By William Chislett

The anti-establishment leftist party Podemos (‘We Can’) – established almost a year ago and which, according to a poll, would be the second most voted party if an election were to be held today – has unveiled its economic plan that is long on spending ideas and short on how to finance them.

The 68-page manifesto, which will serve as a basis for Podemos’ election program next year, softens some of the party’s more radical ideas contained in its program for last May’s European elections, such as a guaranteed basic income for the needy and retirement at 60, but sets out a battery of measures that, in the opinion of its opponents, would turn Spain into a Venezuela-style basket-case but without the advantage of having oil.

Podemos, led by media-savvy political scientists, in particular its leader Pablo Iglesias, and born out of the movement of los indignados (‘the indignant ones’) in 2011, is now pitching itself as a Nordic-style social-democratic party. It is competing directly with the Socialists whom it accuses of being part of the ‘caste’ that has impoverished Spain and which bowed to the demands of the Troika when the crisis erupted during their watch in 2008.

The authors of the report,[1] the Spanish political scientist Vincenç Navarro and the economist Juan Torres, are highly critical of ‘neo-liberal globalization’ and a ‘badly designed’ euro zone, which they say is dominated by Germany and has aggravated Spain’s crisis.

The proposals for a country with a jobless rate of 23.6% read like a Christmas wish list to the Three Kings (the Three Wise Men who are Spain’s counterpart to Father Christmas). They include:

• Credit should be enshrined in the constitution as an ‘essential public service’, state banks created and an undefined ‘citizens’ bank of public interest’ established.
• Pensions, wages, public and private investment and welfare spending should be increased. Podemos calls for the elimination of the Popular Party’s 2013 pension reforms, designed to make the untenable system more sustainable. The reforms severely restrict index-linking of pension pay-outs and are gradually raising the retirement age to 67 from 65. Podemos says the retirement age should remain at 65.
• A limit on the maximum gap between average salaries and the top ones (currently 127 times higher).
• Abolition of the Popular Party’s 2012 labor market reforms, which reduced the cost of shedding workers on permanent contracts and enable companies to opt out of sector-wide collective bargaining agreements in certain circumstances.
• Debt relief, particularly for those struggling to pay mortgages. On the question of Spain’s still very high sovereign debt load (almost 100% of GDP), Podemos says ‘the only way out of this vicious circle is the restructuring, as orderly as possible, of European and Spanish debt. The question is not if this is desirable or not but under what conditions it takes place’.
• The European Central Bank should be reformed and full employment added to its core objectives.

The document says little about where the extra revenue would come from to finance the ambitious spending plans other than taxing the rich more and cracking down on tax evasion and fraud.

The program would require the European Central Bank to assume a central role in helping Spain, particularly in granting more credit, which would only happen in the extremely unlikely event that there was authorization to do so by all euro countries. Furthermore, the report’s authors admit that ‘it is materially impossible for these policies to be carried out […] in the framework of the euro as it is designed’.

The only way to fulfill the program would be for Spain to leave the euro, something that the majority of Spaniards do not want, according to the latest Eurobarometer carried out in October. Almost three quarters of respondents in Spain said the euro is a good thing for the EU, the largest proportion among the four biggest economies.

A Spain that returned to its own currency and artificially stimulated domestic demand through spending it could not afford –by printing money or borrowing abroad (in these conditions who would want to lend to Spain?) as not only the very rich would vote with their feet– would be very vulnerable to head winds in the global economy, from which it would not be isolated.

Moreover, higher social security contributions, a reduced working week and higher salaries, as proposed, would hardly encourage the private sector to create jobs and invest. Indeed, unemployment and inflation would rise and productivity suffer.

The authors are right to say that Spain cannot return to its previous unsustainable economic model, excessively based on the real estate and construction sectors, massive indebtedness and the predominance of the financial sector, among other factors. Yet they offer little more than vague ideas about Spain’s future direction, other than proposals of good intentions such as the need to ‘construct more satisfactory and efficient productive models and economic relations based on respect for the life of people and nature and more concerned for general well-being than personal profit that excludes and kills millions of human beings’.

There is no doubt that Podemos has tapped into a deep vein of discontent and anger with the political class, which has been discredited by the wave of corruption scandals. Almost two-thirds of respondents (63.8%) in the latest barometer conducted by the government-funded CIS said corruption and fraud were Spain’s main problem, the second main concern after unemployment (77%).

Opinion polls in recent months show that far from being a temporary phenomenon, Podemos will be a force to be reckoned with in the next general election due to be held by next December. However, it is beginning to lose momentum, according to the Metroscopia poll published in El País on 7 December which put it in second place, after the Socialists, with 25.0% of the vote (27.7% in November when it was the most voted party).

Podemos would appear to have reached a ceiling; this could well be because it is having to spell out its policies and propose solutions and not just diagnose Spain’s problems which has a zero political cost.

It is now up to the Popular Party and the Socialists to convince the electorate that they have renovated themselves in order to recover their credibility. If they do not, their attempts to counter Podemos’ unrealistic reforms and convince voters that the party’s road map would bring ruin not prosperity will sound hollow.

About the author:
William Chislett
Associate Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute | @WilliamChislet3

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute.

[1] The full program in Spanish is available at ‘Un proyecto económico para la gente’ (Podemos).

The post Can Spain Afford Economic Program Of ‘Podemos’? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Ultima ratio, ratio prima – but not from Lima… Thus, let me report, Of Nearly Everything: From Copenhagen, Durban, Rio+20 to Lima 2014, the conclusion remains the same: We need principles and accorded actions as this is the only way to tackle the grave problems of this planet. We are lacking the elementary consensus in the Bretton Woods institutions, on Eastern Europe and Ukraine, on the WTO Doha Development round, on a nuclear non-proliferation (and NPT), in the IPCC, on the post-Kyoto negotiations, and finally on the alarming state of environment. Ergo, on a global scale we fundamentally disagree on realities of this planet and the ways we can address them.1

I am neither moralizing & idealizing nor agonizing. The world based on agreed principles and commonly willing actions is not a better place. It is the only way for the human race to survive.

Already some years ago, I noted in my writings (and in my lectures) that the confrontational nostalgia and academic inertia keeps recycling the Cold-War rhetoric, although the Soviet Union has disappeared from the geopolitical map over two decades ago. Hence, if these practitioners and thinkers are so fascinated with the simplified either with us, or against us logics – let’s keep it then! Adjusted to reflect our today’s realities (or as the grand Wiz of the EU, Jean Monnet used to say: if you have an unsolvable dilemma – enlarge the context), it would state as follows: either your socio-economic and politico-military policies and practices are for this planet and the very survival of human race or you are against the planet and every form of life inhabiting it.2 What we have recently witnessed in MENA (including the unmentioned and unmentionable) and elsewhere, is highly disturbing and rather discouraging: as if the confrontational nostalgia, perpetuated by the intense competition over finite resources, in lieu of a real, far-reaching policy-making has prevailed again.3

We falsely believed, throughout the 20th century, that the nuclear holocaust will put an end to the entire human race. No! It will be a slow, nearly-unnoticed, gradual but steady construction of the global gas chamber (filled by the green-house gas emissions). And, this is not an environmental alarmism as the environmental nihilists, or to say lobbyists would like to water it down. The way we extract, produce, transport, distribute and consume, the way we keep all this running on a blind obedience to hydrocarbons, and finally the way how we do reflect, contemplate and study on all that (and live in denial of it), inevitably takes us right into the environmental holocaust.4

What we euphemistically call Climate Change is actually a brutal war against nature. It is a covert armed conflict since we are predominantly using the so-called monetizing-potent ‘technologies’ instead of firearms in our hands. (For this purpose hereby, the army units are replaced by the demolition-man of other name; ‘transnational corporations’.) This armed insurgency is waged against most of what is beautiful and unique on Earth – on the planet that gave us time and space enough to survive as species and to evolve as cognitive life. Thus, the known sustainability matrix of 3 maximums (of good, of species, and of time) becomes the maximum species, minimum time, and the maximum harm.5

Intentionally or not, it is a synchronized attack: We are steadily and passionately polluting our public sphere with the diverting banalities manufactured by the so-call social networks, reality shows, ‘celebrities’ and the like – trivializing the contents of our lives. At the same time, we are massively contaminating our biosphere (waters, lands, air and near outer space) with non-degradable and/or toxic, solid or aerosol, particles radiation and noise – irreversibly harming our habitat. We pollute the time as well, turning it into cross-generation warfare’s battlefield: Our dangerous patterns might seal off the fate for untold number of generations and sorts of species to come. No wonder, our corrosive assertiveness has (time-space) parallels: acidifying of oceans and brutalization of our human interactions, as well as over-noising both are just two sides of a same coin. What is the social sphere for society that is the biosphere for the very life on earth: the (space/time – content/form) frame we live in all.

Therefore, our crisis cannot be environmental, as it was never a financial – our crisis must be a moral one. This is a cognitive deficit crisis, which we would love to eagerly spend in a limbo of denial!

Are we intentional in persistently spreading climate-change denial? Has the human race already passed the point of no return of its survival? Frankly, we do not know! Very sincerely, we do not care!

In every OECD country, an ordinary plumber (with just a few years of formal education and of no expectation pressure) is of a considerably better income then the university professor or the hospital doctor with a higher medical specialization (both of the huge societal responsibilities and both with over two decades of studies through the rigorous selections). Per average, the bank clerk (with under- or Matura level) of any banking entity in the EU states earns 14 to 16 salaries annually (basically, creating no new value for the society), but is nearly – per definition – protected by a life-long employment contract. At the same time, the majority of the EU double-PhD top researchers (per definition, creating a new value for the society) have comparably lower total annual pay, and many of them are just happy to win a 2 to 5 years research contract with the murky hope that the funding might be extended.6

Nearly all football players in the European Premier League, as well as the Formula I drivers (essentially the modern age gladiators, usually with a little to no formal education whatsoever) have individually higher yearly income than many key research institutes in the OECD states can afford to spend annually. Besides the superficial entertainment (enveloped in the ovations of masses on a brink of collective orgasm à la Mussolini parades), it is actually a triumph of brutal competition or competing brutality (football) and a massive exhaustion of hydrocarbons (Formula I) – what added value do they create to be so disproportionately overpaid?7

Some may contra-argue by stating that the present-day football celebrates the sports and a healthy life though the triumph of the physical strength of a sportsman. The Antique Greece has celebrated its athletes, and nearly worshiped the contesters and winners of the Games paying a tribute to the all-mighty Olympus.

