, with elections taking place sometime in the late winter or early spring.

Either way, Germany and Europe face months of further political uncertainty. To make matters worse, at the end of it all, there is no guarantee that the election results would provide any more clarity. Current polls suggest a picture at least as fragmented as the September elections. Lindner may believe he can gain votes, but it is also possible that a campaign that includes multiple parties offering anti-establishment rhetoric will only serve the purposes of the AfD. One of their leaders, Alice Weidel, has already announced that the AfD welcomes new elections. It is very likely that the next Chancellor will face many of the same problems, and the individual parties will face many of the same existential choices of whether to retreat into opposition or to take up the responsibility of governing.

All of this leads us back to the woman who has stood at the center of German, European, and in some cases, even world politics since 2005—Angela Merkel. The September elections were always going to be her last in active politics. Despite ongoing criticism for her handling of migration and of the ongoing Euro crisis, her apparent political recovery over the course of the past year led pollsters to assume that she would enter a fourth and final term with a range of coalition options. Instead, she finds herself with few, and with her reputation as the stable hand on the tiller guiding Germany through choppy seas facing its greatest challenge.

Merkel’s critics, from the AfD to the broader Euroskeptic press (sometimes together) are gleefully proclaiming that “Merkel is finished!” Whether she is or not will depend on how she manages this last crisis. At stake is not only her personal political fate, but the future of German and European politics. Merkel may not guide the Germans to Jamaica after all, but we can hope that her failure doesn’t send everyone back to Weimar.

About the author:
*Ron Granieri is the Executive Director of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West, Editor of the Center’s E-publication The American Review of Books, Blogs, and Bull, and Host of Geopolitics with Granieri, a monthly series of events for FPRI Members.  He is a specialist in Contemporary German and International History with degrees from both Harvard and the University of Chicago. He is the recipient of a Federal Chancellor Scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and is a member in the American Council on Germany’s Young Leader Program. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Syracuse University, Furman University, and the University of Tubingen. He is the author of The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949-1966 (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), and is currently completing a book entitled: The Fall and Rise of German Christian Democracy, From Detente to Reunification, for Oxford University Press.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

Americans, numb on mass shootings, must renew their culture, shunning a lethal mixture of violence and too many guns.

By Louis René Beres*

The shooting at a school under lockdown in California on November 14^th, the Texas church shooting on November 5th and the Colorado Wal-Mart shooting on November 2nd are among the latest expressions of American gun crime. Nearly every day brings yet another spasm of deadly mayhem and mass killing, virtually all the work of obviously disturbed individuals.

Still, pertinent truth in such fearful matters is complex and multisided. Limiting access to automatic weapons is essential, an intellectual “no-brainer,” but a corollary requirement for the nation centers on certain cultural factors. Dedicated analysts and ordinary laypersons also seek answers amid the dense thickets of mental illness and psychopathology, yet less attention is paid to certain underlying fractures of American culture. Significantly, as these spheres are often determinative for mass-casualty assaults, Americans should look beyond the news. To wit, they must soon inquire: Is there something revealingly insidious about the wider network of American social life that increasingly makes individual human breakdowns more usual and more violent?

To begin, macabre sentiments can readily trigger distressed people, both young and old. In these impenetrably bitter human circles, a determined will to kill others en masse can sometimes take hold. Whatever the preferred killing venues, there emerges in these circles a seemingly irresistible urge to unleash lethal violence and to carry this out more-or-less randomly in crowds.

Often, there is no understandable connection between the mass killer’s apparent grievances and the names of victims. Yes, of course, the attacker may somewhere have recorded a loathing of certain identifiable individuals or institutions, but the most genuinely consistent object of this cold-blooded antipathy is innocence. Devoid of both sympathy and empathy, the killer openly despises the pristine blamelessness of his victims – a discomfiting innocence that may remind him of his own dismally failed struggle for personal autonomy, dignity and respect.

People, young people especially, are sometimes more afraid of being left alone and inconsequential than anything else, including death. For a few, almost always young males, the paralyzing fears of social or professional rejection can become so numbingly overwhelming that they effectively crowd out the otherwise more widely presumed sacredness of human life. Here, as an imagined compensation for every “injustice,” the murder of schoolmates, anonymous shoppers, churchgoers, concert-goers or young children may appear, grotesquely, fitting.

While individuals normally shrink from personal annihilation, a perversely implemented fusion of homicide and suicide can still augur a deeply reassuring celebration of death. Sinister, to be sure, but also eagerly anticipated, such fusion can offer would-be mass killers a fitting path to “revenge.” For most of us, this sort of twisted reasoning makes no sense whatever. Still, lack of coherence remains utterly beside the point. All that matters is that such aberrant reasoning make sense to the prospective killers.

Conspicuously, crime and mass murder are taking a hideous but predictable turn in the United States.  Whatever the source, wherever the venue, violence and death brazenly brutish and recognizably cold-blooded are distinctly popular. This worrisome development is not unprecedented, and increasing numbers of tormented persons who sometimes live quietly among us are eagerly drawn to violent entertainment or deeds that involve beating, battering and tearing apart other human beings.

