The US military is flying “a few” armed drones over Iraq’s capital in order to defend diplomats and American troops serving there, a senior US official has confirmed.

“For the last 24 to 48 hours, we’ve started that,” an anonymous official told AFP.

Any decision to attack Sunni extremists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL) would have to be sanctioned by President Barack Obama. Therefore, there are currently no plans to use the drones in airstrikes, officials said.

The sources called the presence of the drones “force protection.” Last week, Obama said he was ready to take targeted military action if necessary.

Currently, US forces in Iraq are focused on working out the state of the Iraqi military and the Sunni extremists on the battlefield. There are around 500 American military personnel there who are drawn from special operations forces. A fresh batch of 180 military advisors have also just arrived.

In addition to the drones over Baghdad, piloted and unmanned aircraft are carrying out 30-35 surveillance flights a day, some of which include F-18 fighter jets that are flying from the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier in the Gulf.

US officials also told Reuters on Friday that a joint US-Iraq operations center in Baghdad is set to open next week, and will be staffed by about 90 personnel.

The situation in Iraq has significantly deteriorated throughout the month of June as Sunni militants spearheaded by ISIS push south towards the capital Baghdad, taking major cities in the north of the country like Tikrit and Mosul.

More than 1,000 people have already died at the hands of the Sunni extremists, according to the UN.

Satellite imagery and photographs have confirmed that ISIS has carried out a number of mass executions in the northern city of Tikrit, according to a report by the Human Rights Watch.

The New York-based rights group estimates that between 160 and 190 men were killed in at least two locations near Tikrit between June 11 and June 14.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry has demanded that Iraqi officials form an inclusive government if Baghdad wants to gain support from Washington.

The alienation of Sunnis from Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government was part of the initial cause for bitterness among Iraq’s Sunni population. Maliki’s Shiite State of Law coalition won the most seats in the April election, but needs the support of Sunnis and Kurds to form a government.

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RIMPAC 2014, the world’s largest international maritime exercise, kicked off on Thursday and is expected to last 5 weeks. It began in 1971 as part of a Cold War effort by the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and New Zealand to contain the Soviet Union’s Pacific fleet. It has been held every two years since then. The current exercise has grown to include 23 countries, 25,000 sailors, 49 surface ships, six submarines and more than 200 aircraft. This year’s exercise marks the first time that China has been invited to attend, seen as a crucial event by most experts. Some of them, journalist and political analyst Andrew Korybko and Franz-Stefan Gady, senior fellow with the EastWest Institute, shared their insight on radio VR.

Talking about the RIMPAC 2014 event as such, the most important group there is NATO and major non-NATO allies, says Andrew Korybko. They comprise 12 of the 23 participants. Non-NATO allies are the Philippines, Japan, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. Two of which, the Philippines and Japan, are in a much-discussed island dispute with China, which springs to mind at the mere mention of today’s naval activity. “Besides this group, RIMPAC also comprises the rest of the ASEAN members except Cambodia and Vietnam. And it’s really important that Vietnam isn’t involved as it has had the most tense relations with China, over the dispute over the island chains. Also they have some Latin American countries, and Brazil too,” sums up Mr. Korybko.

The RIMPAC mission is in essence to set up full-fledged cooperative ties between members, namely “to create a naval “interoperability” and confidence building measures”. In the past it was suspected that they would simulate complex scenarios. “Now it’s more likely to be more benign”, which is all about taking counter-piracy measures, says Mr. Korybko.

The expert goes on to say that earlier the UN had stipulated that Southeast Asia was the new global hub for piracy, especially the Malacca Strait, search and salvage operations, “as we have seen with the Malaysia plane incident for the past couple of months”. Generally speaking, this is to ensure the safety of sea line communication and border contacts.

“When you look at search and salvage, you had some ASEAN cooperation with the Malaysia plane,” notes Korybko. He points out that the event has now changed, or better say, drastically transformed into basically “a pan-ASEAN naval exercise under US leadership”.

This is the first time China was invited to attend and, interestingly, as Mr. Korybko says, it’s the first time China partook in naval drills outside of broad Russia-China naval cooperation. “It’s the first time it’s working with the US and it has the second largest fleet contributing”.

Last time the drills were held, “China said that there was some type of containment against it”. As compared to this year’s exercise, there were previously much less participants: in 2010 there were only 14 countries partaking, in 2012 there were 22, and mostly ASEAN countries. “What happened in between was the pivot Asia. There’s really important dynamic of what affected the regional politics. So, China sees it as a way to expand its prestige and recognition of its naval power,” sums up Mr. Korybko.

“All countries are going to be patting themselves on the back . It’s a great photo opportunity, great PR for all sides”

However, Franz-Stefan Gady, senior fellow with the EastWest Institute, seems to have a different vision of the role China’s current involvement has. He is certain China’s participation is a clear signal that neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China is interested in the deterioration of the bilateral military relations. This is part of a larger effort by senor military and civilian leadership to strengthen military ties, he concludes, recalling the recent visit of US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to China. Both sides then agreed on the productive “army to army” dialogue, as well as Asia-Pacific security dialogue to restore trust between the nations.

Andrew Korybko, conversely, reiterates China hasn’t yet ascertained whether the US’ “Pivot to Southeast Asia” is honest and peaceful, and the odds are stacked against RIMPAC proving it. Let’s face it, the debate over the South China sea became even more heated after the new US’ foreign policy was declared in late 2011, says Korybko. “The way China looks at this island dispute in South or East China Sea is their core interest”.

Korybko calls South China Sea “a gateway to the Chinese economy”, as most of China’s energy imports and conversely its EU product exports traverse through that area. That’s sufficient reason for China to de facto control or “internationally recognize legitimacy of its claims”, while the Philippines and Vietnam in this emerging security architecture are joining hands to block China. “In the event of hostilities it can really hurt the Chinese economy,” VR’s analyst concludes.

The fact that Vietnam wasn’t invited to attend RIMPAC should by no means be ignored, since Vietnam is “at the core of the most enflamed tensions with China”.

“At the end of the day this is basically China watching the rest and the rest watching China”. If China’s sea is “naval cohesiveness” between the US and Southeast Asian allies, this may reinforce its fears that the US is turning its naval strategy against the country. “So it may think as “Pivot to Asia” gets stronger so as to coordinate that naval action, it may actually have a converse effect, reverse effect rather.”

Based on the recent 2013 Russia’s policy editions, Russia is indeed interested in China “being a strong regional leader”, likewise it being interested in India and Brazil and EU remaining strong and promising lands. “But when one looks at western countries and unipolar model of the US, these are the countries they feel that they mostly fear,” says Korybko.

The countries of Southeast Asia being all in the middle of the conflict feel no less confused. After the above-mentioned “Pivot to Asia” brought about ongoing American-Chinese rivalry they can’t keep track of what is in essence going on and they don’t know what to do, since “they have a lot of economic link to China.” Political antagonism still applies, though, especially taking into account China’s strong diaspora community in Southeast Asia.

The outcome of the celebrated event looks generally bright for most of the participants, VR’s experts note.

“All countries are going to be patting themselves on the back . It’s a great photo opportunity, great PR for all sides,” Korybko remarks.

This is additionally a perfect opportunity for China to demonstrate what significant breakthroughs it made in terms of naval standards, international acceptance, and it feels thus “it made it in naval affairs.” Also, this can set the stage for ASEAN military drills that do not involve the US. “This amounts to a pan-ASEAN -with the exception of Vietnam and Cambodia – drills, but in the future it may involve Vietnam, which is important.”

“It’s the first time China is working with the US and it has the second largest fleet contributing.”

Latin American states’ partaking is seen as crucially important, as the move can pave the way for all-BRICs exercises, aimed at making the world more multi-polar and well balanced.

“I mentioned that Brazil was also involved in these drills – that’s equally important as well, because going even further down the line, right now you have China, India and Brazil involved in the drills, you could possibly set the stage for a whole BRICS type of naval drills. Right now you have three of the five members”.

Lilia Dergacheva

The post RIMPAC 2014 Could Set Stage For All BRICS’ Naval Drills appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By C. Raja Mohan

Vice President Hamid Ansari is travelling to Beijing this week to join the official celebrations of the five principles of peaceful existence, or Panchsheel, unveiled 60 years ago. A discerning observer, however, might ask why the celebrations are all in Beijing and barely any in New Delhi. The answer, put simply, is that India has long been ambivalent about Panchsheel. Many Indians view Panchsheel as a remarkable “discovery” of new principles of international relations – non-intervention in internal affairs of nations and peaceful coexistence. For some others, Panchsheel is the best example of Jawaharlal Nehru’s idealist folly.

The five principles first made their appearance in Indian diplomacy as a preamble to an agreement that Delhi signed with Beijing in April 1954 on transborder trade and cultural engagement between India and the Tibet region of China. For its part, India had to come to terms with the changed political conditions in Tibet. In the decades before China gained control over Tibet, it was the British Raj that exercised primacy in the region. For centuries before the Raj, India and Tibet were bound by a shared culture and commerce.

The 1954 agreement came at the peak of the “Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai” phase in bilateral relations. Five years later, Delhi and Beijing began to squabble over Tibet and fought a brief war in late 1962. Nehru was unwilling to renew the 1954 agreement, which lapsed after eight years in early 1962. Speaking a few years after Nehru’s death, his close confidant and defence minister Krishna Menon criticised the deification of the five principles. He insisted that Panchsheel “was not a revelation. It was not a creed or part of the formulation of our foreign policy”.

Beijing’s Five

If Panchsheel, in Menon’s words, became “a mantra, slogan and a prop” for India, it was very central to communist China’s worldview. The essence of the five principles figured prominently in Mao Zedong’s proclamation of the new republic on October 1, 1949. Mao was cautioning the West against intervention and reassuring them that the new China would not destabilise Asia.

When it came to India, the five principles had great salience, for Mao had no reason to accept Delhi’s special relationship with Tibet and the multiple privileges that the government of India had inherited from the Raj. For Mao and his able premier, Zhou Enlai, the Panchsheel was about getting India to accept Chinese sovereignty in Tibet. So long as Tibet remains restive, China will put Panchsheel at the heart of its diplomacy towards India. The latest celebrations in Beijing are a mere reflection of that.

Himalayan Bridge

Ironically, China and India may have adhered to Panchsheel more in breach rather than in observance. Beijing has often accused Delhi of meddling in Tibet and Delhi frequently fulminated at Beijing’s support to secessionist movements in the Northeast and beyond.

What keeps China and India away from excessive intervention in each other’s internal affairs today is political prudence and not high principle. Delhi and Beijing know they can hurt each other by playing the secessionist card; therefore, both of them have the incentive to keep their involvement below the other’s threshold of tolerance.

While rhetoric is common in diplomacy, Ansari might want to look beyond Panchsheel formalism and explore the prospects for expanding overland commerce and contact with China. After all, the 1954 agreement allowed customary transborder intercourse between India and Tibet. It permitted local traders and pilgrims to travel across the border without passports and visas. Those positive elements of the 1954 agreement have long been forgotten amidst the hype on Panchsheel.

To its credit, China today is proposing substantive transborder cooperation with India under new conditions. Beijing’s ambassador in Delhi, Wei Wei, has called this week for a “Trans-Himalaya Economic Growth Region”, powered by China and India. Instead of being defensive, Delhi must seek more details on this very interesting idea and offer a vision of its own for a productive engagement with Beijing all across the Tibetan frontier.

For one, Delhi and Beijing could agree to modernise the infrastructure at the Nathu La pass connecting Tibet and Sikkim and initiate full-fledged trade. They could also find ways to expand the current limited opportunities for Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims who want to visit places of worship on both sides of the border. The Narendra Modi government should be particularly interested in a significant expansion of Indian access to the holy sites of Kailash Manasarovar.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a contributing editor for ’The Indian Express’)

Courtesy: The Indian Express, June 25, 2014

The post Panchsheel Blues – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(CORDIS) — Engineered nano materials (ENM) are being used more and more in a variety of commercial products. Because of their unique properties and applications, ENM offer the promise of immense technological and economic benefits to industry and consumers. However, there is also concern that some of these properties may be harmful to humans.