Equally, the old Greeks largely encouraged and celebrated, promoted and (financially) supported its philosophers and scientists. It was the age when the consciousness blossomed, wisdom flourished and knowledge triumphed – the theoretical basis of all essential technological breakthroughs, that occurred in the course of subsequent centuries up to nowadays, are in fact originating from the Ancient Eagan world. Ergo, the Classic times knew about the important equilibrium between an intellect and human body.8 Modern Age has forgotten, disregarded, abandoned, betrayed and tacitly ridiculed this evolutionary wisdom.

Irrespective of our wrongly placed priorities (and passionately sustained craving to re-channel and discourage, to derail and denounce any serious debate, far too often by hiding behind a superficial entertainment), of our obscure and encouraged greed and incompetence, of our silencing, of all our residual or imposed ignorance and arrogance, and of our paramount and loud anti-intellectualism, the real facts are immitigable and are inexorably defeating:

• There is not a single peer-reviewed international journal that has published even one scientific article in last 30 years, which reports on factual evidences that any organic (marine and continental biota) or inorganic (soil, glaciers, water, polar caps, etc) system is doing better on this planet.
• There has not been a single RE or UN report in last 30 years that credibly denies a worrying increase in severity and frequency of “natural” catastrophes worldwide.
• Finally, there is not a single internationally recognized medical journal that has not been constantly reporting on an alarming increase in skin-cancers, respiratory and allergy related diseases for the past 30 years.

We are drifting, dissolving and retreating on all levels and within each and every organic or inorganic system. For the grave, burning planetary problems, our human race needs an urgent and lasting consensus which presupposes bravery, virtue, vision and creativity. All this will not result from fear of coercion, or from further military (nuclear) confrontations, but from the universally shared willingness to accord our common planetary cause. Cognitive mind can do it all.
First published by www.moderndiplomacy.eu

Endnotes:
1. Additionally, we fundamentally disagree on a role to be played by technology, even on a very definition on what should be considered as technology. Technology is not a state-of-art of science; technology is a state of mind! It is not a linear progression in mastering the natural science disciplines, but a cognitive, emphatic cluster–mastering of the critical insight.
2. As H. G. Wells once said in a different context: It is clearly the universe or nothing!
3. Sagan, the great Cosmic Fugue’s storyteller, claims: “Up there in the immensity of the Cosmos, an inescapable perception awaits us. National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic, religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars”.
4. It is not only that our energy appetite is increasing. In a peak-time of what we call the ‘technological age’, our inability to achieve any global energy efficiency is widening as well. According to the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), the total Primary Energy Supply (PES) in 1973 totalled at 6.107 Mtoe while the global Final Energy Consumption (FEC) for the same year totalled at 4.672 Mtoe. Still over 90% based on fossil hydrocarbons but already doubled in less than 40 years, the PES in 2010 was at 12.717 Mtoe while our FEC scored only 8.677 Mtoe. Ergo, we greedily demand more to burn but also to waste.
5. The Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF) headed by former UN Secretary General Kofi has stated in its Report the following: „Climate change is responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and affects 300 million people annually. By 2030, the annual death toll related to climate change is expected to rise to 500,000 people, and economic cost rocketing to $ 600 billion.” Usually the confidential reports of the reinsurance industry leaders such as Swiss RE or Munich RE are less optimistic and more realistic than this one of the GHF.
6. However, ignorance is bliss: In 2010, the GHF that authored such an indispensable report: Human Impact Report – Climate Change: The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis, has shut down for lack of funds. The organization was unable to raise enough cash to stay afloat “because of the global economic crisis. On 31 March 2010 the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs announced that the Forum was over-indebted and obliged to cease its activity.
7. Finalists of different TV primetime tirades (so-called Reality shows) that mushroomed in the last decade are receiving generous paychecks and enormous media coverage. This is the way how these anonymous nobodies are overnight becoming prominent celebrities, societal roll-models with the wide influence, unquestionable authority and respect in the blink of an eye. In this constellation a subtle, yet message is clear: the education and to it related creativity, innovations, patents, and discoveries – notably a regular career path based on a diligent creation of new value for the entire society appears as a choice for the misfortunate youth, as the last resort for the failed segments of society.
8. As Plato claims, the famous philosopher from Miletus Thales’ saying Νοῦς ὑγιὴς ἐν σώματι ὑγιεῖ – Healthy Soul in a Healthy Body (or in Latin: Mens sana in corpore sano).

References:

1. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN FCCC/1992/84, GE.05-62220 (E) 200705 and the Kyoto Protocol to the UN FCCC of 1998, UN Office of Legal Affairs;
2. Final Document: Durban Climate Summit 2011, The Climate Institute;
3. IEA (2014), World Energy Outlook 2014, OECD – IEA Publications
4. Sagan, C. (1980), Cosmos Random House, NY /Carl Sagan Productions Inc. (page: 109)
5. Global Humanitarian Forum (2009), Human Impact Report – Climate Change: The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis, GHF, Geneva
6. Dresner, S. (2002), The Principle of Sustainability, EarthScan London
7. Smith, L.C. (2010), The World in 2050 – Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future, Dutton (by Penguin group)
8. Bajrektarevic, A. (2004), Environmental Ethics, Lectures/Students Reader, Vienna (IMC University Krems), Austria

The post Lima 2014: Climate Change, Humans Remain The Same – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

During the past three weeks we have been living in the United States a wakeup call to reality that heralds Americans might not be quite the people we claim to be; not in the way we treat people within and beyond our borders. Torture and racial discrimination, different issues with similar amoral results, are intermittently resurfacing; creating great distress for the pharisaic promoters of Pax Americana… the self-proclaimed patriots convinced that America, given its predestined godly nature, can do no wrong.

After listening to President Obama for almost six years make apologies for America’s behavior in compromising domestic and international situations, I strongly sense he’s trying to act as Moralist-in-Chief for US society; however, he’s addressing the nation with politically-deceitful correctness instead of doing it with honesty. It’s embarrassing, and truly sickening, to hear him say time and again after each and every misdeed in/by members of our society, “that’s not who we are.”

But you are wrong, Mr. President, that’s who we are: a society of good people, bad people, and highly suggestible, often politically-brainwashed people; little different from a cross-section of the world’s population which, given US’ immigrant makeup, spells our society rather accurately. To see ourselves owning special virtues, exceptionalism or a deep sense of humanity – promoted by politicians’ constant adulation so as to garner votes, is not only ludicrous, but a manifestation of extreme arrogance… and ignorance.

America, little different from other nations, has sanctioned criminality via its elected leadership from time immemorial, no matter how godly we try to paint ourselves. And although our constitution and venerable institutions have given us the foundation for a more humane, tolerant society, our reverence for individualism (versus placing society’s needs first) and predatory capitalism (versus healthy competitive enterprise), have more than offset that humanity advantage. As a result, both intolerance and criminality have permeated our society and, at best, we fair no better than average among the world’s nations (developed or developing) when it comes to crime and violence. We do not appear particularly enlightened in practicing a fair system of social justice, and that is evidenced by the existing lack of trust between law enforcement and many, if not most, black ghetto communities… or the discrimination felt by black males from police.

World statistics on crime continuously place the United States at the tail end in safety to most economically-advanced nations [Numbeo’s 2014-midyear crime index (sample): Japan 15, Germany 29, Spain 34, Canada 37, UK 41, India 45, US 50, Russia 52, Mexico 53, Argentina 60, Brazil 70, South Africa 79, Venezuela 83 – these figures, compiled by Numbeo, offer crime-safety rankings which are in line with those provided by the United Nations in years past].

And, if we in America do not accept crime statistics as the major indicator of how violent we are, our love for firearms – membership in NRA comes to mind, and a clear majority of people, although decreasing, favoring the death penalty, should unmistakably attest to the existence of that violence-gene in our societal-DNA makeup.
Topping the nationwide protests of black vs. blue (police), a Senate report, six years in the making, comes out admitting we have tortured “unfriendlies” courtesy of the CIA, giving sordid, dehumanizing details.

America’s concern, widely being expressed in this week’s corporate media, however, isn’t so much on the crimes (torture) committed but on how people in other nations might view the US and the nation’s possible loss of “moral stature.” A media foolish enough not to acknowledge that what the public is now being told in America is but old news for the rest of the world; that Americans live in a news-vacuum the media has “patriotically” created for them to keep US’ moral virginity intact… as if past military war crimes, wars of choice, and bullying/criminal sanctions were isolated minutiae not worth debate or even discussion.

In a peculiar, auto-suggested way we continue to see ourselves as holders of the world’s moral compass without realizing, much less admitting, that such is not the case; that we are no more virtuous than other people in the world; and that by virtue of our extensive military and economic power, we are more apt to perform misdeeds, and even terrorize others, since we have chosen to be only accountable to ourselves.

Meanwhile at the White House, Mr. Obama continues sermonizing, telling the world how America champions liberty and human rights… while stamping his imprimatur for any collateral innocent killings caused by drones delivered courtesy of the Pentagon or the CIA. And that is hypocrisy at its sublime best, Mr. President.

Before we try injecting fairness and humanity into the world, we should look inwardly and try to infuse a sizeable dosage of fairness and humanity in ourselves: seeking to dismantle the existing inequities in our own society; the ever-increasing disparities in wealth; discrimination and access to justice; and Americans’, all Americans’, right to freedom and privacy.

The post Deeds, Not Claims, Say Who We Are – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Election Department and People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) have decided to bring 104 international election monitors to observe the upcoming presidential polls.

Accordingly, 35 observers have been invited from PAFFREL, and the Department of Elections has invited 69 observers to monitor the Presidential Election to be held on January 08.