From the standpoint of “lone-wolf” mass murderers especially, the core problem is not fundamentally legal, political, religious or institutional. Instead, Americans increasingly embrace a relentlessly imitative conformist society, one that is deeply troubled, fervidly anti-individualist, deliriously unhappy and obscenely dysfunctional.

For those who would fail to “fit in” or “merely” see themselves as irremediable failures, the resultant anger can launch incremental or sudden emotional breakdowns, quickly spiraling into assorted specific and non-specific hatreds. By definition, the recent mass shooters are psychopathic, but this does not mean that each had planned his chosen annihilation spasms in a hermetically-sealed civilizational vacuum. On the contrary, such plans are rarely conceived in some neatly detached private universe.

In recent cases of American mass murder, mental distress and disorientation were dangerously intertwined with a larger national landscape of ubiquitous rancor and lurid cruelty.  By intersecting with personal demons, this fragmenting landscape of violent harms provides the operational environment within which otherwise unimaginable crimes could actually be concocted and carried out.

At its heart, the dreadful problem of those who systematically murder blameless others stems from a society that loathes the individual. Driven by an almost irresistible need to conform at all costs, Americans have learned not just to tolerate mass society, but also glorify it. In consequence, too many function under carefully scripted rhythmic urgings to worship every inane and distracting technology. Social networking has become more than a helpful key to relationship opportunities. More symptom than cause, it is effectively a new religion, a common expression of submission to unyielding expectations of mass. To act in any manner against these expectations is unacceptable and even blasphemy.

People are generally more attentive to multiple “apps” and personal devices, intent on crafting a fantasy version of their lives, than the palpable pain of fellow citizens.

To the darkly lonely ones who feel unable to belong, that is, find some sufficiently sustaining acceptance in any group, an overwhelming despair can become irresistible. The “remedy” for this gravely painful condition, a sort of residual “sickness unto death” – a term of 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard – may be discovered elsewhere.

Americans must transform their public universe of banal chatter and empty witticisms into an environment more generously dedicated to an openness for real life with its few successes and many failures. Otherwise, navigating society is increasingly crushing, as if there is not enough air to breathe. In a suitably transformed environment, individuals might learn once again how to avoid self-debasement.  Only then, could society expect fewer recruits to the growing crowd – Freud would call it a “horde” – of determined mass murderers.

Ultimately, the violent spasms of recurrent American mass killings are the expected result of a society’s pervasive loneliness and its correspondingly manipulated obsessions with death. If an alien were to touch down from another planetary outpost and seek reliable information about the human condition from available US news, movies, video games and television, the conclusions would be dire and stark – that our country’s days are gleefully preoccupied with mayhem, rape and virtually every conceivable variant of human murder including war, terrorism and genocide.

Somehow, before it is too late, we Americans must collectively learn to recover a meaningful incentive to feel, for ourselves, for others, and, simultaneously, to conspire more openly against the disjointed national exponents of separateness, alienation and despair. Otherwise, some of those living among us who are most unhappy and malleable will continue to seek their personal significance in carefully planned spasms of human extermination. In this regard, “America First” is not a proper model for dignified society. Rather, its crudely-sculpted competitive ethos represents the literal opposite of what’s required for global citizenship and US national security.

True feeling and empathy require good people to behave as thinking individuals, not as blindly obedient members. Oddly, perhaps, such individual behavior is often scandalous, a threatening intrusion into the compulsively profitable worlds of raw commerce, mindless jingles, mass marketing, adrenalized competition and celebrity adulation.  Yet, even in civilizations on the wane, at twilight, worn and almost defeated, an uncorrupted life is sometimes given a second chance.

*Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (PhD, 1971) and is the author of many books and articles dealing with international relations, international law, art, literature and philosophy. Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue, he has been published in such places as YaleGlobal Online, The New York Times, World Politics (Princeton); International Security (Harvard); Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; Special Warfare (DOD); Parameters, The Journal of the U.S. Army War College; Ha’aretz; Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs; The Jerusalem Post; The Brown Journal of World Affairs; The Hill; Israel Defense; US News & World Report; Jurist; The Atlantic; and Oxford University Press.  His 12th book, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy, was published in 2016 by Rowman & Littlefield. Professor Beres was born in Zürich, Switzerland, at the end of World War II. 

The recent recapture of Marawi City by Philippine security forces which led to the death of Isnilon Hapilon has thrown up a new emir or leader, Amin Baco. A Malaysian from Sabah, who is Amin Baco?

By Jasminder Singh*

It was not whether but when ISIS, also known as Islamic State (IS), would appoint the successor to Isnilon Hapilon, following the death of the Emir of ISIS Philippines on 20 October 2017 in Marawi City. There were conflicting reports as to who had been appointed as the new point man of the jihadi organisation. But by early November 2017, it became clear that Amin Baco, a Malaysian, has been designated as the new leader of Southeast Asia’s most embattled jihadi outfit, at the core of which is the Abu Sayyaf Group in southern Philippines.