While this testing of individual applications of ENM is possible, it is currently expensive and time-consuming and acts as a barrier to innovation. An effective test is required for these properties in order to ensure ENM are safe to use. The FP7-funded research project, NANOSOLUTIONS aims to address this problem by classifying the safety potential of a variety of ENMs.

Launched in April 2013 with a kick-off meeting in Helsinki, Finland, the project team is finding new methods for assessing the disadvantages and risks presented by exposure to industrial nano particles. The long-term goal is to create a set of biomarkers of ENM toxicity to that will ultimately allow the team to develop an ‘ENM safety classifier’.

The NANOSOLUTIONS team is conducting research into the interactions of ENMs with living organisms at molecular, cellular and organism levels. Many important functions of living organisms take place at the nano-scale – every day, our bodies are using natural nano materials, such as proteins and other molecules, to control their many internal systems and processes.

ENMs have the potential to induce damage at the cellular, tissue, or organism levels by interacting with cellular structures leading to impairment of key cellular functions. These adverse effects may be mediated by ENM-induced alterations in gene expression and translation, but may involve also epigenetic transformation of genetic functions.

NANOSOLUTIONS’ ‘ENM safety classifier’ will be based on the material characteristics of ENM, using the knowledge acquired on ENM interactions with living organisms at the molecular, cellular and organism level. This will give scientists the ability to predict these harmful effects rather than simply describe them once they have occurred.

Streamlining the process of testing ENMs will also have huge commercial benefits. The classification model will speed up the innovation cycle and make it easier to develop commercially viable products that use ENM. Ultimately, this will build consumer, industrial and regulatory confidence by enabling experts to assess potential unknown dangers effectively.

Involving 34 partners from 16 countries, the NANOSOLUTIONS team says that its work will demonstrate on an international level how Europe is pressing forward efforts to set global standards in nanotech safety regulation.

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By Harun Yahya

The seemingly endless conflicts pitting brother against brother in the Muslim world has been a significant problem for years with no appropriate solution in sight.

Western countries disregard this internal turmoil and conflict to the extent that even the resultant casualties are essentially of less importance to them. Numerous media organizations that make the death throes of a beached dolphin or whale their main story in their news bulletins and even dispatch an army of reporters to cover it, regard the bloodbath in Muslim countries as falling into the category of third page reports.

These days Iraq is witnessing such a situation. Although the American occupation has ended, a climate of frenzied slaughter continues to prevail in this country. The almost daily occurrences of vehicles packed with bombs, suicide bombers blowing themselves up among large crowds of people and committing mass slaughter, body parts strewn left and right and rivers of brothers’ blood have literally turned the country into a smoldering ruin. However, this savagery never enters the world agenda and the means to a solution are never discussed. And now Iraq is facing what is tantamount to an invasion by the extremist organization the self-ascribed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which had added to the seemingly endless troubles of Iraq.

The number of people who died as the result of acts of violence in 2013 alone is almost 7,000; the recent ISIL invasion added another 1,000 to the grim equation according to a statement issued the other day by the United Nations (UN). The number of people who died during the occupation, which began in 2003 and ended in 2011, has not been fully recorded, although according to figures from the group Iraq Body Count cited in a BBC report, it is 4,61,000.

According to a survey in a Guardian report conducted by the polling organization ORB, 1.2 million people lost their lives. Things were expected to calm down after the occupation came to an end, but acts of violence continue to take lives in the very same way.

In a report titled “How The World Forgot Iraq,” by Patrick Cockburn from The Independent described how Iraq, which is suffering a profound, economic and social crisis, has become increasingly fragmented. Cockburn went on to summarize the situation by saying that no matter what the objectives of the United States and the United Kingdom were when they invaded Iraq, the outcome has been disastrous. The results of this can be seen all too clearly now; the sectarian, economic, and social crises in the country have provided a breeding ground for radical organizations.

Looking at the violence and massacres in Iraq, not just of the last 10 years but also during and before the time of Saddam, it is estimated that 40 years of war and brother fighting brother have widowed no less than a million women. The situation of these women, with no safety net, is uncertain, to say the very least. In brief, Iraq has become self-destructive.

While it was partly possible to see signs of economic regeneration on the streets of Baghdad, which has climbed to second place among the Organization of Petrol Exporting Countries (OPEC), the ongoing violence is rapidly eliminating all possibilities of prosperity. The fact that ISIL has managed to seize the refinery at Baiji — Iraq’s main oil refinery — only further serves to compound Iraq’s economic woes. Although Iraq has enough land and economic opportunities and means for everyone, no matter what their views, the violence — stemming solely from differences of opinion and ignorance — is turning the country into a sea of blood.

So, was all the suffering worth it, or has the country improved? War and conflict have never established security and stability anywhere in the world, so how could the situation be otherwise in Iraq? And especially now, as Iraq seriously faces the threat of being divided into three parts it is clear there can be no progress with such a mentality. It is essential for clear-thinking Muslims to take necessary steps in this regard on an urgent basis by issuing calming statements so as to help change the mentality of radical groups.

Why should holding different opinions be a rationale for fighting, killing, hatred and rancor? There is no reason for it.

On the other hand, conflict serves only to worsen conflict; violence only begets further violence and the accompanying deaths to deepen the cycle of hatred and rage. It must not be forgotten that such aggressive approaches are always a dead-end. As people die, a rage handed down from one generation to another dominates the region and that harms only Muslim countries and Muslims. Iraq can never attain peace and tranquility in such a climate, not in 100 years and the Middle East will, therefore, be badly damaged by these issues. There can be no question of anyone attaining peace or policies of love in a climate of devastation where brother is fighting brother.

In conclusion, everyone’s common aim must be to live in peace, tranquility and happiness in their own countries together with their respective countries’ natural resources that are enough for all.

There is manifestly no valid and logical reason to fight.

Yet it is much easier to approach matters with love, understanding and tolerance than with conflict. Only education can be effective against the violence and sectarian hostility caused by radical groups like ISIL. It can be easily shown through the Qur’an that Islam is a religion of peace, love and brotherhood, and not of fear, anger or war. Moreover, if these values are properly espoused, nobody will have to pay such a heavy price. Nobody will suffer. Why should people adopt an approach that ends in suffering and oppression when there is a better and finer one available? That flies in the face of reason, logic and good conscience.

In this period in particular, Muslims must issue calls for moderation and emphasize that they want tolerance and understanding, not war because this is a common problem facing us all. If we cannot collaborate to produce a solution, the problem will inevitably continue to grow. In that context, the bureaucratic structure of the OIC must be radically overhauled and a union of Muslim countries — modeled on the lines of the EU — must be established. When that union comes into being, the problems in Syria and Iraq will, by Allah’s leave, be resolved without delay.

The writer has authored more than 300 books translated in 73 languages on politics, religion and science. He tweets @harun_yahya.

The post Oh, Muslim Awake! – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Fernando Duarte

When experts predicted a carnival atmosphere in Brazil for the World Cup, they were certainly thinking of the great opportunity for Latin American supporters to seize the chance to follow the action up-close — a true party of the peple. The “fiesta”, however, has invaded the pitch: the knockout stages of the 2014 FIFA World Cup start this Saturday with a local invasion of regional teams. Out of the 16 berths, Latin teams have taken seven and the qualification of the US also brought some regional seasoning to the table. Of all the teams from the region, only Ecuador and Honduras failed to advance.

Africa managed to squeeze Algeria and Nigeria in, while mighty Europe, owner of 13 World Cup spots, had a rate of success of less than 50% — six teams from the Old World survived.

What is the secret for this success? Without a doubt, the American teams have benefited from climate conditions in Brazil and may also have got an extra push from having supporters in numbers following them — just think of the Argentine “invasion” of the Maracana for their World Cup opener against Bosnia. But it would be simplistic to assume that only those factors could explain why Costa Rica managed to top Group D by beating Uruguay and Italy while also holding England to a draw, for example.

These eight teams have advanced thanks to merits on the pitch. Whoever saw Mexico’s powerful displays against Brazil and Croatia will agree. Yes Uruguay indeed showed more heart than skills to clear the “group of death” but how can you dismiss Colombia’s bossing of Group C, with three victories and nine goals? In Group B, Chile was responsible for the mercy shot that killed world champions Spain in Rio and their 2-0 defeat to Holland in the final game did not tell the whole story of the game in São Paulo: Chile limited the Dutch to only 36% of ball possession.

The USA, while not part of Latin America, showed amazing resilience by surviving their tough group with Germany, Portugal and Ghana.

In fact, the Americans actually played quite well and only a special moment from Cristiano Ronaldo prevented them from achieving qualification with a game to spare. Once again we arrive at this point: margins in football are narrower than ever and tradition itself will not guarantee victories anymore. Costa Rica did not fear the mighty Italy, for example, and their dismantling of Uruguay was a reminder of how organization and passion will be a tough combination in this tournament.

Now, however, the Latins will fight themselves. Brazil and Chile open up the round of 16 with what promises to be a game to remember in Belo Horizonte. Under the guidance of Jorge Sampaoli Chile have turned into a team full of belief that will leave their hearts on the pitch. In players like Arturo Vidal, Alexis Sanchez and Eduardo Vargas the Chileans have an attacking line that is extremely difficult to stop on an inspired day. Chile will have also noticed that the Brazilians arrive at the knockout stages on the back of less than convincing performances and depending a lot more on Neymar’s talent than they expected before the tournament. If anything, Brazil will remember a very favorable record against their Pacific neighbors, which include a 3-0 victory in the last World Cup at this same stage. Stats themselves won’t be enough, though. Brazil will have to play well to send Chile packing.

Another mouth-watering game could be Colombia and Uruguay. The Colombians have surprised even their own supporters with their display in Brazil after suffering the huge loss of Radamel Falcao and although their group with Greece, Japan and Ivory Coast was not the hardest in this tournament, their dominance was beautiful. They have a precious chance to reach the quarterfinals for the first time in their history against an Uruguayan side in turmoil thanks to FIFA’s exemplary punishment of Luiz Suarez. Discussing the four-month penalty imposed to the controversial Liverpool striker would take weeks here. The fact is that even milder punishment was unlikely to grant Suarez’ presence against Colombia. Uruguay will miss him and Edinson Cavani now has a huge challenge ahead of him. It looks a mountain a bit too steep for La Celeste.

Costa Rica will need all their energy and discipline against Greece, who have refused to die in this tournament and surely know how to frustrate attacking opposition. The Latin American side could benefit from the humidity and heat in Recife but it will be a battle of hearts and minds rather than only legs. To beat Holland, Mexico will need to be a bit more ambitious than they were against Brazil, when a barrage of long-rang shots was all they tried to win a game they amply dominated in the second half. And they also have to worry about Holland’s formidable frontmen. It looks difficult for El Tri.
With Lionel Messi bailing them out, Argentina negotiated safe passage from their Group but results such as the 1-0 victory against valiant Iran showed they are hardly firing on all cylinders. They face Switzerland in São Paulo and it will be curious to see which team will turn up. Against the French, Switzerland looked like schoolboys but their gutsy display against Ecuador in the first game showed Ottmar Hitzfeld’s side can put on a fight. If that will be enough to stop Messi is another story.

As for the US, they must be feeling encouraged by their displays in this tournament and the collective belief Jurgen Klinsmann gave to his players could be a hard obstacle for a Belgium side that did not produce the same beautiful football of the qualifiers. This could mark the biggest upset of the round of 16. The other two games will have Nigeria trying to outmuscle a revived French side and Germany facing an inexperienced but brave Algerian side. Little chance of a major shock, one must say.