The international monitors will be from South Asian Election Monitoring Forum, South Asian Election Monitoring Association, Commonwealth Association and Asian Election Monitoring Network.

They are to arrive in Sri Lanka on the 27th of this month to engage in monitoring the campaign and voting, PAFFREL said.

Meanwhile, the ballot papers for the postal voting were delivered yesterday.

The Election Secretariat has handed over the Postal Ballot Papers to the District Election Offices on the 12th of December and the Postal Insurance Packs containing Postal Ballot Papers were delivered today (15).

Over 547,000 have become eligible for postal voting for the forthcoming Presidential election.

Postal voting will be held on the 23rd and the 24th of December. Those who fail to cast their votes will be able to exercise their franchise on the 30th.

The post Sri Lanka: Over 100 International Monitors To Observe Elections appeared first on Eurasia Review.

President Barack Obama’s goal of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison complex in Cuba has met heavy resistance from lawmakers in Washington, and now the White House is turning to a higher authority for help: the Vatican.

During an hour-long meeting with Cardinal Pietro Parolin on Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry asked the Vatican to help the United States find “adequate humanitarian solutions” for inmates currently being held at Guantanamo. Pope Francis himself has stressed that all prisoners should be treated humanely and with dignity.

While the meeting covered various issues – including the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the turmoil in the Middle East – Kerry noted that the US is still committed to closing Guantanamo.

“The US commitment to the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison was also illustrated and the desire expressed for the Holy See’s assistance in seeking adequate humanitarian solutions for current inmates,” Vatican spokesperson Fr. Federico Lombardi told the Vatican Insider.

With more than 130 detainees still at Guantanamo, the US is perhaps hoping the Vatican’s many international connections could convince countries to change their minds and take detainees into their own facilities, the Vatican Insider reported. There has been no information regarding what the Vatican would do to help.

The US has been trying to transfer detainees from the prison for years, but has been hard-pressed to find countries willing to accept the terror suspects. Opened in 2002, the prison has held hundreds of suspects without trial. Some detainees have been held since the complex opened in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001.

However, American lawmakers have balked at White House requests to transfer detainees to prisons in the United States. The home countries of suspects have also resisted proposals to accept their return, leaving America with the option of finding so-called “third countries” that are willing to facilitate a transfer.

Discussion regarding the humane treatment of prisoners has come to the forefront following the release of the Senate torture report, which details the brutal tactics deployed by the CIA against accused terror suspects.

Prison conditions have also been highlighted by Pope Francis, who called on people around the world to respect the dignity of all inmates. He condemned the use of torture and extraordinary rendition, which involves detaining individuals in one country and transferring them to prisons in another.

“These abuses will only stop if the international community firmly commits to recognizing…the principle of placing human dignity above all else,” he said at the time.

The pontiff went on to reiterate the Catholic Church’s opposition to capital punishment, as well as life sentences, which he termed “a hidden death penalty.”

“All Christians and men of good faith are therefore called upon today to fight, not only for the abolition of the death penalty – whether it is legal or illegal and in all its forms – but also to improve the conditions of incarceration to ensure that the human dignity of those deprived of their freedom is respected,” he said.

The post Kerry Asks Vatican To Help Close Guantanamo Bay appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Elise Harris

The Knights of Columbus have donated $1.6 million to the Pope’s personal charities, and are giving an additional $400,000 to assist the Holy See’s relief efforts in the Middle East.

Supreme Knight Carl Anderson informed Pope Francis of the donations during a Dec. 12 private audience with the pontiff, which is the third that has been granted him since Francis’ election in March, 2013.

The donations to the papal charities come from the Knights’ Vicarius Christi Fund, which they established in 1981. With the annual earnings of the fund donated to the pope for his personal charities, this year’s gift landed at $1.6 million.

In addition to speaking with the Pope regarding the order’s numerous activities, Anderson also told him about the efforts of the Knights of Columbus Christian Refugee Relief Fund.

Anderson said that the Knights would provide an addition contribution of $400,000 from that fund in order to supplement the relief efforts of the Holy See in the Middle East.

In September the Knights donated $ 2million to assist Christians and other religious minorities facing severe persecution or displacement in Iraq and nearby countries through a matching fund.

Their matching fund campaign drew $1 million in public donations just three weeks, which the fraternal order matched with their own gift of $1 million.

In November the Knights gave an additional $2 million to Middle East relief efforts by donating the sum to build new houses for Iraqi and Syrian refugees fleeing violence. On their website, the Knights of Columbus said that construction on the houses could begin as early as this month.

More than 100,000 Christians have fled their homes in the Mosul region of Northern Iraq after Islamic State forces drove them out in their summer offensive. Many of the inhabitants had to leave most or all of their belongings behind, and refugees are now living in tents or schools.

The Knights last month also gave $200,000 in general aid from their Christian Refugee Relief Fund to assist the Greek Melkite Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo, Syria.

After his morning meeting with Pope Francis, Anderson participated in the pontiff’s Mass marking the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which was held in St. Peter’s Basilica.

At the Mass’s conclusion Msgr. Eduardo Chavez, postulator of the cause of St. Juan Diego, and co-author with the Supreme Knight of a bestselling book on Our Lady of Guadalupe as well as a Canon of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and member of the Knights of Columbus, presented the Roman Pontiff with a silver rose.

The Knights of Columbus website reveals that the rose was hand-carried by Knights hailing from Canada, the United States and Mexico City as a symbol of unity for the American continents.

Honored as the Patroness of America, Our Lady of Guadalupe has been reverenced by the order for more than 50 years through their sponsorship of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Silver Rose program.

According to the order’s website, Anderson dedicated the Knights to Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2001.

With 1.8 million members worldwide, the Knights of Columbus is the world’s largest Catholic fraternal order.

In addition to the crisis in the Middle East, the order has responded to disasters including the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., typhoons in the Philippines, hurricanes and tornados in the U.S., floods in Mexico, and tsunamis in Indonesia and Japan.

The Knights of Columbus have historically supported oppressed Christians, such as during the persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico in the 1920s. The Knights provided humanitarian assistance for victims of persecution and worked to raise international awareness about the situation there.

Last year, the Knights provided more than $170 million and 70 million hours to charitable causes.

The post Knights Of Columbus Donate $2 Million To Papal Charities, Middle East Relief appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Chris Hartmann*

What does a canal have to do with human rights?

Plenty, according to the thousands of Nicaraguan protesters who filled Managua’s streets on December 10, International Human Rights Day. With banners, flags, chants, and a petition submitted to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, they came out in opposition to a proposed canal that would pass through Nicaragua, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

No doubt, the canal would increase Nicaragua’s economic importance in the region, bring in much needed income, and generate jobs. But those benefits come at steep costs: The canal is expected to devastate the environment. Moreover, it would displace indigenous communities and hurt some of the nation’s most marginalized peoples.

The relative locations of the Nicaragua and Panama Canals

The proposed canal disregards several of Nicaragua’s constitutional mandates — including indigenous peoples’ rights to autonomy and self-determination, and the right to collective ownership of communal and indivisible lands. As the farmers, youth, rural villagers, and other demonstrators made clear in their protest, the canal would come at too high a price.

Economic Progress (for Elites)

In June 2013, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega hurriedly proposed and signed Law 840, which granted the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company, or the HKND Group — a Chinese corporation — a 50-year lease to the project, renewable for another 50 years.

The project’s investors have yet to be identified — a troubling fact that highlights its lack of transparency. HKND’s involvement reflects the ever-growing presence of East Asian investors — most notably Chinese — in Latin America, a region long dominated politically and economically by los gringos.

Construction on the proposed $50-billion canal is scheduled to begin on December 22. At 172 miles long, the Nicaragua canal will be three times the length of the Panama Canal further south. More importantly, it far exceeds the Panama Canal’s width and depth, enabling it to accommodate increasingly super-sized container ships that cannot fit through the Panama Canal’s locks.

The proposed canal is projected to be an economic boon, perhaps tripling the economic growth rate of Nicaragua — currently the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with 40 percent of its population living in poverty. But although the impoverished masses may benefit, however minimally, through trickle-down effects from the canal, it appears to be Nicaragua’s economic elite — including Ortega’s closest Sandinista supporters — who stand to gain the most.

Environmental Hazards

While those few are profiting, the proposed canal could have a catastrophic impact on the physical environment.

The planned route passes through Lake Nicaragua, Central America’s largest lake and a major source of drinking water. Dredging and salt infiltration from the canal are expected to permanently alter Lake Nicaragua’s ecosystem. The canal would also destroy more than 400,000 acres of rainforests and wetlands, which, besides being part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, are critical to local and regional biodiversity conservation efforts.

In response to environmentalists, project proponents argue that the canal is needed to save Nicaragua’s protected areas from illegal loggers and cattle ranchers. They say that increased revenue will allow for more surveillance and better enforcement of environmental regulations in the region.

Who is right? Developers aren’t waiting to see. Even as construction on two auxiliary projects — a deep-water port and highways for transporting large machinery — was scheduled to begin, the results of an environmental study had yet to be released.

Impacts on Indigenous Groups and the Rural Poor

Beyond environmental devastation, the proposed canal could have tremendous social implications.

Like the environmental impact study, results of a social impact assessment have similarly yet to be released. But those most likely to be displaced by the canal are impoverished rural landholders. Farmers and residents near the lake are concerned that the proposed canal will disrupt subsistence agricultural practices, further pollute the lake, and decrease water for personal consumption and irrigation. Both farmers and residents worry they will be evicted from their lands, and many will refuse to leave willingly.

The proposed canal also intersects territory traditionally held by indigenous groups. Accounting for almost 9 percent of the national population, much of Nicaragua’s indigenous population is located along the sparsely populated yet extensive Atlantic Coast region that makes up approximately one-half of the country’s total land area.

Since the 1980s, when conflicts erupted over how to govern the Atlantic Coast regions, indigenous groups have had a tense relationship with the ruling Sandinista party. In 1987, the Sandinistas passed legislation establishing an autonomous regime in the Atlantic Coast and granting collective territorial rights to its inhabitants under a multiethnic nation-state. Earlier this year, constitutional amendments clarified and extended rights concerning cultural preservation, collective territory, and autonomy. Yet, as in the past, central government figures in Managua continue to make decisions concerning the autonomous regions and their inhabitants without consultation and local input.