Initially, another Malaysian, Dr Mahmud Ahmad, was believed to have been appointed as the ‘Emergency Emir’, but he was also killed by Philippine security forces. While the five-month Marawi siege ended in the deaths of key jihadists such as Hapilon and Mahmud, the Philippines Police Chief Director-General, Ronald Dela Rosa, said it also led to the emergence of Amin as the new ISIS emir.

Who is Amin Baco?

Initially, Amin was believed to have been killed together with some 40 other militants in the final assault on Marawi City by security forces. The Philippine police have confirmed that Amin is still alive. The 34-year-old Amin originates from Tawau in Sabah, Malaysia with the nom de guerre of Abu Jihad. He was a former operative of Darul Islam Sabah, an offshoot of Indonesia’s Darul Islam and the pro-Al Qaeda Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). Amin, who speaks English, later shifted allegiance to the ISIS.

According to a captured Indonesian terrorist, Muhammad Ilham Syahputra, who was detained on 1 November 2017, Amin succeeded in fleeing from Marawi City. Although surrounded with 30 other fighters in a mosque in Sabala Manao village and was negotiating his surrender, he managed to elude the security forces.

Syahputra claimed that he was with Amin throughout the jihadists’ assault on the Army detachment in Piagapo City in Lanao del Sur, where he operated drones for Amin. It was Syahputra who proclaimed Amin’s appointment as the new ISIS Emir after Hapilon.

Of Bugis descent (from Sulawesi), Amin has established close links with the jihadists operating in the tri-border region of Sabah, Sulawesi and Mindanao. He is married to a prominent Abu Sayyaf family on Jolo island in Sulu province. His late father-in-law, Hatib Sawadjaan, was head of the Abu Sayyaf faction known as Tanum Group.

Amin Baco’s Links

An expert improvised explosive device and bomb maker, Amin is believed to be a close protégé of a top Malaysian terrorist, Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan. When the Philippine Police’s Special Action Force launched Operation Oplan Exodus on 25 January 2015 to kill or capture three top terrorists, Marwan was killed. Filipino bomb maker, Basit Usman, escaped but was later killed. The third high value target was Amin Baco who escaped.

He is also believed to have worked closely with two other leading Indonesian JI leaders, Umar Patek and Dulmatin. When the Ambon conflict broke out in 1999, the Sabah Darul Islam cell sent men to fight against the Christians. In 2000, Amin is believed to have trained in South Sulawesi and Pendolo, where he also linked up with various Indonesian jihadi groups such as JI, Laskar Jundullah and KOMPAK.

Amin is believed to have operated in Mindanao since 2006 and have coordinated military attacks with ASG, according to a senior Philippine police intelligence officer.

Dr Mahmud had described Amin as one of the masterminds and key fund raisers of the five-month Marawi siege that saw the Maute family team up with Abu Sayyaf and foreign fighters to set up a Caliphate in southern Philippines. Hence, his high stature among jihadists in south Philippines and probably a major factor in his rise as the new Emir.

Amin has been wanted by the Malaysian, Philippines and US governments for bombings in Basilan and Sulu, and for various kidnapping offences. He is alleged to have masterminded the kidnappings of two Malaysians in November 2002 and was also involved in a foiled kidnapping of a Chinese trader in May 2013 in Sabah. He is also believed to be involved in trafficking terrorists and firearms between South Philippines and Indonesia through Sabah.

In Sabah, Amin teamed up with a Sabahan of Filipino descent, Jeknal Adil alias Jek, who was detained in Malaysia from 2006-09 for being a member of Darul Islam Sabah. Jek was born in Tawau to Tausug parents. Until his death, Jek has been operating in Basilan since 2012.

What Amin Baco’s Rise Means

It is not the first time that a Malaysian has risen as a leader of a jihadi group in Southeast Asia. In the past, two Malaysians, Dr Azahari and Nordin Top, also led major groups like Jemaah Islamiyyah. While Amin was formerly with JI following his allegiance to the self-proclaimed ‘Islamic State’ in April 2016, he has quickly become its leader in less than 20 months.

A strong-willed personality, his strength lies in his links with the tri-border region of Mindanao, Sabah and Sulawesi, and where he is linked to most jihadi groups operating in the region. He is also one of the longest staying foreign terrorist fighters in south Philippines.

What increases his appeal as a leader is the fact that he is closely linked with various jihadi groups, either through birth in Sabah, marriage and operations in Mindanao or through his descent, training and operations in Sulawesi.

He is one of the most experienced combatants in Mindanao today. His jihadi credentials places him in the league of Zarqawi, a Jordanian who had close ties with Al Qaeda, operated in Iraq and later, created the foundation for the birth of IS. Amin probably poses the same threat today, partly due to his close jihadi linkages in Southeast Asia.

While the Marawi siege may have ended, many of the jihadists who fought or supported the operations are still around, probably in Jolo and Basilan, the jihadi strongholds in south Philippines. With the emergence of a new Emir, the new leadership would want to prove that it is worthy of leading the organisation that was once headed by Hapilon.