(Fernando Duarte is a Brazilian football writer and author of “Shocking Brazil: Six Games That Shook the World Cup” Birlinn Books.)

The post A Party For The World Becomes A Latin Fiesta In Brazil – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Decades of socialist/progressive indoctrination in our schools, media and culture, plus six years of Obama, has yielded a devastating unspoken consequence. It is the loss of who we use to be as Americans.

In his 1961 Inaugural Address, President John F. Kennedy said, “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Democrats have perverted Kennedy’s inspiring challenge. Their dispiriting goal is to have as many Americans as possible controlled by and dependent on government, even for life itself, which is at the root of Obamacare.

I mourn the loss of the independent self-reliant mindset which made our parents great; and the pride and dignity it generated within them. Welfare (government assistance) was a last resort and for the truly needy.

Today, far too many Americans see no shame in living on government assistance or scamming the system. The Left’s campaign led by the Obama Administration to instill an entitlement mindset in many has proven successful. The Administration even campaigned targeting minorities, discouraging their instinct to be self-reliant. bit.ly/1ixsqOm Even worse, the Administration portrays getting on welfare as the honorable thing to do. Dear Lord, what kind of nation are we becoming?

An unprecedented 47 million Americans are on food stamps which is riddled with fraud. bit.ly/1pzGeIT The Obama Administration has added over 10,000 new oppressive job-killing regulations. Consequently, 90 million are unemployed and on unemployment which is also riddled with fraud. Here’s another first for America, over 11 million are receiving disability benefits; riddled with fraud. bit.ly/1su5W50 Clearly, many believe working is for suckers when the government is handing out freebies. bit.ly/1lJCoNc

In his War on Achievers, Obama used his bully pulpit to deflate business owners by saying, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” bit.ly/1lJEg77 Obama and his operatives use compassionate sounding terms such as “social justice” and “income inequality” to justify the government confiscating the earnings of achievers and redistributing it to non-achievers to win their votes. Despicable.

My heart aches for my America when character, excellence and hard work were rewarded, celebrated and respected.

At 9 or 10 years old, I worked part-time for my neighbor Mr Buddy Roy. I pulled the copper out of old motors for him to sell. I still remember the pride I felt making my own money.

In the early 1950s, blacks were allowed to take the entrance test for the Baltimore City Fire Dept. My dad applied and mom helped. My parents sought opportunity not handouts. Talk about a strong black woman, though compassionate and loving, mom could be a tough no nonsense person.

I remember my parents sitting at the kitchen table, a glass turned upside down between them with mom tapping on the glass with a spoon. She was simulating the different bell sounds which alerted the firefighters to various situations. She would yell at my dad, “No, that’s wrong, stupid! Listen and get it right!” Thanks to my drill sergeant mom, dad was among a hand full of blacks who became Baltimore City’s first black firefighters.

Being a pioneer is never easy. Dad endured humiliating work conditions and blatant racism. Still, dad relished the opportunity. Thanks to his Christian faith, dad won admiration and respect by fighting racism and hate with excellence. He won “Firefighter of the Year” two times.

That mindset of putting ones best foot forward and striving for loftier standards is what I fear we are rapidly losing as Americans. Apparently, character is no longer expected in our leaders. President Obama is caught repeatedly lying to the American people and the response is ho-hum, let’s move on.

The trend is to celebrate deadbeats, entitlement junkies, haters of achievers and assorted low life. For example. The Democrats and mainstream media loved the Occupy Wall Street mobs. People were assaulted and even raped at their angry mob gatherings. Severely infected with an entitlement mindset, Occupiers dumped feces in a public building demanding the government redistribute wealth to them. bit.ly/1maLyRQ.

Meanwhile, the Left continues their shameful relentless demonizing and slandering the Tea Party with unfounded allegations of racism. The Obama Administration has plotted to criminalize free speech (the Tea Party). Folks, we are talking decent hard-working Americans who are simply pushing back against Obama’s shock and awe assault on our freedoms, liberty and culture. bit.ly/V1XZFy

Tax cheat Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel compared the Tea Party to Hamas terrorists. Either Mr Rangel is a loudmouth clueless idiot or a despicable evil human being. Leftists like Rangel who throw unfounded irresponsible “hate” grenades at millions of Americans should be called on it. Inciting racial division is extremely serious. bit.ly/1imfPO1

Amidst the unbelievably long list of scandals, crimes and misdemeanors of the Obama regime , the damage that this evil man and his minions have done to the internal make-up of many Americans is extremely disturbing and heartbreaking.

Please view me performing my song, “We Are Americans” bit.ly/1qlirOh which I wrote to remind us of who we use to be and I believe a majority still are as Americans. I have faith that the liberal’s, socialist’s and progressive’s toxic disease of entitlement thinking has not reached critical mass.

My fellow Americans, we are exceptional, a chosen people. We are Americans!

The post A Heartbreaking Unspoken Consequence Of Obama – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A number of billionaires are flooding our democracy with their money, drowning out the voices of the rest of us. But Charles and David Koch are in a class by themselves. They’re using their fortune – they’re the fifth and sixth richest people in the world — to create their own political machine designed to protect and advance their financial interests. The Koch machine includes:

1. Political front groups pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into elections at every level of our democracy, while disguising the sources of the money.

2. Giant advertising campaigns to convince Americans climate change is a myth, the Affordable Care Act will harm them, unions are bad, and wealthy people deserve tax cuts.

3. A network of think tanks designed to come up with findings the Kochs want. For example, over $23 million for studies arguing we should abolish the minimum wage or keep it where it is forever.

4. A campaign to suppress the votes of minorities. In the last presidential election, funding white “poll-watchers” where minorities vote, leading to complaints of voter intimidation. And peddling a Voter ID bill to state legislators across the country, designed to make it harder for many to vote.

5. A nationwide effort to bust unions.  Funding anti-union campaigns in states like Wisconsin, and pushing an anti-union law that’s been used in dozens of states to undermine workers’ collective bargaining rights.

And 6. A long-term strategy to unravel America’s campaign finance laws, even organizing secret meetings with sympathetic Supreme Court justices.

The Koch political machine would be troubling in any circumstance. But it’s especially dangerous in present-day America, where wealth is more concentrated than it’s been in over a century and the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates to big money.

The problem isn’t that the Kochs are so rich, or their political views are so regressive. The problem is they’re using their exorbitant wealth to impose those views on the rest of us, undermining our democracy.

More than 200,000 of you have already signed my MoveOn petition denouncing the Koch brothers for undermining our democracy.

The Kochs won’t care what we say, but when a half a million of us stand up to them, politicians will have to think twice before taking their money. When a million of us stand up to them, their money will be a political liability.

Standing up to bullies is the hallmark of a civilized society. Please join our petition — and stand up for our democracy. The link to the petition is at the end of the video.

Or go to http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/we-denounce-the-koch

Our democracy is not for sale.

The post Break The Koch Machine – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Whether it is an original curse we inherit, a spiritual instruction in our DNA, or perhaps just a learned acquisition made during our formative years, the malediction “thou shalt not have peace” seems to be encrusted in our being until we cease to exist; until the soul finally escapes the body, in either transformative or symbolic state. Or at least, that appears to be the fate of the religious western man. Not that we are exempting eastern religions from the same malady we have in the west.

Christians have been selectively murdering other Christians for almost two millennia and Muslims have emulated such behavior for close to thirteen centuries. Angels, prophets, saints and martyrs have provided sectarian religious fervor, bringing with it doctrinal proclamations – papal edicts, hadiths, biblical interpretations and divine revelations – which have helped institutionalize hate and revenge as virtues; virtues that would get their followers close to, and eventually in communion with, their Creator.

It does seem ironic that this curse, lack of peace, is taking place these days in the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia (Iraq), by those profoundly demonstrating to be uncivilized, be them Shia or Sunni, or factions of either cult. Some of us willingly accept the notion that a million plus years ago Homo erectus surrendered its privileged status on earth to Homo sapiens but at the same time we realize that we aren’t quite ready for the advent of Homo compositus, the next metamorphic stage of man on earth: fit (well prepared), unselfish, calm, peaceful, mature and sedate.

“You break it, you own it (or buy it, or fix it)” is a traditional, long standing retail stores’ assumed rule, predating Thomas Friedman’s vanity or Colin Powell’s political reference to the United States incursion in Iraq. To think of applying that same jargon to Iraq’s current situation because Simpleton Bush 43 and his mentor in criminality, Dick Cheney, took America on a foolish, destructive, criminal mission is a fallacy of major proportions. Yes we broke Iraq, and it would be reasonable and just to hold the US accountable for it; but it would be ridiculous to expect Washington’s baboonery to fix it. Our empire’s great expertise, much like that of the empire it replaced (Britain’s), is one of breaking things or, if alive, sucking its economic marrow… but not restoring them, making them whole. And that is, perhaps, a good thing for so far we have proven to lack the historical, cultural, humanitarian perspectives necessary to repair or improve the lot of our own people… so, how can we be expected to be of positive consequence to other peoples?

And if the US leadership doesn’t get a passing grade in its fix-it role, when it comes to “the vision thing,” as Papa Bush 41 would call the articulation of important policy positions in a coherent manner [something which he often failed to do], the results are embarrassingly loud and clear.

As George W. Bush prepared for an unprovoked, unnecessary and consequential war with Iraq during Fall-Winter of 2002, no one can say that voices of accredited knowledge and reason weren’t there to be heard, coming from sources with diplomatic, academic and journalistic experience (…to the exclusion of the corporate-captive press). Some of us warned of the impending major mistake in breaking the tenuous convivence Saddam Hussein had managed to create, a real coexistence where a religious minority of Sunnis, outnumbered 2 to 1, held governmental power over a Shia population.

For all the political outcry of Saddam Hussein as a sanguinary dictator, perhaps vastly and unjustly overdone by the American press, his government was inclusionary and secular, a true republic that had taken the path of educating its people – men and women alike – and used a system of taxation which allowed a somewhat equitable way of distributing wealth among all Iraqis. Such progressivism likely had its birth in the firm pro-Arab (neither pro-Sunni, nor pro-Shia) stance taken by the Baath Arab Socialist party which ruled the nation since 1968.

Saddam had been successful maintaining a working balance internationally, just as he had domestically… that is, until the Americans came. The bull entered the china closet and things were not to be the same… Arab unity reverting to old religious quarrels; a broken society ready to welcome back hate and revenge, Sunni and Shia ready to abide by their interpretation of the divinely-inspired jurisprudence.

A call for the US to fix what it feloniously broke entering Iraq in 2003? God forbid!

Let peace be found by peace seekers, not warmongers.

The post A World Not Yet Free From Divinely-Inspired Jurisprudence – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Unbelievably, former Vice President Dick Cheney, after being wrong on every foreign policy issue for more than a decade, has again crawled out of his Wyoming cave and begun outrageously sniping at Barack Obama’s performance in foreign policy. Although certainly no fan of Obama’s overall performance as president (in the second edition of my book Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, due out in the fall, I rank Obama as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history), he is still cleaning up after George W. Bush in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places (in the book, the Bush the Younger gets an even worse score than Obama). In fact, Obama’s foreign policy, despite all of the recent criticism, is really the only shining light in an otherwise dismal presidency. So far, he has the best foreign policy record since Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Although those two chief executives managed to stay out of most foreign imbroglios, Obama has stayed out of some and managed to limit U.S. involvement in others.

Vice President Cheney urged Obama on in Iraq while calling Rand Paul an “isolationist.” Like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Bill Kristol, Cheney believes that if you are not looking for new wars to fight and countries to bomb, you are weak or an isolationist. All of these jingoists are taking advantage of hysteria in the American media over the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group’s gains in Iraq to warn of a new terrorist haven in Iraq, which allegedly could bring attackers again to America’s shores.