In recent years, indigenous groups have increasingly confronted cattle ranchers, illegal loggers, and drug traffickers, all of whom encroach on their land and cultures. Mestizos now outnumber indigenous and African-descendent populations in this region along the Atlantic coast, consequently reducing their political power. The proposed canal, along with associated development projects — including extensive roads, several locks, massive ports, and a free trade zone — will likely exacerbate local strife. 

Standing up to Resist

Indigenous groups and rural landholders are not standing by idly. Several indigenous groups have filed suit against the Ortega administration, alleging violations of constitutional and international rights, including the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

And tens of thousands of Nicaraguans — along with a slew of local, national, and international NGOs — have participated in more than a dozen protests around the country, crying out that “Our lands are not negotiable, are not for sale, and are not given away!” They demand transparency and dialogue about the canal.

Things need to change, and the sooner the better. Nicaragua and HKND must release environmental and social impact surveys. And now, more than ever, the Nicaraguan government, HKND Group, and yet-to-be-identified international investors must recognize indigenous groups’ decades-old rights to autonomy. The livelihoods, cultures, and rights of tens of thousands of marginalized Nicaraguans depend on it.

Chris Hartmann, a doctoral candidate in geography at the Ohio State University, examines the political economy of Nicaragua.

The post Nicaragua: A Canal At What Cost? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Richard J. Holdren, Stephen F. Nowak, and Fred J. Klinkenberger, Jr.

Operation Enduring Freedom has exacted a tremendous cost on the United States in terms of both blood and treasure. By the end of fiscal year 2013, the financial toll had reached $645 billion. While we have made a significant investment in rebuilding Afghanistan, certain actors have seen our sacrifice as an opportunity to enrich themselves by stealing money and materiel intended to aid in the rebuilding of the country.

A recent study has indicated that these corrupt actions threaten the future of Afghanistan. According to the Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA) report titled Operationalizing Counter/Anti-Corruption Study, “Corruption alienates key elements of the population, discredits the government and security forces, undermines international support, subverts state functions and rule of law, robs the state of revenue, and creates barriers to economic growth.”1 Corruption, in other words, undermines the very essence of those attributes required to establish and maintain a legitimate government.

There is no universal definition or criterion as to what encompasses corruption, with many describing it as, “You know it when you see it.”2 After years of struggling with the corruption problem in Afghanistan, the term has yet to be defined in joint doctrine. Part of the difficulty is that each culture defines behaviors and attitudes that it considers “normal,” and these vary greatly from one group to another. Acceptable behavior in one culture may be anathema to another, while merely boorish to another. In some cultures, paying a gratuity may be frowned upon, while in others it is seen as appropriate in certain situations. In the United States, for example, the wait staff in restaurants depends on tips for a majority of their wages. Taxi drivers expect to be tipped and are not afraid to explain tipping etiquette to passengers who fail to grasp the concept. On the other hand, attempting to offer a gratuity to a police officer or a judge is considered a corrupt practice.

Afghans, on the other hand, have become accustomed to paying additional fees, which they call baksheesh, for goods and services as a matter of routine. It is important to note that baksheesh is not a token of gratitude for a job well done, but a payment that is required before a service is rendered, even if the provider is already being paid to perform that service. According to the United Nations, Afghans pay $3.9 billion per year in bribes and similar “gratuities.” Given that Afghanistan has a total gross national product of only $14 billion per year, corruption consumes 28 percent of the Afghan economy; roughly half of Afghan citizens reported paying a bribe for a public service. Among the most outrageous examples of baksheesh are documented cases of wounded Afghan soldiers starving to death because military hospital staff refused to feed (or even treat) patients until the appropriate gratuity was paid.3

Afghanistan is not unique in suffering from corruption. In its report published in 2013, Transparency International assessed 177 nation states, and 122 (69 percent) were identified as having a serious corruption problem. Of these, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Somalia were tied for last place as the three most corrupt.4

Why is corruption such an important issue? It is reasonable to expect that in future military engagements, we will continue to face the problem of corruption. Corrupt governments are often ineffective and unstable, making them likely candidates to fail and require intervention. We need to heed the costly lessons learned in Afghanistan to be better prepared to deal with corruption in the future.

A Brief History of Corruption during Enduring Freedom

To understand corruption in Afghanistan, we must understand the execution of Operation Enduring Freedom and the prosecution of the war. This contextual understanding may be helpful in making the lessons of the operation more readily adaptable to future situations.

In October 2001, the United States initiated Enduring Freedom after the Taliban government refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders implicated in the 9/11 attacks against the United States. U.S. Special Forces and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives allied with warlords from the Northern Alliance—a well-organized Afghan resistance group already fighting the Taliban—to engage the group as a proxy force. This phase of the strategy was successful, and the Taliban and al Qaeda were driven out of Afghanistan’s population centers.

Unfortunately, with the intense focus on defeating al Qaeda, little attention was paid to the pervasiveness and potential consequences of corruption in Afghanistan. The U.S. military’s support of and patronage to the Northern Alliance enabled the warlords to operate without constraint. With the void left by the absence of the Taliban, there was no organized rule of law in the country. Unfettered by legal or other challenges, the warlords leveraged goods they had received legitimately from the United States as well as those acquired through criminal acts in order to amass political power.

When Afghanistan’s new constitution was signed in 2004, Hamid Karzai—through a series of political deals—was named the country’s interim president. The 25 ministries of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan offered him a perfect opportunity to dispense patronage, and Karzai appointed various warlords to fill key government positions. Karzai also had the authority to appoint all governors and the mayors of key cities. While patronage allowed Karzai to consolidate his powerbase, his continued political security was dependent on the continued support of warlords. As one advisor explained, “He and his family started making deals with the various warlords in order to keep themselves in power, and [they have] certainly done so.”5

Once established within ministries and other government posts, the warlords who had become government officials used their positions to divert resources to their constituencies to strengthen the reach and power of their networks. This convergence of power and money under the warlords’ control created what became known as criminal patronage networks, which offered a conduit through which both legal and illegal gains were blended so that the warlords now had the ability to conduct illegal activities under their own protection.

As the U.S. military presence grew, it faced a logistical challenge: “Afghanistan . . . is a landlocked country whose neighbors range from uneasy U.S. allies, such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan, to supposed adversaries, such as Iran. Thirty years of war have devastated what little infrastructure the country had.”6 To ensure a steady flow of the materiel required to sustain its forces, the United States contracted with Afghan companies to provide secure long-haul trucking services. The result was that the “responsibility for the supply chain was almost entirely outsourced to local truckers and Afghan private security providers.”7

These transportation and security contracts represented a significant investment—in 2010, the Department of Defense contracted $2.16 billion for truck transportation. The contract went to eight companies as prime contractors, none of which were known for expertise in logistics (and in fact were suspect). In fact, “several of the prime contractors . . . [did] not own trucks and subcontract out all of their trucking needs. In other words, they essentially [served] as brokers to the local Afghan trucking companies.”8 Also, “one of the prime contractors . . . was founded by the son of the Afghan Defense Minister and had no direct experience with managing trucking before this contract.”9

The trucking companies were required to provide their own security, for which they relied on private militias that were largely controlled by the warlords. According to the JCOA report, the “private security companies . . . are typically warlords, strongmen, commanders, and militia leaders who compete with the [Afghan government] for power and authority. . . . The contractors have little choice but to use [the security companies] in what amounts to a vast protection racket.”10 Transportation and construction companies, as well as security escorts, pay the Taliban not to be attacked. In December 2009, then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money.”11

Funding to Afghanistan was provided primarily to support the Afghan Security Forces, but money was obligated for other purposes as well. One example was for the repair or construction of badly needed infrastructure. Local U.S. military commanders initiated projects, but were not able to see them to completion due to normal deployment cycles. As a result, many projects were planned and maybe even begun, but few were finished.

Meaningful measurement of progress during wartime is difficult because it is dependent upon objective, quantifiable data. One metric that was quantifiable was the distribution of Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds. One officer noted, “When [senior commanders] believed that putting cash in people’s hands was the way to win hearts and minds, they graded [lower-level] commanders on the number of CERP projects they could get obligated.”12 As a former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting explained, “They got a whole bunch of CERP projects; none of which were completed and most were barely under way when that commander rotated and the new commander came in. What’s [the new commander’s] incentive? To go fix all of the old CERP projects or do a bunch of his own.”13

The sheer amount of money for direct aid and contracted services flowing into Afghanistan overwhelmed its economy; there was so much American cash that it could not all be spent. According to the JCOA report, “An economy can only absorb a certain amount of inputs until it becomes saturated. Additional input goes somewhere else, usually capital flight, usually illicit. In Afghanistan, absorptive capacity [was] reached in the first year of operations. That led to the corruption eruption.”14

When the United States realized the severity of the situation, it sought to correct it but faced an insurmountable hurdle. It could not impose sanctions on the trucking companies or the security forces; the warlords had become so well entrenched that any imposed sanctions would have impeded U.S. logistics.15 To ensure U.S. forces continued to be supplied, the criminal activities of the warlords were largely ignored.

The problem, however, was not limited to activities controlled by the warlords. Financial aid from the United States and other coalition members was deposited directly into the Afghan treasury, and materiel, such as medical equipment and supplies, was turned over to the various Afghan ministries.16 At that point, the United States transferred all legal rights of the cash or materiel to the sovereign state of Afghanistan. It was the government’s to use or dispose of as it saw fit.17

There were no treaties or other enforceable agreements in place to control the money or materiel after transfer. When U.S. officials observed materiel being misused or stolen, they referred it to the Afghan government to resolve, but the usual response was that there was no problem to correct. When the Americans pressed Afghan officials to conduct an investigation, their response was that the United States was interfering with Afghan sovereignty.18

The Lessons

Over time it became obvious that even with massive U.S. financial investment, the expected results were not being achieved. The military hospital was not performing as planned. Fuel was being diverted before reaching its intended destination. Afghan officers were reportedly using military helicopters for questionable purposes. Ultimately, this led to various investigations and analyses, the results of which may prove as important for future operations as they did for resolving the problems experienced in Afghanistan.