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

ISIS has decapitated 15 of its members in the Achin district of eastern Nangarhar province, an official said on Thursday.

Governor spokesman Attaullah Khogyani told Pajhwok Afghan News that an internal rift within the group lead to the mass beheading.

The incident happened in the Surkh Ab Bazaar of Mamondari locality.

Obaidullah Shinwari, the Provincial Council member, confirmed the incident and said it happened due to internal differences within ISIS.

There was no information about the identity of beheaded militants.

Original source

By Prabhat Sharan and Rohit Wadhwaney

A Pakistani court’s decision Wednesday to set free the alleged mastermind of the deadly 2008 Mumbai terror attack left people in India expressing shock and outrage.

Pakistani national Hafiz Saeed, co-founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), has been under house arrest in Lahore since January and will likely walk free on Friday, two days before the anniversary of the third-deadliest terror assault in India.

Saeed, 68, is accused of masterminding a series of shooting and bomb attacks that began on Nov. 26, 2008 and lasted four days across Mumbai – India’s financial hub – and killed 166 people. He has, however, repeatedly denied involvement in the terror strike.

Saeed’s release was a “slap in the face” of the Indian government and victims of the attack, said Tarun Sethi, 35, who survived the attack.

“After Pakistan dropped terror charges against him in October, it was expected that he would be released soon. But it is still shocking and extremely upsetting to know that he will be a free man come Friday, while we continue to bear the trauma of the attack for the rest of our lives,” Sethi, who was at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai’s main railway station, when gunmen opened fire there during the November 2008 attack, told BenarNews.

On Wednesday, the Federal Review Board rejected a request from the government of Pakistan’s Punjab province to extend Saeed’s detention by three more months, saying there was insufficient evidence to keep holding him, according to the Press Trust of India.

“The government is ordered to release JuD chief Hafiz Saeed if he is not wanted in any other case,” the board said, adding, “[The] concept of justice cannot be brutalized and terrorized in the name of fight against terrorism.”

The board last month had withdrawn terror charges against Saeed, who has been declared a globally designated terrorist by the United Nations, the United States and India, but was kept under house arrest under the Maintenance of Public Order Act. That detention period expires Thursday.

Amita Raichand, an actor who was trapped inside the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel when the attackers stormed the five-star property, said the Indian government should put pressure on Pakistan to ensure that Saeed is not released.

“They [Pakistan] are showing us the finger. We [India] should do something about it. Releasing him just days ahead of 26/11 is like rubbing salt on our wounds,” Raichand told reporters. The 2008 Mumbai attack is commonly referred to in India as “26/11.”

Linked with Kashmir

In a video uploaded on social media by Saeed’s supporters following the court’s verdict, the JuD chief said India had pressured Pakistan to detain him because of his association with Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan.

A separatist insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir has claimed more than 70,000 lives since the late 1980s.

“It is because of Kashmir that India is after me, but all her efforts have been in vain and Allah has set me free. This is a victory of Pakistan’s freedom and, God willing, Kashmir will also be freed because I am fighting for it,” Saeed said.

Public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, who argued successfully for the death sentence for Ajmal Kasab, the only one of the 10 Mumbai attackers caught alive, described Saeed’s release verdict as “befooling.” Kasab was hanged in 2012.

“Now, America should notice this matter since it designated Hafiz Saeed as [a] global terrorist,” Nikam told the Times Now news channel.

Prakash George, a former Anti-Terrorist Squad officer of Mumbai police, said he was “hardly surprised” at Pakistan’s decision to free Saeed.

“He was placed under house arrest only because of the pressure India and the international community had built up on Pakistan to crackdown on terror cells operating on its soil. It was just eyewash,” George told BenarNews.

“Following the 2008 attack, we had submitted clinching evidence, including Kasab’s confessions, of Saeed’s involvement. But Pakistani officials kept on demanding more. It seemed that they didn’t want to believe any evidence we supplied to them,” he said.

Activists said Saeed’s likely release on Friday would be a major setback to peace in the sub-continent.

“Saeed is accused of orchestrating several terrorist attacks, not just the Mumbai attack,” Jatin Desai, general secretary of Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy, told BenarNews. “His release will have an adverse impact because he is known for spewing venom against India in his inflammatory speeches that he delivers routinely in Pakistan.”

Thucydides’ assertion of the fifth century war being “inevitable” owing to the “rise of Athens” and the fear it “instilled” in the “ruling” power of Sparta — holds key relevance in the 21st century.

By Kashish Parpiani*

In 2015, the Harvard Belfer Center, under the tutelage of noted power transition theorist Graham Allison, studied 16 historical cases of “ruling” and “rising” powers. The study propounded 12 of the 16 adopted cases within the past 500 years to have eventually devolved into war — offering a stark endorsement of the ‘Thucydides trap’. It is named after the Greek historian Thucydides, whose account of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta continues to be a seminal piece of work on the theory of power transitions. And if the United States’ unprecedented show of strength during President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Asia is an indication, Thucydides’ assertion of the fifth century war being “inevitable” owing to the “rise of Athens” and the fear it “instilled” in the “ruling” power of Sparta — holds key relevance in the 21st century.