However, Obama correctly pointed out that ruthless organizations, such as ISIS, usually face a backlash among even in their own ethnosectarian group. The roots of ISIS go back to the creation of Al Qaeda in Iraq as a response to George W. Bush’s unnecessary invasion and occupation of the country. And Gen. David Petraeus helped bail Bush out in Iraq by taking advantage of al Qaeda’s brutality to turn more moderate Sunnis against the group, thus lowering the violence until U.S. forces could extricate themselves from that nation. The bribes that Petraeus passed out to these moderate Sunnis didn’t hurt either. And in the latest unpleasantness, Petraeus seems to be siding with Obama against Cheney and the hawks by saying that any U.S. military action should be contingent on the Iraqi Shi’i government including other groups. Otherwise, Petraeus implied, the United States will just be taking sides in another of Iraq’s ethnosectarian civil wars.

Yet in fractious Iraq, especially with such internecine conflict having occurred from 2006 to 2008, a more inclusive government practicing real power sharing is an illusion. This reality means it is foolish for the United States to sink back into active involvement a civil war that merely went into the shadows for a time.

Despite the hysteria, ISIS may very well be stopped in Baghdad and will likely be rebuffed in Iraq’s Shi’i south, because it will have far less public support than in Sunni areas that have been oppressed by Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’i government. Also, Shi’i militias were effective fighters in resisting U.S. forces during their occupation of Iraq.

Thus, Iraq probably will become partitioned by war, much as Syria has been. The Shi’a will have the south, the Sunnis the northwest and west, and the Kurds already have a tranquil fortress in the northeast, guarded by capable Pesh Merga militias. In fact, although the West heavily criticized Vladimir Putin of Russia for taking Crimea, not a peep of criticism erupted when the Kurds recently grabbed the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and added it to their region.

So ISIS may indeed get to govern part of Iraq and part of Syria (since the government of Bashar al-Assad and other Sunni insurgent groups aren’t strong enough to throw them out). Yet if the United States stops interfering in Iraq, it likely will not be in the group’s bulls eye. By unneeded military interventions, the U.S. has created new Islamist enemies in Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen and then strengthened them by acting as a recruiting poster for jihadist fighters and funding to throw out the “evil foreigners.” And let’s not forget why Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda began attacking the United States in the first place — the U.S. military presence on the Muslim holy land of Saudi Arabia. More generally, non-Muslim interventions in Muslim lands set jihadists aflame, for example in Palestine, Chechnya, and Afghanistan (both Soviet and American invasions), to mention only a few countries. And after the United States withdrew from its military intervention in Lebanon in the 1980s, attacks by the radical group Hezbollah against U.S. targets dissipated. Terrorism and guerrilla warfare are usually caused by a grievance and do not stop until the grievance is removed.

It is difficult for jingoists to recognize, let alone admit, that the United States could very well be exacerbating the spread of radical Islamist terrorism. Even if they can’t admit this very apparent truth, some more thoughtful conservatives do take note of the failure of recent U.S. interventions in Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. To think more of the same in Iraq will have a different result, Einstein would have defined as “crazy.”

This article was published at The Huffington Post and reprinted with permission.

The post Dick Cheney’s Outrageous Statements – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Marco Zoppi

Many contemporary issues afflicting Africa — my mind goes to political persecutions, lack of economic opportunities and the so-called ethnic conflicts – derive from one great analytical obstacle which is seriously limiting our capacity to elaborate proper solutions: the sanctioning of the nation-state as the first and foremost instrument to regulate the socio-political sphere. This proviso, although retrievable in many instances of policy-making or academic research worldwide, reaches its most odd consequences there where the state itself was introduced as a novelty; such is the case of Africa, which was a land of decentralized communities or, in other cases, even of large empires, but that never was a space composed of ethnically-defined nations delimited by precise borders prior to colonialism. In this article, I’m arguing that we need to historicize the current xenophobic issues, in order to understand that they are not necessarily connected to the increased movement of people across borders, but rather to the way these flows are being seen by nationalist state’s elites.

THE NATION-STATE AND AFRICA

During the XIX century, the advent of the nation-state in Europe was favored by intricate and simultaneous dynamics which, among the others, included the diffusion of capitalist economy, urbanization phenomena, the bettering of transportation means, the rise of political competition and the increasing crisis of the empire: in reaction to these events, new forms of political organization and economic competition had to be negotiated in the changing society. This is when the nationalist paradigm emerged, in the attempt of granting political spaces as well as privileges only to definite people, while excluding many others now called ‘minorities’. In order to preserve these spaces, the movement of people from one country to another was made more difficult, through strict border controls as well as ‘the invention of passports’ in the course of the XX century [1]. Under the influence of nationalist elites, migrants were seen with suspicion by national populations. In addition, the terrible experience of two wars strengthened the normativity of nation’s ideology in respect to borders, citizenship and sovereignty.

The diffusion of the nation-state in Africa took place in the absence of many of the above-mentioned circumstances, telling us something about the artificial nature of the implications which it entailed for the continent. In the course of previous millennia, Africa took different trajectories in terms of political organization, modes of economic production and philosophical interpretation of the community. It is known, for example, that in several African states (for example Chad, Niger and Somalia) nomadic life is still a relevant way of ensuring the household’s sustenance [2]. Similarly, the prevalence of communitarian lifestyles in pre-colonial Africa marked a striking difference from the constituent individualistic elements of the European societies. In addition, where and when political power was organized in the form of empires in Africa [3], multi-ethnicity was a fundamental ingredient to favor economic relations between places located in long distance one from the other [4]. Hence, when European powers imposed the nation-state through the colonial endeavor, they created first, and left behind then bounded territories which would affect local communities in different ways, including the definition of the social status of migrants. We clearly know that there was no scientific methodology to establish borders, whether political or anthropological; neither local institutions were taken into account while the principles of European power were transferred and imposed on Africa, if not to ensure further benefits for the colonizers. The creation of states was primarily meant to give order to the expansion of European powers on the continent, preventing thus the upsurge of conflicts among them. Unfortunately, academic disciplines worldwide also played a role in promoting the supremacy of the state-nation-society paradigm over alternative forms of political organization, which were defined instead as ‘primitive’ [5]. Even after African independencies, opportunism as well as imitation processes among African elites came to reinforce in much of mainstream discourses and government policies the supposition that sedentariness and the state were the single acceptable mode of modernity. These historical considerations are mentioned here to shed light on the fact that migration came under an unconstructive classification which has mainly portrayed it as a menace to the societies where the migrants in question wished to settle, or had to move because of wars. The realm of migration studies/policies/analysis entails then a story of exclusion of people. Europe has gone through it since the beginning of the XX century, to the detriment of African migrants but also, before the establishment of the Schengen area, to the detriment of Europeans themselves.

Africa is experiencing a very similar trend: the treatment reserved by authorities to the Zimbabweans in South Africa, or the Somalis in Kenya is a case in point. In the latter case especially, the turn of recent events is showing an alarming nationalization of the mainstream discourses, in terms of national integrity to be preserved, on one side; on the other, Somalis living in Kenya felt the intervention of Kenyan authorities as an economic sabotage meant to undermine the Somali business community there [6]. The key issue which is originating for the most part from this dire outcome lies in the work of the national ideology in shaping new political spaces of competition and exclusion. After the inheritance of the colonial borders, which has produced three decades of bloody territorial confrontations, governments seem to be now trying to re-align their policies along those invented borders, with the scope of nationalizing the population and regulating the access to the political space according to the national criterion. The realization of this nationalizing project would probably represent the farthest point ever reached from that continental union envisioned even prior to the decolonization wave of the 1960s. Besides, the process of exclusion of entire segment of population is at high risk of instigating violent responses within the society of the excluded.

RETRIEVING THE ESSENCE OF MIGRATION: WHY NOT AFRICA?

The recent development of the academia seems to have well established that migration is a typical phenomenon of human history: neither good nor bad, but typical, because many groups have routinely moved from one place to another over time. The nation-state, which is today the prevalent form of government in the world, has historically tried to control and limit movements of people, through the invention of borders, passports, citizenship and other measures. All of this has happened in the last couple of centuries, during which millennia of human migratory phenomena as well as centuries of transnational connections were instead hidden, discouraged or negated in order to let the ‘borderification’ of the world emerge as the norm and the natural. Therefore, we live today under the ‘tyranny of the exception’ in terms of how migration is seen and defined. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the transnational paradigm has emerged in social sciences to alternatively explain current phenomena; it was a rather late development, because much of the earlier studies have been limited by the (aware or unaware) persistence of the nation-state as primary unit of analysis: a reductionist tendency labeled as ‘methodological nationalism’ by some scholars [7]. Theories of transnationalism, shortly followed by the cosmopolitan ones, recovered the idea of a world made of transnational connections among people, as it appeared after the end of the Cold War. The focus of analysis shifted to the people: moving to new places, yet tied to their respective homelands by dense relations. Eventually, many migrants could mirror themselves in these studies, rather than in government’s definitions, in which they ranged from alleged threats to the national identity, to the identification with terrorism and thus to questions of national security. What is more interesting, migration was revealed as a ‘natural’ feature of human life, not even new, while the role of the nation-state in the globalized era became then the one to be questioned [8]. Necessarily, I argue, Africa steps up like the most natural location to talk about transnationalism and transnational spirit, in virtue of its history; Africa is the right place to recover the notion of interconnectedness in world history.

WHY IS IT URGENT?

I stated in the title that thinking beyond the national box is an urgent need. Why is this the case? I argue that the urgency is dictated by historical contingencies. As it is often said, Africa is entangled in a process of negotiation between its traditional values and the external ones: more than twenty years ago, Mudimbe referred to it with these words [9]: ‘a dichotomizing system has emerged (…): traditional versus modern; oral versus written and printed; agrarian and customary communities versus urban and industrialized civilization; subsistence economies versus highly productive economies’. In more recent times, this dichotomy has enlarged at the same pace of the expansion of the nation-state in Africa, to include new fields of political contestation. In line with some scholars of transnationalism, I argue that there is now also a tension between democratic rules and capitalism to be taken into account [10]. In the West, it is claimed that this tension led to inequality, and to the consequent establishment of social policies meant to counteract it: however, the provision of social assistance at different levels came about regulated by the tenets of social citizenship, which mean that only national citizens— again, could have access to it.

What implications for Africa? The question of migration and the exclusion of outsiders are of chief importance: several African states, perhaps those with the most efficient bureaucratic apparata, are moving towards the dilemma of social citizenship, and are possibly elaborating solutions using national categorizations. Putting it shortly, African states are imitating once more the West: is this one an appropriate strategy? Western governments, as we know, look at diasporas with suspecion; they accept inclusion of migrants only under specific and often strict rules while they are increasingly barricading behind its borders. I argue then that it’s time to reflect on how African governments are going to deal with the internal migration phenomena and the diaspora. What’s the future of the African state? — we shall also ask. In the ‘global’ background, we assist the rise of transnational analyses; the elaboration of transnational policies; the inclusion of ‘diaspora’ in the policy-making of some governments; the setting up of more and more international organizations. There seems to be a crossroads which forces us to ask if the national criterion is going to regulate the access to national-defined spaces of competition for resources. In this case, we would expect a perpetuation of exclusive social dynamics, and we can also predict that any sort of social citizenship question would be articulated in nationalist terms. This last process reinforces the production of social inequality, preventing the migrant from finding an equal space in the society. When this happens, migrants tend to become the target of governments’ repressive or control policies: this is the artificial circle which African states are entering. Alternatively, the recognition of the prevalent transnational connections linking the world today would be the first step in the direction of alleviating the nation’s fictional creations in relation to border controls, citizenship rights, migration policies and so on. Similarly, to think analytically beyond the state means to give legitimacy back to a number of local institutions as well as practices which are now considered ‘informal’ simply because they are out of the nation’s framework of political actions: in the corpus of traditional norms throughout Africa, of course, there are also specific provisions regulating the relation of the community with outsiders. This is also a development to be considered in the analysis of migration phenomena.