In retrospect, it may seem that correcting corruption in Afghanistan was not a high priority. However, the priority for finding answers during armed conflict is to solve combat problems; defeating improvised explosive devices will win out over auditing funds given to a construction company every time. If there was limited capacity to address problems, protecting American troops always took precedence.

By 2010, Afghanistan’s corruption problem was being examined by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, whose report was critical of the U.S. provision of reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan “without the benefit of a comprehensive anticorruption strategy, and that U.S. anticorruption efforts had provided relatively little assistance to some key Afghan institutions.”19 To solve a problem, one must understand it, so in March 2013 General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., USMC, commander of U.S. Forces, Afghanistan, requested, through the U.S. Central Command chain of command, “a study examining counter/anti-corruption (CAC) operational challenges and provide recommendations to inform planning, operations, and decision-making for the final stages of Operation [Enduring Freedom], the follow-on mission, and to capture best practices for future doctrine.”20

The Joint Staff J7’s JCOA Division, in cooperation with the Joint Center for International Security Assistance Force Assistance, executed the task. After interviewing 66 key individuals and reviewing relevant material from over 500 literature sources, the study was completed and signed on February 28, 2014.

Among the report’s key findings are the following four points.

Allying with the Warlords and Overwhelming the Afghan Economy with Cash Fostered Corruption. The decision to ally with the Northern Alliance was driven by the military objective of defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban. Such short-term alliances of convenience can lead to long-term problems. (In 2002, there was little expectation that military operations in Afghanistan would continue for so many years.) In the future, it would be prudent to anticipate that short-term operations are going to take far longer than initially expected.

Commanders must also be aware that there will be second- and third-order consequences of their decisions. Initially the Northern Alliance’s role as a proxy force was beneficial, but ultimately it became a powerful obstruction to U.S. interests. It is important to realize that military issues and goals do not exist in a vacuum. To analyze the composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect a commander’s decisions, we need to include political, military, economic, social, information, and infrastructure factors.

The civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989 left Afghanistan and its economy in shambles. What little remained was absent a central government and central bank to support an economic system. Most of the modest infrastructure that had once existed had been destroyed. Outside of agriculture, there was little potential for legitimate development or employment. It would have been wise to consider these economic factors in the analysis of the operational environment. In Afghanistan, if we had been more aware of these issues, we may have had an earlier understanding of the overall influence of the warlords and the impact of corruption.

Corruption is a cultural, economic, and legal issue. To the joint force commander, however, the key consideration is how corruption will affect the desired endstate. In Afghanistan, a successful endstate was dependent upon the successful transfer of responsibility to a legitimate Afghan government—something that has not been the norm in the past century.

Actions performed in a foreign country need to be considered in the context of that country and not purely from the U.S. perspective. In 2002, the United States pumped $20 billion into an economy that normally operates with less than $15 billion dollars per year, which totally overwhelmed the Afghan economy. Nevertheless, the next year, we continued to pump in more. What were the consequences? How has it impacted Afghan businesses that need to transport their products by truck now that U.S. contracts have driven up the price? What has this done to the price of fuel or building materials? What will happen as coalition military forces (and the money spent to support them) leave? The CIA estimates that Afghanistan’s economy grew 6.1 percent in 2011 and 12.5 percent in 2012, but the growth rate fell to 3.1 percent in 2013.

There Must Be Rule of Law to Combat Corruption, and There Must Be Processes and Mechanisms That Monitor Where Money Has Gone and What It Is Being Used For. There was no effective rule of law at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom. After the Soviet military left, the Taliban had enforced order through local courts, but after the Taliban’s defeat, there was no national legal system until the Afghan constitution was ratified in January 2004. Without the rule of law, behaviors and actions may be influenced, but they cannot be directed. In addition, property rights are not defined and there is no prosecutorial power or punishment for infractions, no matter how outrageous they may seem.

How could the United States have better managed the money and materiel it supplied for the reconstruction of Afghanistan? Declaring martial law (to secure the disbursement) would have come at a tremendous political cost that could have encouraged a more unified insurgency. A more pragmatic approach would have been to disburse money and materiel with a clear understanding of expected outcomes, with future payments dependent upon prior performance.

Tracking money and materiel and measuring performance, however, require an appropriate monitoring and reporting system, which was woefully lacking in Afghanistan. A simple paper-based system that host-nation personnel could understand and use would be far more effective than a sophisticated computerized system they do not understand. We should also leverage the expertise of Servicemembers experienced in law, supply management, finance, and contracting—granting them the commensurate authority to monitor and measure the effectiveness of our supporting funds and materiel.

Until There Was an Understanding of Afghan Corruption, There Was Little We Could Do to Correct It. Afghanistan’s corruption is a complex issue. The unexpected consequences of early decisions—such as the empowered warlords being appointed to senior government positions—are caused by the failure to adequately understand the problem.

Every military officer who is expected to deploy has the potential to be operating in an environment that includes corruption. To effectively deal with corruption, an understanding of its causes and effects should become part of every officer’s skill set. Professional military education should introduce the topic of corruption and other economic factors early and reinforce them throughout every officer’s career. Including the significance of economic factors into exercises and wargames would be beneficial. While economics is not a traditional focus of military operations, like cyber, it may soon be a critical component of the battlespace.

All Parties Must Work Together toward a Common Goal. Economics is recognized as one of the elements of national power and is dependent on a whole-of-government approach. Unity of effort would benefit if the highest levels of government provided clear guidance as to the need to address corruption. As seen in Afghanistan, the potential damage caused by corruption is significant and demands effective action. Legislation to sanction corrupt nation-states would provide a powerful tool. The Leahy Law, which restricts support for nations that violate human rights, would be an appropriate model.

Working toward a common goal with government partners is a frequent theme for the military. The Capstone Concept for Joint Operations: Joint Force 2020 places the responsibility on the military to “identify those agencies with whom Joint Forces will work most often and develop common coordinating procedures.”²¹ Guidance such as this may provide a way to operationalize combined efforts toward a common goal.

Conclusion

Every generation of military leaders builds on the lessons of those who came before, and future leaders expect that their views of operating environments will be even more comprehensive. To the map and binoculars, we have added computers and reconnaissance aircraft. Now we need to add social and economic factors such as corruption. Operation Enduring Freedom taught us that corruption can have devastating effects. To effectively deal with it, we must incorporate a thorough understanding of corruption into our education, training, and exercises. We need to be open to other factors that we will identify in the future as having an impact on our effectiveness; however, we must remember that our decisions and actions have unintended consequences. The better we understand the operating environment, the faster we will identify problems that are more easily solved in their early stages.

Corruption is a problem that does not require a costly technological solution. Instead, it is one that requires an open mind with which to observe, analyze, adapt, and address the problem in a timely manner.

About the authors:
Colonel Richard J. Holdren, USA, is Senior Analyst and Study Team Lead in the Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA) Division of the Joint Staff J7 Future Joint Force Development. Stephen F. Nowak is an Analyst and Writer in JCOA. Fred J. Klinkenberger, Jr., is a Writer-Editor in JCOA.

Source:
This article was originally published in the Joint Force Quarterly 75, which is published by the National Defense University.

Notes

1. Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA), Operationalizing Counter/Anti-Corruption Study (CAC) (Suffolk, VA: JCOA, February 28, 2014), 1, available at <http://nust.edu.pk/INSTITUTIONS/Schools/NIPCONS/nipcons-institutions/CIPS/Download%20Section/JCOA%20CAC%20Final%20Report_U.pdf>.
2. Ibid., 53.
3. Maria Abi Habib, “At Afghan Military Hospital, Graft and Deadly Neglect,” The Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2011.
4. Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2013,” Transparency.org, available at <www.transparency.org/cpi2013/results>.
5. CAC, 9.
6. Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., “Supplying the Surge in Afghanistan,” National Journal, February 20, 2010, available at <www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/supplying-the-surge-in-afghanistan-20100220>.
7. CAC, 10.
8. “Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan,” Report of the Majority Staff, Rep. John F. Tierney, Chair, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, June 2010, 13, available at <www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/HNT_Report.pdf>.
9. Ibid., 12.
10. CAC, 11.
11. “Warlord, Inc.,” 37.
12. CAC, 13.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., 12.
15. Ibid., 11, 12.
16. “Dawood National Military Hospital, Afghanistan: What Happened and What Went Wrong?” Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, 112^>th Cong., 2^nd Sess., Serial 112-164, September 12, 2012, 65, available at <www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg76249/html/CHRG-112hhrg76249.htm>.
17. Ibid., 56.
18. Ibid.
19. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Quarterly Report to the United States Congress (Washington, DC: SIGAR, October 30, 2013), 43, available at <www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2012-10-30qr.pdf>.
20. CAC, v.
21. The Capstone Concept for Joint Operations—Joint Force 2020 (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, September 10, 2012), 9, available at <www.defenseinnovationmarketplace.mil/resources/JV2020_Capstone.pdf>.

The post Dealing With Corruption: Hard Lessons Learned In Afghanistan – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Michael Hayden

I have been out of government about five-and-a-half years and I get to talk to a lot of groups. One of the standard requests is: What keeps you awake at night? The problem is there is so much going on now. It’s not just that we’re more interconnected and seeing more on our 24/7 news stations or on our cellphones; there is just more stuff – ugly stuff – going on. But what’s going on underneath? What are the tectonics? Why is the surface of the earth shaking in so many places?

I’m going to suggest three tectonics that explain why this world is so turbulent.

Tectonic Number 1: The New Malevolence: The Threat from Non-State Actors   

It was mentioned that I worked on the NSC staff for Brent Scowcroft in the Bush 41 administration. Two-and-a-half years ago, Brent wrote an article^[1] arguing that when he was National Security Advisor, all the pieces on the board we cared about were nation-states, and frankly we moved those pieces around through what you and I today would call hard power – masses of men and metal at the right place at the right time. If we liked you, it was the promise of masses of men and metal; and if we didn’t like you, it was the threat of masses of men and metal.  That’s how hard power operates among nation-states.