The post-Cold War world has witnessed China’s meteoric rise. In 1984, five years after the Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, America’s share of the world economy was 12.8 times that of China. By 2016, that ratio plummeted to 1.7 times. In 1996, five years before China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation, US trade with the world was 3.9 times that of China. By 2010, China had become the world’s largest trading nation. In recent years, China’s GDP has swelled nearly five times — from $2.3 trillion in 2005 to $11.2 trillion in 2015. China’s economic rise has also translated into greater security maximisation. Its defence budget increased from a mere $52 billion in 2001 to $214 billion in 2015 (Read). In comparison, the US continues to hone its primacy with respect to its economy — GDP (2016 absolute terms) of $18.62 trillion at current prices (Read). Militarily, the United States in the post-Cold War era has consistently accounted for over one-third of the world’s total military expenditure (Read). Lastly, globalisation continues to be a euphemistic outlet for America’s soft power expanse. Benjamin Barber once referred to it as MTV, Macintosh, and McDonalds: “pressing nations into one homogenous global theme park.” Today, the same may have diffused into the multiples of Netflix, Facebook and Starbucks; globalisation nevertheless remains bedrocked by the fundamentals of American soft power. However, China’s rise has fanned neorealist prophecies of a coming power transition war between the “rising” power of China and the “ruling” power of the United States.

The same stands evidenced in Chinese and American security policy corridors’ discourse on China’s Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) strategies and its American corollary of the Air-Sea Battle (ASB) doctrine. From the Thucydidean standpoint, Graham Allison thus deemed the “the preeminent geostrategic challenge of this era” to be the “impact of China’s ascendance.” In the Trump era, this “challenge” stands greatly exacerbated due to increased American militarism stemming from the US foreign and security establishment’s fixation with sustaining US “credibility”.

The Peloponnesian war between the “rising” power of Athens and the “ruling” power of Sparta can be traced to either parties’ entrapment with their alliance commitments. When the city-states of Corinth and Corcyra/Corfu sparred, Sparta rushed to its ally Corinth’s defence fearing the wane of its own influence — by extension, in the probability of its ally’s loss. This left the “rising” power of Athens “little choice but to back” its ally Corfu. In the pedagogy of alliance politics (à la Glenn H. Snyder), credibility stands central for alliance partners to effectively balance between fears of abandonment and perils of entrapment. In deterrent cases, sustaining credibility within alliances is a virtue of positive peace. In other cases — as enunciated in case of Sparta fearing a decline of its influence — following through on commitments to sustain one’s influence (by extension), can be a catalyst for escalation ending in strategic disasters. Thus, noted scholar Joseph Nye’s assertion of politics being “a contest of competitive credibility” holds seminal pertinence.

In case of the United States, which has served as the sole military superpower in the post-Cold War world with security partnerships with over 60 countries, many of its strategic missteps have stemmed from its fixation with “credibility”. In the heydays of the Cold War, the United States — in its zeal to contain the Soviet Union — engaged in a limited intervention in the then-French Indo-China. In the years to come, that limited intervention, in a bid to sustain American “credibility”, devolved into the all-expansive Vietnam War, which by late 1968 forced Washington to engage over half a million troops in the region, spend approximately $35 billion annually, leaving over 50,000 US soldiers dead.

In an interview with The Atlantic in 2016, President Barack Obama expressed his disdain for the US foreign policy establishment’s “fetish” with credibility — especially the “sort of credibility purchased with force.” President Obama, however, had his own share of fixation with credibility in his first term — best evidenced in his insistence to not “brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader” in case of the West’s intervention in Libya. The subsequent US military operation reduced Libya to an active breeding ground for religious extremists and terrorist networks. Having learnt the pitfalls of this credibility “fetish”, President Obama in his second term refrained from militarily intervening in Syria. In national security meetings, President Obama would often nip arguments for employing force with the assertion that “dropping bombs on someone to prove that you’re willing to drop bombs on someone is just about the worst reason to use force.” Regardless of this wisdom that befell the 44th president in case of Syria, fixation with American credibility — underpinned by the imperatives of America’s supposed “responsibilities” as the world’s sole “indispensable” power — has been a regular fixture in US foreign policy.

In case of the Asia-Pacific, where the US boasts the exceptionality of its ‘hub & spokes’ alliance system (à la David Shambaugh), overt fixation with American credibility is reinforced by its expansive conception of interests in the region. Consider the 2017 Annual Report to Congress on ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China’. Submitted by the US Department of Defense, the report asserts that the US would ensure it “retains the ability to defend the homeland, deter aggression, protect our allies and partners, and preserve regional peace, prosperity, and freedom.” Such expansive conceptions can have grave consequences in terms of perpetuating what Barry Posen refers to as activist grand strategies’ preeminent feature of “domino theories”. In case of the US, Posen defined the same as foreign and security policy discourses that string together a chain of “individually imaginable, but collectively implausible, major events, to generate an ultimate threat to the United States and then argue backward to the extreme importance of using military power to stop the fall of the first domino.”