WELFARE PROVISION AND MIGRANTS

The main point of this article is that the national ideology has consequences on migration issues we must be aware of: to complain about political exclusion or persecution of specific groups is to blame the nation-state and the way it works. Diasporas, or minorities, as a category are such only when there is a counter-balancing nationalizing core which fosters inclusive and exclusive ideas of the society. As a result, the pan-Africanist ideal is today still substantially confronted by the colonial inheritance. Again, I will refer to the history of the nation-state in the attempt of explaining the potential institutional trend of some African states. Welfare states are characterized by the provision of social assistance to certain segments of the population; of course, it’s not the total population who can have access to these services, but usually only those people entitled with citizenship rights. In Europe, the cradle of nations, right-based welfare systems only emerged after the Second World War: it has been said in fact that ‘the history of social assistance is a history of growing institutionalization’ [11]. In other words, the welfare state can only emerge in the advanced phase of nation-building; it can only be established when there is both a vertical solidarity institution-citizen and a horizontal citizen-to-citizen solidarity. Unavoidably, many people will not be granted the right of entry into the social assistance program, and it would accentuate inequality as well as the ideological identification of migrants and diaspora members, the ‘others’, with the source of society’s issues (lack of security; terrorism and so on) as a consequence of the lack of solidarity. In Africa, the International Labour Organization has underlined an increasing public expenditure in the last 15 years which brings concerns for the future of the welfare states in the making [12]. In the cases of South Africa and Kenya, now in the spotlight, the question of national solidarity and public expenditure is becoming significant, with a remarkable violent character and boiling tensions within the society.

PEOPLE AS THE FOCUS

The entrenchment of politics and social policing behind the argument of national solidarity brings about extremely relevant consequences. On the one hand, it fosters internally the practice of differentiating between those who belong to the nation and those who don’t; on the other, it is responsible for the state’s external intervention in controlling migration. Even the patrolling of the Mediterranean Sea by the European Union is the result of the mounting pressure over security as well as the proclaimed invasion by ‘Others’. The reorganization of African politics around the notion of national solidarity, in a continent historically composed of highly decentralized polities, generates only fictional affiliations: since the colonial experience, there has been a substantial heteromorphism between the institutions and the society. On these bases, any nationalist claim is likely to end up by being monopolized by a specific group to the disadvantage of the others, creating a renewed wave of scramble for the state’s resources. In this bloody political game, migrants are the most vulnerable portion of the society, victims of scapegoat strategies in the name of, again, political calculations. The solution to ease these pressures in time before they reach the boiling point is to use the available political space to question and challenge the role of the nation-state in Africa. In the light of transnationalism theories, many scholars are moving the attention back to the people, to migrants, seen as the primary unit of analysis of contemporary times. Then, it takes migrants themselves to be aware of their potential as catalyst of change, and to act accordingly within the (transnational) political space they can access: from national governments in the homeland, to the institutions in the host land, international organizations, migrant associations and so on. However, even those national citizens persuaded by the Pan-African ideal, or again academic milieus, shall act from their privileged position in the society to raise similar claims. The common goals they should share are those of rejecting the normativeness of the nation as well as mitigating the fictional legislation it has created. Through the dismantling of the ideological association between solidarity and national populations, those who are now classified as migrants can find legitimate space to participate into the society, and from here there would be also ground for reducing the artificial inequality created over time. Africa and Africans in the diaspora could lead the way of this transnational, cosmopolitan approach to governance, and many other migrants worldwide could be freed from the ‘national cage’.

Marco Zoppi is a PhD Fellow in Histories and Dynamics of Globalization at the University of Roskilde, Denmark. He is currently researching on the Somali diaspora in Scandinavia. He holds a MA in African Studies pursued at the University of Copenhagen. His personal interests include Geopolitics, history of Africa and colonialism. He can be contacted at: marzo@ruc.dk

ENDNOTES:

[1] Torpey, John (2000). The invention of the passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

[2] Data can be found, for example, on the CIA World Factbook website: http://tinyurl.com/6jb5t8p

[3] Few examples of African pre-colonial empires: Mali; Songhai; Ashanti; Lunda

[4] Cf. Cooper, Frederick (2014). Africa in the World: Capitalism, Empire, Nation-State. Harvard: Harvard University Press

[5] Cf. Sachsenmaier, D. (2011). Global Perspectives on Global History Theories and Approaches in a Connected World. New York: Cambridge University Press and Kuper, A. (1988). The invention of primitive society. New York: Routledge

[6] See: http://tinyurl.com/qed9uly

[7] See for example: Wimmer, A., and N. Glick Schiller (2003). “Methodological Nationalism, the Social Sciences, and the Study of Migration: An Essay in Historical Epistemology”. International Migration Review 37 (3): 576–610

[8] Foner, N. (1997). What’s New About Transnationalism?: New York Immigrants Today and at the Turn of the Century. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 6(3), 355–375

[9] Mudimbe, V.Y. (1988). The invention of Africa. Indiana University Press, p. 17

[10] See Faist, T. (2009). “The transnational Social Question”. International Sociology, 24(1), 7–35

[11] Leisering, L. and Barrientos, A. (2013). “Social Citizenship for the Global Poor? The worldwide spread of social assistance”. International Journal of Social Welfare, 22, p. 55

[12] International Labour Organization (2014). World Social Protection Report 2014/15. Geneva: International Labour Office

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/S AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

The post Migration And Africa: On Urgent Need To Think Beyond The Nation-State – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

It remains to be seen whether the United States will opt for manned or unmanned airstrikes against ISIS fighters in Iraq. Today, Jacquelyn Schneider and Julia Macdonald weigh up the pros and cons of both options and remind us that any type of military response will confront significant problems.

By Julia Macdonald and Jacquelyn Schneider

Remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs), colloquially known as drones, are becoming an increasingly prevalent foreign policy tool for the United States. The U.S. has authorized over 400 covert drone strikes since 2004 in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia while also increasingly relying on unmanned platforms for kinetic support on the battlefield in Afghanistan. As ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) presses towards Baghdad and the Maliki government requests air support from the U.S., drones are once again being considered as a foreign policy option. A recent US News opinion poll shows that 77% of the U.S. public supports President Obama using drones in Iraq, while an Economist poll finds that the American population is approximately 10% more likely to support drone strikes than manned in Iraq.

Despite this seeming support for drones as a possible tool at the disposal of the U.S. leadership, little has been said about the relative effectiveness of unmanned airstrikes in achieving U.S. objectives compared to other, manned options available. Assuming that the U.S. continues to resist pressure to put boots on the ground, and airstrikes become the Obama administration’s preferred show of force, the question remains as to whether drones or their manned counterparts are the right weapons to employ. What are the real battlefield effectiveness trade offs between manned and unmanned aircraft in the fight against ISIS?

The proceeding analysis attempts to cast some light on this question by outlining the relative merits of manned versus unmanned airstrikes in Iraq in terms of their battlefield effectiveness. What can unmanned platforms achieve against ISIS that manned cannot and vice versa? Importantly we are not arguing that air strikes are the best option for the U.S., nor that they are the only option on the table. Indeed, both manned and unmanned airstrikes have a number of pitfalls that we discuss in this article. Instead, we are proceeding from the assumption that if airstrikes are chosen, sound analysis is needed to understand which types of airstrikes will be more effective in achieving US battlefield objectives. More importantly, we aim to understand whether battlefield effectiveness can explain U.S. public support for drone strikes in Iraq.

The Iraqi Battlefield

In order to examine the trade off between manned and unmanned air strikes against ISIS in Iraq, we need to first understand some defining characteristics of the battlefield. ISIS’ recent campaign began on June 10^th with the capture of Mosul in Northern Iraq. Over the next two weeks, ISIS advanced south towards Baghdad along Iraq’s main north-south highway and across the Iraq-Syrian border , contesting cities and refineries along the way—including Baiji and Tikrit (the location of the former U.S. airbase at Balad).

These advances have yielded three major types of contested terrain: highways with little cover or concealment, infrastructure facilities with few civilians but significant critical components, and urban environments with heavy concentrations of civilians and extensive cover and concealment opportunities. Accordingly, these terrains also imply unique maneuver opportunities for both ISIS and Iraqi or U.S. forces. Highways feature large groupings of ISIS personnel on trucks or in commandeered Iraqi tactical transport vehicles. Unhindered by rough terrain or large logistical chains, ISIS can move quickly along these routes, though they are vulnerable to aerial identification and attack while transiting these open spaces. Oil refineries represent more of a siege-type battlefield in which ISIS has to mount a protracted attack against a fortified location. Though they can take cover and conceal, their position is also relatively fixed. Finally, the battlefield terrain includes urban environments in which ISIS has infiltrated the population and spread across a wide area, concealed, and embedded with civilians. While urban environments provide the greatest cover and concealment, ISIS is also least maneuverable in this situation as they are forced to seize and hold territory. ISIS is carrying out this campaign with an inventory of light arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and IEDs. Further, propaganda videos suggest that ISIS may have access to rudimentary man portable air defense systems (MANPADs) and potentially light anti-aircraft artillery.

The bottom line is that battlefield effectiveness in the current fight against ISIS requires air strikes that can either hit fast-moving convoys in open areas, dynamic but relatively fixed personnel conducting sieges on critical infrastructure, or personnel holding urban terrain with high chances of civilian collateral damage. What advantages do manned and unmanned aircraft offer in these missions?

The Unmanned Advantage in Iraq

Unmanned aircraft provide three possible advantages over their manned counterparts. The first, and probably most salient, is the decreased risk to aircrew. There is no risk of a Blackhawk Down scenario in which downed American pilots become a rallying cry for rebels while decimating American popular support for involvement in the conflict. As the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Publication 3-09, Joint Fire Support, asserts, “UAS provide the JFC [joint fires community] with options that have significant risk management advantages, such as persistence and minimal risk to friendly personnel.” Though ISIS (even with AAA and MANPADs) has limited ability to counter aircraft above 14,000 ft (4500 meters), the possibility of a downed pilot is still possible with manned aircraft—if only due to the inherent potential for maintenance or pilot error.

Additionally, unmanned aircraft offer persistent overhead coverage, which may be useful in tracking enemy movements over a long time period, in providing sustained coverage of enemy siege activity, or in uncovering patterns of life to target high value individuals. The MQ-9, which is the premier unmanned armed asset, boasts a loiter time of 13-14 hours, even when fully loaded with four Hellfire missiles or two GBU-12s or 38s (500 lb. laser guided or GPS guided bombs). Further, its pilots and sensor operators are able to take breaks and switch out every three to four hours, allowing for trips to the bathroom and cups of coffee that fend off physiological distractions. While some manned platforms can also provide coverage of up to 12 hours, these platforms are vulnerable to these human physical limitations and therefore may not be as effective in the final hours of the mission.

Finally, unmanned aircraft carry low yield weapons—either Hellfire missiles or 500 lb. laser guided or GPS bombs. These low yield weapons are the munitions of choice in areas with high concentrations of civilians or in cases where precision is necessary to avoid collateral damage of key infrastructure.

The Manned Advantage in Iraq

Manned aircraft are also capable of carrying low yield weapons. In fact, many manned aircraft are equipped with guns that have a lower risk estimate distance (the distance at which there is a .1% probability of incapacitation) than unmanned platforms’ most accurate weapon . What manned carry that unmanned cannot is a greater variety of weapons that provide greater effects. In particular, theCBU (combined effects munitions) and BLU series of bombs are designed to destroy large groupings of vehicles or personnel while 2000 lb GPS or laser-guided bombs can render highways impassable to ISIS convoys. These larger effect bombs are especially well suited to stopping or destroying ISIS as they transit along highways.