Scowcroft suggested most things in the industrial age trended to strengthen the nation-state. If you’re going to industrialize a society, you need a powerful center. Look at our own history. We remember the Republican Party as being the anti-slavery party but that wasn’t the only plank in the platform. The other plank was the construction of a national infrastructure to support the industrialization of the United States. Elsewhere, Communism was a horrible theory of history, worse theory of government, but it worked if your goal was to rapidly industrialize a backward and agrarian society. In other words, the industrial age trended towards strengthening the nation-state.

Whereas the industrial age strengthened the nation-state, the post-industrial information age erodes the power of the nation-state. In other words, things that we used to think could be done only by government are now being done by sub-state actors, groups, gangs, even individuals. All of us have been empowered magnificently. We have been wondrously empowered to do things on our own but that empowerment has an incredible dark side. It pushes power down to sub-state actors, groups, and individuals, some of whom are very, very malevolent. Years ago we never lost any sleep over a religious fanatic living in a cave in the Hindu Kush . . . and yet now we do.

The first tectonic is the second great age of globalization, the first age being the age of sail. The second great age of globalization has made us so interconnected, jamming together the good and the bad, the strong and the weak, in ways we have not been jammed together before.  This has made us vulnerable – not to malevolent state power but to the byproducts of the absence of state power.

Remember that “what keeps you awake at night” request I keep getting? I always had the same five things on my list and I wasn’t lazy. I think those are the five core things. Two of them are countries, one was China, one was Iran. The other three weren’t.  The other three were terrorism, transnational crime and cyber threats. None of them has to be the product of state power, and while they can be used by states, they can all come at us without being sponsored by a state.

Now, one quick corollary on tectonic 1. Our national security structure was hard-wired in 1947 to defend us against malevolent state power. The National Security Act of that year created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and America’s Air Force. Thus we’re hard-wired to work against malevolent state power but, for the reasons I have explained, one of the key challenges today emerges from the absence of state power.  And I would suggest that a lot of the prickly debates we have been having with ourselves over the past thirteen years has been about taking a national security structure designed for one set of challenges and making it work to deal with challenges not anticipated at the time.

Two presidents have said we’re at war with Al Qaeda. What do you do in a war? Close with and destroy the enemy; in other words, you kill him. We have done that in every war. What does it look like today? It looks like targeted killings from unmanned aerial vehicles outside of internationally agreed theaters of conflict. We’re a little uncomfortable with that. We don’t have a national consensus there yet.

I’ll tell you what, don’t kill them. What else can you do with the enemy? Close with and capture him. We had tens if not hundreds of thousands of German and Italian prisoners of war here in the United States during World War 2 and we kept them for the duration of the conflict. What does it look like today? It looks like that little Navy Base on the southeastern tip of Cuba. We’re a little uncomfortable with the capturing thing, too.

How about you just do your intelligence thing? How about you just figure out what these guys are doing? Why don’t you intercept their communications? Recall Bletchley Park, Enigma, Battle of Midway. What does it look like today? Everything that Edward Snowden has told you about for the last 16 months. Get the point?

The first tectonic is that the greatest dangers to your welfare and mine are not coming from state power but from the absence of state power, from ungoverned areas.   And we are not yet settled into a national consensus about how we’re going to work against that.

Tectonic 2: The Impermanence of Things We Thought Permanent

Tectonic 2 is the erosion of things we thought permanent in the international system – in particular those that derive from two treaties, Versailles and Westphalia. What I’m going to suggest is that Versailles and Westphalia are going away.

Versailles is more easily explained.  About 100 years ago, the end of World War 1, either through or at the same time as the treaty of Versailles, several countries were created. One of them was Czechoslovakia. Remember those maps that you used to stare at when you couldn’t follow the polynomial equations on the blackboard. And so let me just check the map.  If you got used to that map, I’m sorry because a lot of stuff is going away like Czechoslovakia.  That country had its “velvet divorce” – not a big deal. Yugoslavia, also created by Versailles, also no longer exists. That was not so velvet; it was pretty violent.

Now, you’ve got another country not created by, but at the same time as, Versailles: it used to be called the Soviet Union. It’s gone. And an awful lot of what’s going down now whether it’s in Abkhazia or Ossetia or Moldova or Transnistria or Crimea or  Eastern Ukraine, it’s all about who was standing on what side of a line when the music stopped and the Soviet Union dissolved. And if you think that this melting of Versailles thing is only European, you’re wrong. Spread your gaze a bit eastward and now go to the eastern Mediterranean. There are countries created at the time of Versailles – Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Iraq is gone. It is not coming back. Syria is gone. It is not coming back. These are artificial states created for the convenience of European diplomacy indifferent to the cultural, historic, commercial, religious, ethnic and linguistic realities on the ground; they were kept in place by raw power. The first application of raw power was the Europeans, the guys who drew the lines. And when the European empires melted, the lines were kept in place largely as a byproduct of the Cold War. These countries lined up on one side of the ball or the other and neither we nor the Soviets wanted those guys to start dragging us into war; so we said leave the lines alone.

And after the Cold War, those lines were kept in place by raw Arab autocracy. But it has not been a good decade so far for raw Arab autocrats. They’re going down fast. And so these artificial states, whose boundaries were kept in place by an external imposition of power, simply imploded when the external imposition of power was lifted.

Here in the United States, we have problems but we have got elastic structures in our society. We get pushy and prickly at times, and some of these times turn violent but, fundamentally, since the civil war we work it out. We have enough flexibility in our system that these tensions are by and large resolved and we move to the next level.

The tensions in the Middle East were flash frozen 100 years ago. Put another way and badly mixing my metaphors, these tensions were in a Coke bottle and we’ve decided we’re going to take the top off while forgetting that somebody has been shaking the bottle for the last 100 years. Put another way, even if we replaced Bashir al-Assad and Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi with Saint Francis of Assisi, this is still going to be a mess.

Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations, has described this as the next Thirty Years War,^[2] and he’s not suggesting our Air Force is going to be bombing and strafing there for thirty years but he is trying to compare it to the Thirty Years’ War in Europe (1618-1648), when Europe went from one equilibrium to another equilibrium post-1648. In the intervening thirty years, one third of the continent died. That’s what Richard is suggesting. This is a generational thing.

I mentioned the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. That war was fundamentally a war of religion. In the arc of Western history, Westphalia is the handshake amongst us. It said we have a long list of reasons to kill one another but let’s take religion off the list. In other words, we in the West decided that we were going to separate the secular from the sacred.

What’s the relevance of that today? We in the West are making the presumption that one of the other great monotheisms of the world, Islam, is going to arrive at the same deal at some point in its history; that Islam will agree to separate the secular from the sacred. But one point is not a trend line, and we’ve got one point. That’s how Christendom did it. That’s how Christendom made its compromise with modernity. We are all operating under the assumption that Islam will do the same thing. We’ll see.

That’s only one element of Westphalia; there are other elements. The premise of Westphalia is that the nation-state is the fundamental unit of international discourse and the nation-state has a degree of sacredness, for lack of a better term, with regard to its boundaries or its reality or its sovereignty. That reality is being gnawed at from the left and the right.

From the left, there is the concept known as R2P – the “responsibility to protect.” It is the justification that the UN used for entering into Libya in 2011: the right of the international community to determine that what’s going on internally in another country is so displeasing that the community can override the sovereignty of that country. That contradicts Westphalia, which saw sovereignty as a big deal, where internal is internal.

The Westphalia concept is getting gnawed from the right by Vladimir Putin. Westphalia says you are a citizen of the country in which you reside. What Putin is doing is not just causing an awful lot of trouble in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine and trying to overthrow the post-Cold War security structure in Europe – all big things; he is going after the fundamental premise of Westphalia that you’re a citizen of the country in which you reside and he is replacing it with a different definition: that your citizenship is determined by the language your mom and dad spoke in the kitchen while you were growing up. That is a fundamentally different concept. And that’s the tectonic:  things you and I thought were permanent – like borders and the concept of sovereignty – are being eroded.

Tectonic Number 3: The Perilous Trajectory of US-China Relations

The third tectonic has to do with the two great powers left on the planet – the United States and China. We’re the only superpower but we are getting used to the reality of a near peer with respect to the Chinese. I firmly believe China is not an enemy of the United States. There aren’t any good reasons for China to be an enemy. There are logical non-heroic policy choices available to us and the Chinese. Those choices will keep the relationship competitive. Occasionally that competition will rise to the level of confrontation but it never has to get to the level of conflict.

That said, according to Professor Graham Allison at Harvard University, what you have here is the fundamental issue of a status quo power dealing with an emerging power.^[3] As he put it, we have seen this movie before – when the dominant power Sparta faced the rising power of Athens in the 5^th century BC and about two dozen times since the start of the modern era in 1500. He said that very often the mechanism by which the status quo power and the emerging power resolve their differences and get to a new balance is a process generally known as . . . global war. So this is a really important tectonic. This is something that really requires an awful lot of attention.

But let’s focus on the status of each of these two countries. Most people like me are willing to tell you that we spend as much time fretting about Chinese failure as Chinese success, about China’s weakness as we do Chinese strength. There are incredible structural problems inside the People’s Republic right now. If you think our social security system is a ponzi scheme, just think what it must be for a society that’s had a one-child policy for generations.

There is maldistribution of wealth between the coast, which looks like us, and inland, which looks like China 300 years ago. There is environmental catastrophe on a scale hard for us to imagine. We’re talking about shutting down cars, home heating and factories so that the sky could be seen during the APEC meeting in Beijing. I saw one estimate that Chinese pollution cost the Chinese economy about 11 percent of GDP a year.