In the Trump era, the excesses of “domino theories” is compounded by the US foreign and security establishment overcompensating for the Trump administration’s policy incoherence with greater military posturing to reassure allies and partners in the region — and by that extension sustain US “credibility”.

Consider President Trump’s recent five-nation visit in the Pacific Rim. In Japan, he bonded with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who in the recent snap elections enjoyed a decisive endorsement of his revisionist vision for the pacifist country. In South Korea, after attempting to alleviate Seoul’s concerns with a fairly-tempered speech at the Korean National Assembly, President Trump irresponsibly volleyed insults at North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. In Vietnam, he accused the region’s countries of trade malpractice, and pledged to “always put America first.” In the Philippines, he once again expressed his affinity for authoritarian leaders by reportedly appearing “sympathetic” towards President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent war on drugs, and bonded with the Filipino strongman over their shared dislike for President Barack Obama. In China, President Trump failed to address Beijing’s human rights record, and showered President Xi Jinping with “embarrassingly fawning accolades” — to borrow former National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice’s words.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Defense was engaging in an unprecedented show of force. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford even downplayed the significance of the overlapping timelines as mere “coincidence”. Nearly a fortnight before President Trump’s arrival in the region, the US Navy on 24 October 2017 announced the arrival of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt along with its Carrier Strike Group (CSG) in the “Indo-Asia-Pacific Region”. The same was set to join USS Ronald Reagan — the US 7th Fleet’s “only forward-deployed carrier strike group” in the region generally operating out of Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan — then anchored off the port of Busan in South Korea. A day later, the “scheduled deployment” of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the region was also announced. Along with its Carrier Strike Group, the USS Nimitz was set to arrive in the region after “concluding operations in US 5th Fleet” in the support of Operation Inherent Resolve — codename for US-led coalition operation against the Islamic State.

In perspective, the last time the United States had three aircraft carriers in the region was a decade ago off the coast of Guam — miles away from the volatility of the East China Sea and the Korean peninsula. These deployments rendered the US Navy to have seven out of its total 11 nuclear aircraft carriers to be “underway simultaneously for the first time in several years.” Further, a day before the arrival of the aircraft carriers was announced, the US Air Force also reported a ‘first time in several years’ escalation. The US Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein told the security news website Defense One that the Air Force was updating B-52 bombers armed with nuclear warheads to the 24-hour alert status — a “ready-to-fly posture not seen since the Cold War.” Although the US Air Force later reneged on this announcement of escalation, the run-up to Trump’s visit oversaw the first operational deployment of the F-35A fifth generation stealth fighter in the region, and increased frequency of ‘show of force’ operations by long-range B1-B Lancer strategic bombers.

Although all aforementioned deployments were underplayed as “scheduled” deployments, CNN military analyst and a former US Navy admiral John Kirby said the deployments were meant to send a message of “making sure China knows it’s [US] still the predominant force in the Pacific region.” This analysis holds credence in view of General Dunford’s categorical denial of the deployments being meant to “specifically” target North Korea. Rather the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs went on to attribute a broader rationale behind the same — to demonstrate US “commitment to the region” at-large. These deployments also come barely three months after President Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon ridiculed the media’s outsized attention on North Korea. In an interview in August before his dismissal as President Trump’s chief strategist, Bannon called the nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula as “just a sideshow”, while the coming “inflection point” with China was deemed to be “everything.” Since then, a marked increase in US Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) in the highly contested South China Sea has also been reported. Not only has the frequency of the operations increased under President Trump, but it is deemed to be currently “on course for 900 ship hours” in 2017 alone. Thus, the greater military posturing seen under President Trump thus cannot be entirely attributed to the issue of North Korea’s nuclear brinksmanship.

In Beijing, the message intended by this uptick in US military posturing has not only been received, but has also acquired the Asian giant’s ire. This week, a Hong Kong daily reported that China held a “large-scale military exercise” in the region “in response” to the arrival of three US aircraft carriers in the region. It is crucial to note that such precedents of military posture escalation raise the prospects of miscalculations that may serve as tripwires to greater military confrontations — probably of Thucydidean proportions — between China and the United States.

In his farewell address in 1796, George Washington warned against “interweaving our destiny” with that of other countries to “entangle” American “peace and prosperity” in exchange. Certainly there exists no medium to ascertain if Washington was a proponent of American isolationism. However, the founding father’s words over two centuries later stand pertinent in context of American interests swelling in perpetuity in view of American foreign policy being “entangled” with missions meant to convey its “credibility”. The United States under Trump thus needs to take note of the writings on the Thucydidean wall, if it wishes to avert its now increasingly plausible tryst as a “ruling power”.

*The author is a Research Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai.