Manned aircraft are also faster and more maneuverable than their unmanned counterparts. This allows for weapons employment at greater distances from the battlefield as well as higher-aspect maneuvers to defeat missiles and artillery, making manned aircraft less vulnerable to attack from MANPADs or AAA. It also means that manned aircraft are more capable of responding quickly to emerging troops in contact (TIC) situations—particularly in battlefield terrain that is spread over a large area and containing enemy that are heavily concealed (for instance, perhaps urban terrain).

This responsiveness advantage is multiplied by the line of sight communications available between the manned platform and the ground air strike controllers. These communications are two seconds faster than unmanned, which have to be relayed via satellite link to ground control stations in the United States. These manned line of sight communications are also less vulnerable tocyber attack, weather degradation, and technical malfunction. Therefore, manned air strikes are more likely to be able to respond to quick changes in the battlefield. This is particularly true if the changes on the battlefield are out of the unmanned aircraft’s sensor field of view. For example, this could occur if ISIS is maneuvering from different directions in groups or if a siege operation is being conducted from many vantage points. Unmanned aircraft have only one sensor and must be “talked” onto operations outside of the field of view using only that sensor to orient the aircraft. Manned aircraft have the advantage of using the human eye to orient a sensor to operations occurring outside of a camera field of view—thus mitigating a “soda straw” effect and allowing for quicker responses to expansive battlefields.

The Equalizer

Where neither platform has the advantage is in weapons accuracy. The weapons employed from either an unmanned aircraft or a manned aircraft use the same targeting systems to generate coordinates. Whether it be via laser or GPS, the accuracy of the bombs or missiles that these aircraft employ is determined more by the munition’s capability parameters than the aircraft’s capabilities. While unmanned platforms may have better on-board intelligence sensors than some manned, actual coordinate generation for weapons employment is more dependent on ground-based intelligence and blue force assessments. Therefore, assessments of aircraft effectiveness based solely on accuracy do not advantage either manned or unmanned platforms.

The Pitfalls of Manned and Unmanned Weaponry

What military commanders continue to remind Congress and the American public is that both manned and unmanned air strikes have some serious pitfalls in this particular combat scenario. First, both manned and unmanned are most effective when there are networks of intelligence collection and U.S. joint terminal attack controllers on the ground to coordinate air strikes. Neither of these have been promised by President Obama. Secondly, the sensors on both manned and unmanned aircraft have no ability to discriminate between ISIS members operating stolen Iraqi equipment in Iraqi uniforms and non-ISIS Iraqis operating their own equipment. This raises the risk of both civilian collateral damage and fratricide. Finally, timing is a pivotal issue in assessing the potential effectiveness of these air strikes. The best time to use either manned or unmanned aircraft may well have been when ISIS members were transiting between cities – that is, when there was a large movement of people without cover. Once ISIS are in the cities, effective air strikes are much more difficult due to ISIS’ ability to hide among the civilian population and the lack of U.S. boots on the ground to provide reliable intelligence. Again, air strikes from either manned or unmanned aircraft in this situation may generate a high risk of civilian casualties.

To be decided

Drones are often considered “costless” weapons that can easily be employed without risk to U.S. lives. The U.S. administration’s consideration of drones in the context of the current situation in Iraq is one example of such thinking. Yet the complexity of the current situation in Iraq poses severe challenges for any type of U.S. military action, and places important limitations on the battlefield effectiveness of unmanned weaponry. If airstrikes are chosen by Obama to halt the ISIS advance, then it will be necessary for all concerned to understand the important trade offs between manned and unmanned options, and the battlefield scenarios to which each are best suited. Only with this kind of careful analysis will the U.S. be able to effectively achieve its objectives in Iraq.

About the authors:
Julia Macdonald is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the George Washington University where her research focuses on signaling and threat credibility during international crises.

Jacquelyn Schneider is a doctoral student in Political Science at the George Washington University, where her research focuses on intelligence and conflict, foreign policy decision making, cyber, and Asian security.

The post Halting ISIS Advance: Case For Manned Versus Unmanned Aircraft – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jim Lobe

This month’s stunning campaign by Sunni insurgents led by the radical Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) against the mainly Shi’a government of Iraqi President Nouri Al-Maliki is stoking a growing debate here about the hierarchy of threats facing the United States in the Middle East and beyond.

On one side, many foreign policy “realists” have argued that the greatest threat is precisely the kind of violent Sunni jihadism associated with Al Qaeda, whose prominence, however, now appears to have been eclipsed by the even more violent ISIL.

In their view, Washington should be ready, if not eager, to cooperate with Iran, which, like the U.S., has rushed military advisers, weapons, and even drone aircraft to Baghdad, in order to protect the Iraqi government and help organise a counter-offensive to regain lost territory.

Some voices in this camp even favour working with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, whose air force reportedly bombed ISIL positions inside Iraq Wednesday, to help repel the threat.

“There’s only one strategy with a decent chance of winning: forge a military and political coalition with the power to stifle the jihadis in both Iraq and Syria,” according to the former president of the influential Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie Gelb.

“This means partnering with Iran, Russia, and President Assad of Syria. This would be a very tricky arrangement among unfriendly and non-trusting partners, but the overriding point is that they all have common interests,” he wrote in The Daily Beast.

On the other side, pro-Israel neo-conservatives and aggressive nationalists, who maintain their hold — if increasingly shakily — on the Republican Party, vehemently oppose any such cooperation, insisting that Tehran poses Washington’s greatest strategic threat, especially if it succeeds in what they depict as its determination to obtain nuclear weapons.

For them, talk of any cooperation with either Syria or Iran, which they accuse of having supported Al Qaeda and other Sunni jihadist groups in the past, is anathema.

“(W)e should not aid our stronger adversary power against our weaker adversary power in the struggle underway in Iraq,” according to George W. Bush’s ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, now with the American Enterprise Institute.

“U.S. strategy must rather be to prevent Tehran from re-establishing its scimitar of power stretching from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon,” he wrote for FoxNews in an op-ed that called for renewed U.S. efforts to overthrow “the ayatollahs”.

The hawks have instead urged, among other things, Washington to deploy special operations forces and airpower to attack ISIL in both Iraq and Syria while substantially boosting military aid to “moderate” rebel factions fighting to oust Assad.

Yet a third camp argues that the current fixation on ISIL — not to say, the 13-year-old pre-occupation with the Middle East more generally — is overdrawn and misplaced and that Washington needs to engage a serious threat re-assessment and prioritise accordingly.

Noting disappointingly that Obama himself had identified “terrorism” as the greatest threat to the U.S. in a major foreign policy speech last month, political theorist Francis Fukuyama cited Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea and increased tensions over maritime claims between China and its U.S.-allied neighbours as greater causes for concern.

“He said virtually nothing about long-term responses to the two other big challenges to world order: Russia and China,” Fukuyama wrote in a Financial Times column entitled “ISIS risks distracting us from more menacing foes.”

In the face of ISIL’s advance, the administration appears to lean toward the “realist” camp, but, for a variety of reasons feels constrained in moving more decisively in its direction.

Indeed, at the outset of the crisis, both Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, made clear that they were open to at least consulting, if not cooperating with Tehran in dealing with the ISIL threat.

Kerry even sent his top deputy, William Burns, to explore those possibilities in a meeting with senior Iranian officials on the sidelines of nuclear negotiations in Vienna – the highest-level bilateral talks about regional-security issues the two governments have held in memory.

But the sudden emergence of a possible de facto U.S.-Iranian partnership propelled its many foes into action.

These included not only neo-conservatives and other anti-Iran hawks, including the powerful Israel lobby here, but also Washington’s traditional regional allies, including Israel itself, as well as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

They have long feared a return to the pre-1979 era when Washington recognised Tehran as the Gulf’s pre-eminent power and, in any case, have repeatedly ignored U.S. appeals in the past to reconcile themselves to a new Iraq in which the majority Shi’a community will no longer accept Sunni predominance.

“Some [U.S. allies] worry that the U.S. is seeking a new alliance with Iran to supplant its old alliance system in the region,” wrote Michael Singh, a former Bush Middle East aide now with the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near Policy (WINEP), on the same day of the Vienna meeting.

“As misplaced as these worries may be, an American embrace of an Iranian security role in Iraq – or even bilateral talks with Iran on regional security that exclude other stakeholders – will only exacerbate them,” he warned in the neo-conservative editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal which has published a flood of op-eds and editorials over the past two weeks opposing any cooperation with Iran on Iraq.

Faced with these pressures, Obama, who has vowed to keep the U.S. out of a regional Sunni-Shi’a civil war, is eager to reassure those allies that he has no intention of partnering with Iran to save Maliki himself (to whom the Iranians appear to remain committed, at least for now).

U.S. officials have made no secret of their preference for a less-sectarian leader who is capable of reaching out to the Sunni community in Iraq in ways that could prise it loose from ISIL’s grip or influence.

That no doubt was a major part of the message conveyed by Kerry – along with the dangers posed by ISIL, even to Saudi Arabia itself — in his meeting in Jeddah Friday with King Abdullah, who until now has clearly viewed Tehran as the greater threat.

Similarly, the White House announcement Thursday that it will ask Congress to approve a whopping 500 million dollars in military and other assistance to “moderate” rebel groups in Syria to fight both Assad and ISIL also appeared designed to reassure the Saudis and its Gulf allies that Washington remains responsive to their interests, even if the aid is unlikely to materialise before some time next year.

While that announcement may please U.S. hawks and Washington’s traditional allies in the region, it is unlikely to strengthen those in Tehran who favour cooperating with the U.S. on regional security issues. Indeed, it risks bolstering hard-liners who see the conflict in both Iraq and Syria in sectarian terms and accuse Washington of siding with their Sunni rivals in the Gulf.

That the announcement was made on the same day that Baghdad thanked Damascus for bombing ISIL positions in Iraq, however, illustrates the complexities of the tangled alliances at play and the urgent questions for U.S. policy-makers: who is the greatest threat and who best to work with in defeating it?

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com.

The post US: What Is The Greatest Threat Of Them All? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jacqueline Côté

The idea of ‘Russian territory’ extends far beyond internationally accepted borders, as the world witnessed when Russian troops stormed into Ukraine. ‘Russian territory,’ in the Kremlin’s mind at least, extends across most of the former Soviet Union, particularly in the pockets that still harbor pro-Russian sentiments.

So when the United States leased the Manas airbase from Kyrgyzstan in 2001 to assist with operations in Afghanistan, Moscow was hardly impressed. But for the sake of international solidarity in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the Russian government held its tongue.

But Russian patience with a US presence in its former satellite state has been wearing thin, and in the last two years Moscow has stepped up pressure on Kyrgyz officials in Bishkek to rebuff the United States and expel American forces from the Manas air base.

On the one hand, the hefty paycheck received by the Kyrgyz government in rent from Washington was a major boost to the country’s struggling economy, which remains heavily reliant on agriculture and the resale of Chinese goods. But on the other hand, there have been many thorny issues surrounding Manas, especially concerning the supply of fuel to the airbase and the alleged involvement of the son of then-leader Kurmanbek Bakiev in a racketeering scheme.

Kyrgyzstan finally capitulated to Russian demands in June 2013, when Kyrgyz lawmakers voted to end the lease in June 2014. The United States has until July 11 to fully vacate the airbase.

Ridding the tiny mountainous state of US forces was just the first of Russian steps towards bringing Kyrgyzstan more fully into its orbit. Russia, or perhaps more accurately, Putin, is scrambling for more of Russia’s post-Soviet states to join the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), of which only Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan are members.