So if you’re Xi Jinping in the Politburo, you’re riding the tiger here. By the way, who died and made you emperor?  Why are you in charge? Marx, Engels, Lenin? Nah, long gone.  You’re in charge because of Chinese GDP growth for the last fifteen years, not because of ideology. But most people actually think that the growth has actually been considerably less than what the Chinese claim. And even if the party delivered in the past, we’re telling you they’re not going to be able to continue to deliver. What got their game to this level is incapable of getting their game to the next level. And so if it’s not economic growth and if it’s not Marxism, what else will keep the regime in power?

Some say Confucian merit. They are accustomed to being governed by people who deserve to be the governors. They are well educated. They’re morally superior. If you’re going to buy that morally superior line for the Chinese communist party, then you do not have access to the Chinese blogosphere. This is an incredibly corrupt party. The Chinese people are not going to grant it control on some platform of moral superiority.

So I’m running out of ideas here. It’s not Marxism, it’s not moral superiority, and it’s not economic delivery. What’s left? And the ugly thing that’s left is nationalism. And that’s why you see the Chinese beating their chest about a bunch of rocks called the Senkaku Islands or the Diaoyu. Actually they’re creating a bunch of rocks in the South China Sea so that they can claim the territorial waters about them.

The last thing I’ll touch on is the tectonic internal to us. Where are we going as a people? What is the role you think is appropriate for us in the world today?

Professor Walter Russell Mead (an earlier Benjamin Franklin Award winner) says you can divide American presidents into four baskets when it comes to their foreign policy.^[4] He said you can have a Hamiltonian policy, named for the first Secretary of the Treasury. This is the idea that America can’t be free unless it’s prosperous; America can’t be prosperous unless it’s strong. I think Governor Romney would have been Hamiltonian.

Or you can have a Wilsonian foreign policy, known for its idealism – making the world safe for democracy, trumpeting the war to end all wars.

The third model is the Jeffersonian foreign policy, which is inward looking, focusing on what has to be done at home rather than abroad. During his presidency, there was an undeclared naval war between France and Great Britain off the mouth of the Chesapeake, and both the French and the British were grabbing American ships and American sailors. The new Republic was very offended by this and people were saying you have to stand up for us. Jefferson therefore went to Congress for an authorization – not an authorization for the use of military force but an authorization called the non-intercourse acts, which allowed the president to direct American merchant men to stay in port. His response to our being raided on the high seas by the French and British was: don’t go there.

Finally, there is the Jacksonian tradition. Andrew Jackson was the first American president from the frontier. He was an Indian fighter, a war hero, and the first Democratic president (whether you spell it with a big D or a small d). Mead characterizes as Jacksonian adherents the people who watch Fox news.

George W. Bush, the president that I served, was Wilsonian, the most Wilsonian man in this office since Wilson. I will admit that President Bush had a touch of Jackson going on there too. There was a time he was walking past a press rope line – when things were heading south in Iraq – someone barked out a question: What about that insurgency? And the president just wheeled around and said, “bring it on.” That’s Andrew Jackson.

President Obama is equally Wilsonian. Take the speech in Cairo, or the speech in Ankara, or Prague. The president is trying to sponsor a world in which there are no nuclear weapons. That’s really Wilsonian. I also think President Obama is Jeffersonian, manifest in sentiments such as “the tide of war is receding” or that Al Qaeda is on the run and it’s time to do nation-building at home. A lot of the tension we see in our government trying to make decisions is the president and the staff reflecting this inner struggle between his inner Wilson and his inner Jefferson. Do you want evidence of that tension? Go back and check the West Point speech in December 2009, when he says we’re surging in Afghanistan – sort of, for about 18 months.

The tectonic here is: What are we going to decide is our model? Where are we going with this? Remember that speech about six weeks ago, when the president gave a speech he never wanted to give about ISIS? You all probably watched that with great interest but your interest was minuscule compared to that of people around the world. For the rest of the world, this is the tectonic.

If we’re in Paris and I’m the former head of DGSE and you’re a bunch of French foreign policy thinkers, I’d have started with this one. This is the one everyone is watching. What are the Americans going to do?

I have always had my struggle with American exceptionalism. I think we’re exceptional but it sounds a little too bombastic, and it entails a little too much chest-beating. But I learned an important lesson in 1994 in Sarajevo. I was with the US European command. Sarajevo was under siege during the war in Bosnia. I was in the Sarajevo market about two days after a Serbian 120-millimeter mortar shell came down in the market, detonating at about eight feet above ground. It blew the shrapnel everywhere, and dozens were killed. When I went to the marketplace, I could see the shrapnel holes in the asphalt.  It was winter and bitterly cold. I was in my battle gear. I had a weapon and an American flag patch, and I was just walking around. At some point, one person, then another, saw the flag, and other people gathered and they started chanting USA, USA. USA. At that point, I came to the realization that it really didn’t matter whether or not I thought we were exceptional, everyone else does.

There are certain expectations. We didn’t earn it. We probably don’t want it. But the accidents of history and the will of the Creator have put us in a place where what we do matters for the welfare of the planet – more than any other country. And if we do this half well, if we do this to the best of our ability, the best mark we’ll ever get from history is, “as global hegemons, these guys weren’t bad.” But that’s as good as it gets. That’s where we are. And that’s why what FPRI does – taking a long view about where this fits into history, geography and culture – is so very important. If we get it wrong, we suffer – and the rest of the world does, too. So I am happy to be associated with your work, and I’m honored that you thought enough of me to include me in your group. Thank you very much.

This article was the Keynote Address by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, Recipient of FPRI’s 10th Annual Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Service, FPRI Annual Dinner, November 19, 2014

About the author:
General Hayden has devoted his life to public service, serving as Director of the CIA (2006-09), Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (2005-06), and Director of the NSA (1999-2005). He retired from the US Air Force as a four-star general in 2008 after nearly 39 years of active-duty military service, serving in various capacities, including Commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and Director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center. Currently, he is a Principal of the Chertoff Group and Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University. He appears regularly on national news media to comment on a range of national security and intelligence issues.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI here.

Notes:
[1] “A World in Transformation,” by Brent Scowcroft, The National Interest, May-June 2012.

[2] The New Thirty Years’ War,” by Richard Haass, Project Syndicate, July 21, 2014.

[3] “Avoiding Thucydides’s Trap,” by Graham Allison, Financial Times, August 22, 2012.

[4] Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, by Walter Russell Mead (New York: Random House, 2011).

The post Understanding The New Global Disorder: Three Tectonics – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — The Russian central bank has announced a dramatic hike of its benchmark interest rate to 17 percent from 10.5 percent to try to stem the ruble’s precipitous fall.

In a statement early on December 16, the bank said the move aims at “limiting substantially increased ruble depreciation risks and inflation risks.”

The Russian currency strengthened sharply after the announcement, snapping back to 60 rubles per U.S. dollar.

On December 15, the Russian ruble suffered a mini-crash, losing almost 10 percent to more than 64 a dollar.

That extended its plunge this year to nearly 50 percent, which overtook the Ukrainian hryvnia’s drop.

The fall of the ruble came despite efforts by Russia’s central bank to prop up the national currency.

The bank raised interest rates for the sixth time in 2014 and spent more than $80 billion from the country’s reserves.

Analysts say the falling price of oil and Western economic sanctions against Russia over the Kremlin’s interference in Ukraine have sent the ruble to the all-time lows.

A falling currency increases the cost of imports, thereby stoking inflationary pressures.

The Bank of Russia said late December 15 that capital flight from the country may reach $134 billion by the end of the year.

And the economy may shrink 4.5 percent to 4.7 percent next year, the most since 2009, if oil averages $60 a barrel under a “stress scenario.”

Russian industrial output shrank in November for the first time in 10 months in a result seen as linked to the declining ruble.

Dmitry Dudkin, head of fixed-income research at Uralsib Financial in Moscow, said the ruble’s weakness is largely due to the outflow of money from the country.

He added that “Russia doesn’t look like a place where one should invest money, even without the [Western economic] sanctions.”

The post Russia: Central Bank Hikes Key Interest Rate To 17% As Ruble Falls appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Today (December 15), the We Stand With Shaker campaign that I launched with campaigner Joanne MacInnes three weeks ago secured a ringing endorsement from the Daily Mail — which highlighted Shaker’s plight in a front-page story and editorial on Friday — with the publication, in today’s edition of the Daily Mail, of an open letter to David Cameron, which I wrote, calling for the PM “to pick up the phone to President Obama, and to bring Shaker Aamer home.” The letter was also published on the We Stand With Shaker website.

The open letter is signed by dozens of actors, comedians, politicians, writers and other prominent individuals, including music legend Roger Waters (ex-Pink Floyd) and Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the legal action charity Reprieve, who both attended the launch on November 24, the comedian Frankie Boyle, the journalist Jemima Khan, actress Juliet Stevenson, actor Mark Rylance, singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, and Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK.

More signatories will be published in the Daily Mail tomorrow — and I will be updating the list here and on the We Stand With Shaker website accordingly.

The full letter is below. Please feel free to share it widely! There is a real momentum to the campaign at the moment, with lots of TV coverage today, and a profile of the campaign in the Guardian‘s G2 supplement.

Please also continue to support us — on Facebook and on Twitter, watch our campaign video and our Human Rights Day video, check out our photos of celebrities standing with our giant inflatable figure of Shaker, and feel free to send in photos of yourself holding signs that read, “I Stand With Shaker” to our website, to join the others here. Also on this page are details of how you can contact David Cameron, Barack Obama and other senior officials to demand Shaker’s release.

An Open Letter to David Cameron Calling for the Release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo and His Return to the UK

Dear Mr. Cameron,

As we approach 2015, the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta, which introduced habeas corpus to the world, we call on you to urgently address the case of Shaker Aamer, a legal British resident with a British wife and four British children. He continues to be imprisoned without charge or trial in the US prison in Guantánamo,Bay, Cuba, in violation of the right not to be arbitrarily imprisoned which was enshrined in the Magna Carta.

Mr. Aamer’s ongoing imprisonment is all the more shocking because he has been approved for release by the United States on two occasions — by a military review board under President Bush in 2007, and by a high-level, inter-agency task force under President Obama in 2009. The British Government has been requesting his return since 2007, and we received assurances from you in June 2013 that you had raised his case with President Obama.