By Jeremy Black*

(FPRI) — Murder on the Orient Express may not strike most people as political. A 1934 novel by Agatha Christie, the most successful American novelist of all time judging by books sold (albeit she was born and lived abroad), it has been famously filmed in 1974, directed by Sidney Lumet, and filmed repeatedly since—in 2001 as a made-for-television film, directed by Carl Schenkel, in 2010 as a made-for-television film directed by Philip Martin, and now in 2017 as a full-scale film directed by Kenneth Branagh. The 1974 film, with Albert Finney as Christie’s famous Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot leading the star-studded cast, long set the standard for public perceptions of the story, and helped lead to mixed reviews for the 2017 film. The Atlantic found the latter “inert” and the Times (of London) only gave it two stars.

The intention here is to suggest that the reviewers, apparently expecting a reprise of the 1974 version and not really understanding Christie and the political culture of her novels, are somewhat missing the point. The latter point is best encapsulated in the review by Francesca Steele in The Spectator on November 4, 2017. In an otherwise thoughtful review, headed “The death of cozy Christie. Directors are taking Agatha Christie to increasingly dark places – and about time too,” she comments on the new film’s departure from Golden Age coziness: “The jewels, parties and exotic travel of the 1920s Golden Age; the quiet reserve of the English countryside village.”

Well, if you think those are the hallmarks of Agatha Christie’s work, you should perhaps try reading her again. Many of her early novels are resolutely set in the Cold War launched by the Bolshevik Revolution. In The Big Four (1927), a Poirot adventure grotesquely misrepresented in the David Suchet BBC 2013 television version, one character discusses “the world-wide unrest, the labor troubles that beset every nation, and the revolutions that break out in some,” and suggests “There is a force behind the scenes which aims at nothing less than the disintegration of civilization. . . . Lenin and Trotsky were mere puppets.” Christie saw technology as at the service of this force: “a concentration of wireless energy far beyond anything so far attempted, and capable of focusing a beam of great intensity upon some given spot . . . atomic energy,” so that the Big Four of the story could become “the dictators of the world,” with their base in the mountain vastness of the Felsen labyrinth in Switzerland. Poirot (of course) eventually thwarts them, but the threat is very real.

Li Chang Yen, the chief villain of that piece, a real Fu-Manchu, is scarcely the isolated murderer of polite society. Nor is this a one-off. Bolshevik conspirators are found in other Christie works of the 1920s, as in the first Tommy and Tuppence adventure, The Secret Adversary (1922), in which the Bolsheviks are linked to the IRA, to left-wing unions, and to a traitor within. Moreover, the theme of global conspiracies continues. In Passenger to Frankfurt (1970), Christie warns of “The Ring,” a global network that moves armaments, including germ warfare weapons, to anarchist forces that overlap with neo-Nazis and “Youth Power.”

Order is precarious at every level in the works of Agatha Christie, a theme also found in the Sherlock Holmes and James Bond novels. Murderous drives, not quiet reserve, are found in countryside villages, as is repeatedly pointed out—but those very murderous drives are indications of the global threats to stability that can lurk in even the staidest Cotswold country house.

Which leads us back to Branagh’s new film. As in the novel, Poirot is an ally of the Western imperial presence, trying to maintain justice and order in the difficult world of the Middle East. In the novel, it is the French in their Syria mandate; in the film, Poirot’s skill defuses a threat to Britain’s Palestine Mandate, while at the close he is summoned to deal with a murder in Egypt.

Rather like Timothy Dalton’s portrayal of James Bond (a portrayal closest of the film versions to that in the novels), Branagh offers a darker, more complex, and more troubled Poirot. As Branagh pointed out in Inverse on November 10, 2017, he addressed the difficulties posed by Poirot’s insistence on justice, an insistence underlined by Christie. This brings his film version to a much more interesting close than that the 1974 version.

The idea of an engagement with politics in future films is worth considering. It will doubtless irritate viewers who seek to escape the present world in Golden Age “escapism.” But those viewers are missing the important undercurrents in those classic works. In practice, as Martin Edwards pointed out in his perceptive study of the Detection Club formed in 1930 by British mystery writers, including Christie, Sayers, Chesterton, Bentley, Croft and Rhodes, simple escapism was not the nature of the writing of the period. Instead, they focused on an engagement with the issues and problems of the day, albeit frequently presented through a location in crime.

This provides a way to look at recent versions of Christie. It is not a case of taking her “to a darker place.” She was always there.

About the author:
*Established Professor of History at the University of Exeter and Senior Fellow at FPRI, Jeremy Black has published many books, including The World of James Bond: The Lives and Times of 007, The British Seaborne Empire and The Power of Knowledge.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

By Eugenia Rosales Matienzo*

Last week, with the elections in his pocket, Argentine President Mauricio Macri announced the instatement of several key reforms that were aimed at consolidating his executive power. Changes in his cabinet, labor reform, and a renewed relationship with the International Monetary Fund allowing for participation in the institution’s annual audit mechanism (previously abandoned by both Cristina and Nestor Kirchner), would mark a clear separation from the country’s previous style of administration.

Macri cemented his power even further after the recent mid-term election, in which his party’s candidate handily defeated Cristina Kirchner in the province of Buenos Aires. His coalition, Cambiemos, has increased its representation in both the federal Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate since Macri came to power.