Russia has its work cut out for it, though. Promoting the EEU – or the Customs Union, as it was previously known – is not an easy sell for Kyrgyzstan, no matter how impoverished it may be at the moment, for a plethora of reasons.

First, Kyrgyzstan is a very divided country on several different fronts. The country is divided ethnically, politically, and to a large extent economically on a north-south basis, with the north being perceived as richer and firmly in control of national politics. The south is largely agrarian, and it is where the majority of ethnic Uzbeks call home, as the area sits on the Ferghana Valley which intersects Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. It was in the south where deadly, violent riots broke out in the summer of 2010, from which the country has yet to fully recover.

These schisms also manifest around the question of tighter integration with Russia. The ruling Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, now in control of the presidency, has been leaning towards greater involvement with the EEU, while a conglomerated national opposition movement, recently formed, pushes vociferously against allowing Russia to invest heavily in Kyrgyz state assets. Russia’s Gazprom, for instance, secured a deal with KyrgyzGaz in 2012 which will see Gazprom take over the state energy firm for $1. The deal closed earlier this year.

Protests have also erupted over Gazprom’s ability to deliver gas to all areas of Kyrgyzstan – an additional factor which may dampen Kyrgyz appetites for joining Russia’s team. Earlier this month, demonstrators descended upon the Ala-too park in central Bishkek protesting the lack of gas in the south of the country, despite Gazprom’s repeated assurances that it would rectify the ills stemming from KyrgyzGaz’s mismanagement and patchy distribution of fuel supplies.

Another factor which may keep Kyrgyzstan pushing against Moscow is concern over what will happen to trade with China, upon which many Kyrgyz retailers and sellers in bazaars rely for their livelihood. Without cheap imports from China, which can then be resold at a profit at one of the major trade hubs in the country, Kara-Suu on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border, many Kyrgyz merchants would be left without an industry. If Kyrgyzstan does join the EEU, the expectation is that trade tariffs will be lowered or non-existent between members, while increased for non-members. China is unlikely to continue engaging in trade under these conditions, which could deprive the country of one of its major GDP drivers.

The question of where US troops will be based in the future also needs to be resolved, so long as there are American troops in Afghanistan. US President Barack Obama recently announced that troops would leave the country in 2016, but the details of any residual permanent deployment have yet to be worked out.

Rumors abound that Kazakhstan is angling for it, which may be a more agreeable choice for Washington given their limited options in the region. Pakistan is mired in internecine conflict, Tajikistan is continually at risk from drug smugglers and insurgents, Turkmenistan is out of the question due to its widespread human rights abuses and remoteness, and Uzbekistan is not as eager to participate on the geopolitical scene as it was even a few years ago.

Jacqueline Côté is a contributor to Geopoliticalmonitor.com, where this article was first published.

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(RFE/RL) — Bosnian Serb leaders have countered the country’s official commemoration of the act that triggered World War I one century ago — the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand — by unveiling a statue honoring the assassin.

Nebojsa Radmanovic, the Serb member of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency, unveiled the 2-meter bronze statue of Gavrilo Princip on June 27 in majority Serb east Sarajevo.

The event was sponsored by Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska entity.

Bosnia is officially marking the June 28 centenary of the archduke with a concert in Sarajevo by the Vienna Philharmonic that will be attended by Austrian President Heinz Fischer.

Leaders of Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs — who consider Princip a heroic freedom fighter for Slavs — are boycotting the concert.

Dodik says Bosnia’s peoples “are still divided,” and they “think and work differently” in regard to the Sarajevo assassination.

The post Bosnian Serbs Honor Assassin Who Started World War I appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Andrea Gagliarducci

Pope Francis’ statement last Saturday that mafiosi are “excommunicated” was a reflection of theology rather than canon law, and acted as a call to conversion for those in organized crime, priests have said.

Pope Francis visited the Diocese of Cassano all’Jonio, in the southern Italian region of Calabria, June 21. The diocese has been profoundly affected by the its local organized crime group, the ‘Ndrangheta; Cassano all’Jonio was the scene of a feud between mafia clans in the 1990s and 2000s.

The Pope preached during a Mass in Sibari, saying that “when adoration of the Lord is substituted by adoration of money, the road to sin opens up to personal interest. When one does not adore the Lord, one becomes an adorer of evil … those who in their lives have taken this evil road, this road of evil, such as the mafiosi, they are not in communion with God: they are excommunicated!”

Fr. Davide Cito, a professor of canon and penal law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, told CNA June 23 that “Pope Francis wanted to stress the practical apostasy of mafiosi – he compared it to idolatry: mafiosi are as apostates in their adoration of evil.”

“Speaking those words, Pope Francis shocked consciences, since many mafiosi claim to be devout Christians.”

The Pope “did something ‘more’ than the canonical punishment. He wanted to bind the ‘excommunication’ to the personal life of mafiosi, and this is why he added after that he slammed them as adorers of evil: because he does not want to condemn the isolated crime of a single person. He wants to address those who behave stubbornly against God.”

Similarly, Fr. Ciro Benedettini, vice director of the Holy See press office, explained that Pope Francis’ words were not a formal legal decree, but more a message to mafiosi that they cannot receive the sacraments because of their activities, Reuters reported.

Fr. Ennio Stamile, a parish priest in the Calabrian town of Cetraro, has been targeted by the ‘Ndrangheta several times for his commitment against organized crime. He reflected that “when the Church does excommunicate, it is not to condemn. It is rather to help people understand that their behavior, their choice, has put them outside of ecclesial communion, so as to give them a reason to convert their life.”

He noted that Pope Francis’ words were “the first time a Pope has spoken so directly about the issue.”

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After numerous failures in the last several years, Macedonia will most likely withdraw from the biggest European Music Contest, Eurovision, Vesti on-line reports.

The 2014 contestant, Tijana Dapcevic just like predecessors did not even enter the finals.

A poll conveyed by the Macedonian National Television has shown that about 70% of the participants consider Macedonia should no longer take part in this Contest.

From the 14,757 respondents, some 9,803 claimed Macedonia should withdraw from the competition. Some 4,629 consider that the winner of Skopje Festival should be the one representing the country.

The public opinion poll is ongoing and if results remain the same, this country will no longer participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, however MRT will have the final say.

In 2006 Macedonia gained its biggest ‘success’, when Elena Ristevska managed to reach the 12th place in the final.

The Eurovision contest instead of uniting Europe has become a highly divisive and politicized event with some countries forming blocks and ensuring their ‘friends’ make it while others do not. The singing is rarely judged, it’s more the political or historical friendliness among countries. Did we mention each entrant pays a 120,000 euros fee?

As a result, Portugal, Cyprus, Armenia, Poland, Turkey, Serbia have withdrawn from Eurovision while Russia wants to create its own version of the contest claiming the current one is rigged where Western European countries are favored.

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Musicians of the American iconic rock band Marilyn Manson were reportedly pelted with eggs and sprinkled with holy water by Orthodox Christian activists ahead of the band’s Moscow concert. The gig was eventually delayed and canceled after a bomb threat.

Known for his controversial onstage performances deemed by some as offensive and anti-religious, Manson had already been faced with trouble during his current Russian tour, with mass protests and a cancelled concert in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk.

Manson-haters in Moscow have also prepared a “warm welcome” for the singer and his band. Self-proclaimed defender of Russian Orthodox believers and leader of the “God’s Will” movement, Dmitry Enteo, celebrated a “victory” over the “blasphemous” rock band on his Twitter page on Friday. Enteo said that he and his fellow activists threw eggs and poured holy water on band members and Manson himself.

“Pelted at with eggs, Manson was running away from me and was squealing like a pig as we were sprinkling him with holy water. You won’t believe it, he was making circles,” Enteo wrote.

The activist earlier announced his action as “the decisive fight against the blasphemer Manson.”

A video published by LifeNews allegedly shows part of the attack, with activists – armed with bottles of water and eggs – seen chasing a man wearing sunglasses near a Moscow hotel.

However, the man shown in the footage does not appear to be Marilyn Manson himself. Enteo then tweeted: “I’m sorry, maybe we sprinkled not Manson himself, but members of his band. But maybe it was him – they all look alike.”

Hours after the alleged attack, a performance of the controversial singer was due to take place at the Park Live festival, with crowds of fans waiting for him to enter the stage at the All-Russia Exhibition Center.

The performance never happened, as police asked everyone to leave the area due to a bomb threat.

Though the festival later resumed, Manson’s Moscow concert was canceled altogether. This was confirmed on the official Facebook page of his tour and by the rocker himself on Twitter.

Manson’s frenzied Russian fans took to social media, accusing the same Orthodox Christian activists of disrupting the performance. Enteo denied his involvement on Twitter, but cheered the incident by saying “Thank God!”

This was not the first concert of Manson’s to be canceled in the aftermath of protests against his stage acts – and neither was it the first time that the self-proclaimed defenders of faith, led by Enteo, targeted a performance.

In November 2013, Enteo’s group attempted to disrupt a controversial play at Chekhov Moscow Art Theater by taking to the stage in between acts to denounce the “sodomy” being portrayed. Although some audience members chose to escape the unscripted drama, the show did go on.

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By Alicja Magdalena Duda

The people of Central America are trapped in a zero-sum game of merciless poverty, rampant violence, and unmanageable corruption. An unequal distribution of fundamental resources for basic survival engenders a competitive Social Darwinist society, in which the one with the most power and biggest guns wins. This leaves people with an option just short of a death sentence: either stay and be killed, or risk death escaping to the rumored Land of Opportunity.

The recent surge of unaccompanied child migrants in the United States reflects the ever-darkening situation of violence and poverty throughout Mexico and Central America. More than 51,000 unaccompanied children from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico have made the perilous journey to the United States this fiscal year (October 1, 2013 through June 15, 2014)—already more than last fiscal year’s total of 38,045.[1] The journey from Central America through Mexico’s southern border is lined with treacherous obstacles including gangs, bandits, and the infamous train nicknamed La Bestia (The Beast), making the travel especially perilous for unaccompanied children.[2] Furthermore, it is projected that the amount of unaccompanied child migrants will continue to swell up to 90,000 in 2014.[3] This inundation of immigrants has overwhelmed processing centers along the border as well as immigration shelters in nearby states.[4][5][6]

This inundation of child migrants has once again pushed the United States’ broken immigration policy to the forefront of national and international criticism. Both President Obama[7] and secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson[8] have declared this a priority issue. On June 20, Vice President Joe Biden met with Central American officials, including Guatemala’s President Otto Pérez Molina, El Salvador’s President Sánchez Cerén, Honduras’ general coordinator Jorge Ramón Hernández, and Mexico’s interior minister Miguel Osorio Chong.[9] In response to the current surge of unaccompanied children migrating from Central America to the United States, Vice President Biden announced the United States would provide aid packages for each country. In addition, $161.5 million USD will be put toward the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), with the intent of enabling Central American countries to handle “security and governance challenges.”[10] However, hearings in the House of Representatives this week revealed stubborn partisanship, in which many Republicans blame President Obama’s lax immigration policies for the surge of migrant children,[11] and call for the United States “to whack them, our neighbors, to understand that they are just not going to keep taking our money… we’re not the ATM machine.”[12] If policymakers are to take this issue seriously, it is important for them to recognize that immigration is fundamentally a development issue that requires multilateral solutions. Central American countries need to empower individuals by ensuring vertical accountability between government institutions and individuals. By securing political freedoms, opportunities for economic and social participation, transparency, and stable infrastructure, individuals will have greater social mobility and incentives to stay in their native country, thereby increasing human capital and economic growth.[13]

At the same time, it is clear the United States desperately needs comprehensive immigration reform that empowers immigrants in the United States, as well as an effective foreign policy that addresses Latin America’s inequality and violence. That, however, is easier said than done. Given President Obama’s indifference toward Latin America and Congress’ partisan tug-of-war between incremental and comprehensive reform—or no reform at all—it seems unlikely that the United States is capable of enacting proactive and comprehensive immigration reform any time soon. Sadly, this ongoing political battle is one that has high humanitarian stakes for both Central America and the United States, and it is a battle that neither side can afford to lose.