The most important recent change presented last week was the new labor law, which included amendments to ensure a higher flexibility of employment opportunities. Specialists have compared this project to a recent Brazilian reform effort which eliminated paid overtime, weakened employers’ responsibilities for employees’ worked related accidents, and reduced designated lunchtime, amongst a number of other curtailments.[i]

The labor reform law is broad and ambitious, proposing reductions in base compensation for severance action without cause. According to labor lawyer Julián Hofele, the proposed reform aims to provide companies with licenses allowing for unpaid internships, as opposed to the current system, which imposes fines for uncompensated employees. “With respect to incorrect or missing registration fees, (today 25 percent of the unpaid wages) the minimum wage will now be abruptly reduced,” Hofele observed.

Currently, the minimum wage in Argentina is guaranteed by the national Constitution as determined by the Consejo Nacional del Empleo, la Productividad y el Salario Mínimo, Vital y Móvil (National Council for Employment, Productivity and the Minimum Wage). The latter evaluates the country’s socio economic climate when considering the feasibility of a given minimum wage.[ii]

Another provision proposed by Macri is to incorporate an addendum to Article 12 of the current labor law, which would empower employers by limiting the right of unregistered-workers to call for paid compensation. Also, the draft does not include anything about sanitation, security, or other assumptions of responsibility in subcontracting labor. This means that companies which outsource labor and hire contract workers would have little or no responsibility for such employees, effectively leaving the worker largely unprotected.

“Not even the dictatorship was so enthusiastic,” declared Matías Cremonte of the Labor Lawyers Association. Cremonte’s comparison of the labor reform law with its previous 1976 version is not completely fortuitous; the two laws include similar attributes. “Among the objectives posed by the new text is a proposal to ‘liberate the productive forces,’ an expression that (then Minister of the economy) Martínez de Hoz used for the 1976 reform,” said a lawyer for the Argentine newspaper Página12[iii].

The proposal also limits the worker’s options in situations of Ius variandi, when the employer unilaterally modifies working conditions and other labor stipulations. These alterations can violate conditions established in workers’ contracts, but workers would not be able to appeal them in court in order to restore prior conditions.

Right now, the teachers’ union is already on high alert protesting the proposed draft. According to Sonia Alesso, General Secretary of CETRA, the proposal further reduces standards for on-site working conditions. “This labor reform poses a loss of rights for all workers, including teachers. It also erases rights that have existed since the 1940’s,” she explains.[iv]

Relations remain tense between the government and the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) because union members claim that the Minister of Labor has shirked his responsibility to consult with labor parties before undertaking reforms, which would adversely affect them. They explained that the modifications introduced by the government “imply the destruction of the current labor legislation.” Currently, labor organizations are trying to organize a unified front that would represent their fundamental interests, while the law is still undergoing revisions.

Some points about the concept of work

The draft labor law introduces a substantial change to the concept of “work.” On top of the definition provided by the Labor Contract Act, the reform would add, “Cooperation between the parts in order to promote this creative and productive activity constitutes a shared social value, a generator of reciprocal rights and duties, and an essential implementing rule of the contract.” The proposal seeks to facilitate subcontracting, a mechanism that until now has not been regulated. Furthermore, it intends to promote short-term employment.

Worker compensation would suffer a significant cut if the new law were to be fully ratified, including reductions in paid overtime, commissions, bonuses and all other types of non-regular payments. Additionally, if the present bill were to be passed, the statute of limitations for initiating such complaints would fall from the current two years to just one.

Retired people

The government is also looking to reduce the fiscal deficit through reform of social security, which currently accounts for half of the funding of the 2018 budget. President Macri proudly announced new methods to restructure pension funding, but their details indicate that the minimum retirement figure at the end of next year would be placed at 8100 pesos per month, because it is updated by the current inflation rate. This figure is now 700 pesos below the result of the formula that took effect in 2009.

Mirta Tundis, President of the Committee on Social Security at the Chamber of Deputies, stated that “modifying the retirement calculation according to the present inflation rate will result in giving less money to retirees than they need,” making the situation of pensioners worse. She continued, “how much good will a three percent quarterly increase do for a retiree?” Diego Bossio, former president of the National Agency ANSES and current Deputy for the Justicialist Party, says “the change in the law of retirement mobility could negatively affect millions of Argentines. When you see the trajectory from 2009 to now, the increase in retirements was higher with mobility than any other index,” he added.

Labor coming from various working-class sectors has shown its discontent with the proposal throughout its drafting stage, but Cambiemos has all the legislative power it needs to convert the reform to federal law after its victory at the last legislative elections.

*Eugenia Rosales Matienzo, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Additional editorial support provided by James Baer, Senior Research Fellow, Tobias Fontecilla Research Fellow, and Tomas Bayas and Gavin Allman, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Notes:
[i] Declarations of the “Asociación de Abogados Laboristas”, Matías Cremonte.

[ii] Article 14 bis of the National Constitution and and article 116 of the Labour Contract Act (law 20744 T. O. 1976)

[iii] Matías Cremonte in Página12 newspaper (October 31).

[iv] Teaching Guilds leader Sonia Alesso (November 2).