U.S. Immigration Reform & the Political Climate

Admittedly, President Obama has made immigration reform a priority issue. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) act, enacted two years ago on June 15, 2012, was an important step toward immigration reform by temporarily suspending the deportation of young people who were brought to the United States as children and reside unlawfully in the country. The Immigration Policy Center, a research organization that focuses on U.S. immigration policy, has assessed the impact of DACA in its report, “Two Years and Counting: Assessing the Growing Power of DACA.”[14] Surveying more than 2,300 individuals across the United States, a representative sample of DACA’s 53,197 approved applicants since 2012, the report indicates overall positive results.

Although DACA does not offer a path to citizenship, it enables undocumented young adults to become active participants in society and the economy. Specifically, the report indicates that almost 60 percent of surveyed individuals obtained a new job and a driver’s license as a result of DACA, thereby increasing human capital and economic growth. The report also emphasizes the important role of education in augmenting economic growth—DACA beneficiaries with a bachelor’s degree were 1.5 times more likely to obtain a job and increase their earnings. Additionally, DACA beneficiaries pursuing a bachelor’s degree were 1.6 times more likely to obtain an internship and expand their network than DACA beneficiaries not attending college.

These findings demonstrate that initiatives like DACA are necessary, but not sufficient. To move immigration reform forward, it is imperative to approve long-delayed bills like the DREAM Act and to supplement temporary-fix programs like DACA with long-term programs that support education initiatives and paths to citizenship for the approximately 11 million undocumented workers in the United States today.

President Obama proposed a “common-sense” proposal in January 2013 comprised of four parts: strengthening border security, forming a path for earned citizenship, holding employers accountable, and establishing an effective legal immigration system.[15] An important part of this common-sense proposal is H.R. 15, a comprehensive bill passed by the Senate almost a year ago that addresses border security, visa backlogs, and a path to citizenship.[16] Specifically, H.R. 15 replaces the controversial Corker-Hoeven amendment, criticized for militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border, with the McCaul bill, which implements a more quantitative assessment of border security. Other features of H.R. 15 include enforcing an employment eligibility verification program and pathways to visa and citizenships for undocumented adults, children, and agricultural workers.[17]

Political gridlock, however, threatens H.R. 15’s potential to modernize immigration policy and the bill remains stalled in the House of Representatives. The nationally recognized issue of unaccompanied child migrants should be an opportune gateway for this comprehensive immigration reform bill to move forward—but for Republicans, immigration reform appears to be a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.[18] In a Latino Decisions poll conducted last month[19], 68 percent of Latinos indicated that they are likely to vote in upcoming midterm elections. Latinos also indicated that they would be following the immigration policy debate currently taking place in Congress and, if Republicans supported immigration reform and a path to citizenship, 61 percent of Latinos would be more open to them. For the sake of political self-preservation, it would be a smart move for Speaker of the House John Boehner to move the stalled immigration bill to a vote.

However, as demonstrated by former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s Virginia Republican primary loss to Tea Party challenger David Brat, supporting immigration reform is only another form of political suicide. Cantor’s defeat marks the first time a House majority leader has lost a primary, and is largely attributed to voters siding with Brat’s anti-comprehensive immigration reform platform—which makes the feat of bringing H.R. 15 to a vote in the House more difficult now than ever.[20][21] The fate of millions of immigrants will depend on whether Speaker Boehner and the new House Majority Leader, Californian Kevin McCarthy, are able to harness the necessary political will to push H.R. 15 to a vote—a lofty goal considering the upcoming July 4 recess and midterm elections.

Impending Humanitarian Crisis on Both Sides

Rejecting comprehensive immigration reform is tantamount to rejecting a much deeper and more complex issue; after all, immigration reform is more than a utilitarian domestic policy of granting amnesty to immigrants so they can be employed as units of economic value. It also requires an effective foreign policy that addresses the fundamental humanitarian side of immigration. The truth is, we cannot allow political gridlock to delay immigration reform, nor other pressing domestic and foreign policy issues to overshadow it. Immigration is both a domestic and foreign policy issue with immediate social and economic implications. Unfortunately, with the combination of Central America’s increased violence and U.S. political gridlock, this ongoing political battle will continue to push countries on both sides further into a humanitarian crisis.

Alicja Magdalena Duda, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

References

[1] U.S. Customs and Border Protection, “Unaccompanied Alien Children Encountered by Fiscal Year.” Southwest Border Unaccompanied Alien Children. http://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-border-unaccompanied-children
[2] Isacson, Adam; Meyer, Maureen; and Morales, Gabriela. “Mexico’s Other Border: Security, Migration, and the Humanitarian at the Line with Central America.” Washington Office on Latin America. http://www.wola.org/files/mxgt/report/

[3] Ibid.
[4] “Miami Shelters Increase Capacity To Receive Undocumented Children From Border Facilities.” Fox News Latino. 15 June 2014.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/06/15/miami-shelters-increase-capacity-to-receive-undocumented-children-in-border/

[5] Santos, Fernanda. “Border Centers Struggle to Handle Onslaught of Young Migrants.” The New York Times. 18 June 2014.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/us/border-centers-struggle-to-handle-onslaught-of-children-crossers.html?hp&_r=0

[6] Dart, Tom. “Texas feels the strain from rise in Central Americans crossing the border.” The Guardian. 20 June 2014.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/20/us-immigration-central-america-texas-detention

[7] President Barack Obama to the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, June 2, 2014, Office of the Press Secretary. “Presidential Memorandum—Response to the Influx of Unaccompanied Alien Children Across the Southwest Border.”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/02/presidential-memorandum-response-influx-unaccompanied-alien-children-acr

[8] Department of Homeland Security, “Statement by Secretary Johnson on Increased Influx of Unaccompanied Immigrant children at the Border.” 2 June 2014. http://www.dhs.gov/news/2014/06/02/statement-secretary-johnson-increased-influx-unaccompanied-immigrant-children-border
[9] “US pledges aid for Centam migrants.” Latin News. 23 June 2014. http://www.latinnews.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=61105&uid=55646&acc=1&Itemid=6&cat_id=795162%20
[10] Ibid.
[11] Meckler, Laura. “Congressional Republicans Ramp Up Attack on Obama Immigration Record.” The Wall Street Journal. 24 June 2014.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/congressional-republicans-ramp-up-attack-on-obama-immigration-record-1403652447

[12] “Frustrated U.S. Lawmakers Urge Tough Action on Child Migration.” The New York Times. 24 June 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/06/24/world/americas/24reuters-usa-immigration-children.html?ref=world&_r=0

[13] Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Random House, Inc., 1999.
[14] American Immigration Council. “Two Years and Counting: Assessing the Growing Power of DACA.” Jun 16, 2014. http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/docs/two_years_and_counting_assessing_the_

growing_power_of_daca_final.pdf
[15] The White House, “Building a 21st Century Immigration System.” May 2011.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/immigration

[16] Immigration Policy Center, “A Guide to H.R. 15: The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.” October 2013. http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/guide-hr-15-border-security-economic-opportunity-and-immigration-modernization-act
[17] Ibid.
[18] Antle III, James W. “The lesson of Eric Cantor: Republicans can’t win on immigration.” The Week. 16 June 2014.

http://theweek.com/article/index/263174/the-lesson-of-eric-cantor-republicans-cant-win-on-immigration#axzz350A8LGF3

[19] “New Poll Finds Latino Voters Unequivocally Support Immigration Reform Prior to 2014 Midterm Elections.” America’s Voice. 3 June 2014. http://americasvoice.org/blog/new-poll-finds-latino-voters-unequivocally-support-immigration-reform-prior-2014-midterm-elections/
[20] “Eric Cantor Suffers Historic GOP Loss in Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Corporate Backlash.” Democracy Now! 11 June 2014.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/11/eric_cantor_suffers_historic_gop_primary

[21] Nakamura, David. “Democrats try to salvage strategy on immigration reform after Cantor’s defeat.” The Washington Post. 11 June 2014.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-try-to-salvage-strategy-on-immigration-reform-after-cantors-defeat/2014/06/11/ad538420-f179-11e3-bf76-447a5df6411f_story.html

The post Destined To Be The Biggest Of Wars: The Humanitarian Crisis Of Immigration – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Tom Balmforth

(RFE/RL) — A group of pro-Kremlin youth activists approaches a middle-aged woman smoking outside a subway station — a no-smoking zone as of last year. Filming her with a handheld camera, they insist that she put out her cigarette.

Initially, the woman refuses. “Why don’t you get a job?” she says, showing her backside to the camera. But in the end, she gives in, throwing the lit cigarette at one of the young men and storming off in a huff.

This Moscow street scene, circulated on the Internet in a video, illustrates the tensions between smokers and antitobacco activists as tough new legislation comes into force in Russia, the world’s second-largest cigarette market.

The latest provisions of the law came into force on June 1 and prohibit smoking in most public indoor places — including bars, restaurants, offices, and public transportation.

“It’s horribly inconvenient!” says Anush Zogranyan, an accountant and smoker in her 40s, who on a cool, overcast weekday was smoking outside a Moscow cafe that until this month would be thick with tobacco smoke. She adds that she has “morally” steeled herself for the ban, but is not looking forward to smoking outdoors in winter.

Others say the ban is cramping their social life. “I’ve started going out less,” says Aleksei, a 30-year-old advertising worker who was having a cigarette before entering a restaurant on his lunch break. “I used to go out every week, but now it’s more like once a month.”

Meanwhile, some in the hospitality industry are reporting a loss of revenue.

Igor Bukharov, head of the Federation for Restaurants and Hotels, told the daily “Izvestia” that in some establishments revenue has fallen 15-20 percent since the ban. “This is very serious. Those are the statistics for cafes, restaurants, and bars,” he added. “We didn’t count clubs.”

Grudging Support

The legislation, signed into law by President Vladimir Putin in February 2013, came into effect in several stages.

Last year, the minimum price on cigarettes was raised slightly — although at approximately $1.50 a pack they are still considerably less expensive than in the West. Smoking was also outlawed in recreational areas like parks and beaches, outside subway stations, and inside jails and hospitals.

As of June 1, in addition to the indoor smoking ban, cigarettes cannot be displayed in stores, and showing the inhaling of tobacco smoke in films and on television is illegal “unless it is an integral part of the artist’s idea.”

The law aims to reduce smoking among Russians by 15 percent by 2020, increase budget revenue by 1 trillion rubles ($29.6 billion), and reverse the precipitous population decline that hit Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Some lawmakers have sought to take the smoking ban even further. This month, Communist Party lawmaker Ivan Nikitchuk, in an apparent effort to improve birthrates, introduced a bill to the State Duma banning women under 40 years of age from smoking. The measure, however, was not passed.

Despite the inevitable grumbling, the tough new antismoking measures have some support — even among smokers.

Raisa, a 60-year-old smoker, says the legislation is long overdue — mostly for the sake of the younger generation. “My grandchildren are growing up,” she says, perching on a street bench outside an Uzbek restaurant. “I always leave the apartment to smoke when they are in. Children should not have to breathe smoke.”

And even some bar managers are saying the smoking ban actually helps business. “In our case, people are happier about it. More people are coming to us,” says Pyotr Baryshnikov, 24, who helps run The Delicatessen, a Moscow bar and restaurant that caters to a young urban-middle-class crowd.

“This is a cellar bar and when people smoked here it was really smoky and not everyone liked it,” he adds. “I think we are already seeing a generation that is against nicotine and that lives more healthily.”

The post No Smoking In Russia? Tough New Antitobacco Rules Come To The Land Of Cigarettes appeared first on Eurasia Review.