In a letter to Mr. Aamer’s daughter, Johina, last June, you wrote, “Despite efforts to secure his release, it remains the case that he has been cleared for transfer but not for release.” You added, “It also remains the case that any decision regarding your father’s release remains ultimately in the hands of the US Government.”

Does your comment to Mr. Aamer’s daughter about being cleared for transfer refer to rumours that the United States Government would like to send Mr. Aamer back to Saudi Arabia, the country of his birth? This would, no doubt, be convenient for the United States as from there Mr Aamer would be unable to talk about the torture and abuse he has witnessed and personally experienced during his long imprisonment.

However, what the US would like to do with Mr. Aamer is irrelevant, as the British Government has a non-negotiable responsibility to secure the return of Mr. Aamer, given his status as a legal British resident. We can find no reason why, given the special relationship between our two countries, you cannot call President Obama and tell him that Mr. Aamer must be returned to the UK as swiftly as possible.

We urge you to pick up the phone to President Obama, and to bring Shaker Aamer home.

Joanne MacInnes, We Stand With Shaker
Andy Worthington, We Stand With Shaker
Joy Hurcombe, Chair, Save Shaker Aamer Campaign
Roger Waters, musician (ex-Pink Floyd)
Clive Stafford Smith, Director, Reprieve
Juliet Stevenson, actress
Mark Rylance, actor
Frankie Boyle, comedian
Jeremy Hardy, comedian
Harriet Walter, actress
Bill Paterson, actor
Sara Pascoe, comedian
Janet Ellis, actress/broadcaster
Nicholas Kent, theatre director
Sophie Ellis-Bextor, singer
Peter Oborne, journalist and author
Jemima Khan, journalist
Nick Davies, journalist and author
John Pilger, journalist and broadcaster
David Davis MP (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden)
Sir John Randall MP (Conservative, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)
Alistair Burt MP (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)
Caroline Lucas MP (Green, Brighton Pavilion)
John McDonnell MP (Labour, Hayes and Harlington)
Andy Slaughter MP (Labour, Hammersmith)
George Galloway MP (Respect, Bradford West)
Jeremy Corbyn MP (Labour, Islington North)
Mark Durkan MP (SDLP, Foyle)
Norman Baker MP (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)
John Leech MP (Liberal Democrat, Manchester Withington)
Jean Lambert MEP (Green, London)
Baroness Jenny Jones (Green, House of Lords)
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC (Labour, House of Lords)
Shami Chakrabarti, Director, Liberty
Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK
Denis Halliday, former Assistant Director-General, United Nations
Anna Perera, author, Guantanamo Boy
Benjamin Zephaniah, poet and author
Shaykh Suliman Ghani, imam, Tooting Islamic Centre
John Rees, co-founder, Stop the War Coalition
Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner
Moazzam Begg, Director of Outreach, Cage
Dr. David Nicholl, neurologist
Gillian Slovo, novelist and playwright
Lisa Appignanesi, writer
Clare Solomon, press officer, People’s Assembly Against Austerity

The post We Stand With Shaker: Open Letter To David Cameron – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

What is torture?

Torture is like rape and pornography. Even though lawyers might argue over the definition, everyone knows what it is.

The timidity of American journalists around using the term torture has little to do with the mystery of how it’s defined and everything to do with their obsequious deference to political power.

Imagine if Bill Cosby was to respond to the allegations swirling around him and said: “Sure, I drugged several women and then had sex with them, but I didn’t rape them,” would he then have interviewers asking him how he defined rape?

Of course not. Likewise, it’s irrelevant how Dick Cheney defines torture.

Cheney can hide behind definitions conjured up by the Office of Legal Counsel no more legitimately than Adolf Eichmann could use his “just following orders” defense for his role in the Holocaust.

Did the CIA engage in torture?

Suppose there was no evidence — nothing more than unsubstantiated allegations that the CIA had engaged in torture — then it would be reasonable to ask whether these allegations had any basis. But the evidence is abundant and comes from official records.

The fact that this question is still even being raised shows the extent to which the CIA and its defenders have successfully manipulated political discourse around this issue.

Does torture work?

Torture defenders, recognizing that despite the efforts of Cheney and others to deny that torture was used by the CIA, have mostly moved on to their second line of defense: it saved lives. For legal reasons they will not explicitly confirm that torture was used, but they do so implicitly by asserting this justification, that it “saved lives.”

The media and many in Congress have bitten the hook in this argument by legitimizing the question: does torture work?

If torture can be shown to “work,” its alleged efficacy reinforces the claim that its use is imperative.

This then becomes an emotive argument of necessity. It suspends any serious analysis of the morality of torture by appealing to the simplistic, populist rationale that desperate times call for desperate measures.

Torture’s an ugly thing, but when the future of America was at stake, sacrifices had to be made — so the argument goes.

In an interview broadcast this weekend, former CIA director Michael Hayden said: “This was done out of duty. I mean, it’s hard to suppress your humanity.”

In other words, those who engaged in torture had such a deep sense of duty to their country that they were indeed able to suppress their humanity.

Aside from the question as to whether it’s ever a virtue for patriotism to trump a sense of humanity, the purported sense of necessity which legitimized torture apparently never actually rose to the level that anyone was willing to knowingly break the law. In other words, no one came to this conclusion: We have no choice but to break the law and engage in torture because we put the interests of our nation above our own.

On the contrary, the apparent necessity of using torture was made contingent on guarantees that those who authorized its use and those who engaged in it, would not place themselves in legal jeopardy.

So those who now trumpet their patriotism by declaring that they did what they had to do in order to save lives, should really be saying, we were willing to do whatever we could to save lives without risking losing our jobs.

For American torturers and their overseers, job security and legal impunity were more important than national security.

And let’s be clear: President Obama understands that this was the deal and he is glad to keep his end of the unspoken bargain not only to honor the expectations of those who tortured in the line of duty, but also because he expects for himself similar protection in the future. That is to say, Obama currently shields torturers from prosecution, so that a decade from now he will not be charged with murder — having ordered hundreds of summary executions through drone strikes, this being Obama’s alternative to the legally messy problem of handling suspected terrorists.

Did the CIA’s use of torture prevent future attacks?

Cheney says that the fact that the U.S. has not faced another large-scale attack since 9/11 is proof that the program “worked.”

Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that this is a bogus line of reasoning. The absence of such an attack can be attributed to multiple causes, such as improved airline security, improved surveillance, and the diminished abilities of al Qaeda to organize such an attack. Yet the fact that there hasn’t been another 9/11 for thirteen years doesn’t preclude there being another surprise attack tomorrow. If that happens, then the alleged success of Cheney’s program will instantly be exposed as a delusion.

The only way in which future attacks can be shown to have been foiled is by plans and planners being intercepted. In and of itself, the absence of another 9/11 proves nothing.

Were innocent people tortured?

Paradoxically, this is a question that perhaps more than any other legitimizes torture since it implies that the greatest injustice in torture is for it be applied unfairly — to the innocent. Thus, those who were not innocent could, it seems, perhaps justifiably have been tortured.

The insidious effect of this question is evident in the fact in the midst of a massive amount of media attention on the subject of CIA torture, the focus of that attention has been on the perpetrators rather than the victims of America’s torture programs.

Torture is in the spotlight and yet somehow the victims remain in the shadows.

The post Questions About Torture That Don’t Need To Be Asked – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Christina Lin

China, a country that has the most to lose in the Middle East in the face of the Islamic State (IS), is upgrading its ties with more stable partners in the region such as Iran and Kurdistan.

On August 8, the well-respected Hong Kong-based newsmagazine Phoenix Weekly featured a cover story on what amounts to be a declaration of war against Beijing by IS with a July 4 speech by the group’s leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi naming China first in a line of 20 countries to have violated Muslim rights accompanied by a map of the proposed IS caliphate that includes Xinjiang.

While the thought of IS occupying Chinese territory currently seems far-fetched, Chinese strategists nonetheless have to worry about how IS expansion will impact China’s energy security and its own westward march seen in the Eurasian Silk Road Economic Belt, the centerpiece of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s foreign policy.

Former Chinese ambassador to Iran Hua Liming underscored, “China definitely has a stake in this issue… the rise of ISIS now overrides other turbulence in the Middle East”, while Zhu Weilie, director of the Center for China-Arab States Cooperation Forum Studies, said the Silk Road Initiatives were an upgraded version of Chinese enterprises’ “going out” strategy (走出去战略) for projects initiated back in 1993 when China first became an oil importer.

According to Erica Downs of the Brookings Institution, Baghdad is to be the centerpiece of China’s Middle East energy strategy with China’s most productive upstream activities located in Iraq. Iraqi fields are among the world’s largest, with China’s oil giant CNPC holding substantial stakes in Al Ahdab, Rumaila, Halfaya and West Qurna 1 in the south, and Sinopec also holding stakes in an oil field in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Beijing is also the largest oil and gas investor in Iraq, and in 2012 Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, dubbed the rapidly developing ties between Beijing and Baghdad the “B&B” link.

Saudi Arabia is currently China’s largest crude oil supplier followed by Angola and Iran, but over the past years China has been increasing its imports from Iraq. China purchased nearly 50% of Iraqi oil production in 2013 and in 2014 it planned to increase this to 70% at 850,000 barrels per day (bpd), narrowing the gap between Iraq and Saudi Arabia at 1.1 million bpd in 2013, while surpassing Iran at 530,000 bpd in the first half of 2014 alone.

However, IS now threatens China’s oil stakes in southern Iraq, therefore, Beijing is upgrading ties with Iran and Kurdistan to offset potential losses in the face of Baghdad’s instability. In September, China established a new consulate general in Erbil in the midst of their negotiations for the potential sale of 4 million barrels of oil.

Beijing sees Kurdistan as a rock of stability in a sea of upheavals in Syria and Iraq and is forging closer ties to protect its oil interests. This follows a similar pattern of gaining a hold in South Sudan prior to Juba breaking away from Sudan in 2011. In fact, China is increasingly militarizing its energy policy by sending a battalion of 700 combat troops overseas for the first time in order to protect its oil interests and by contributing 350 UN peacekeepers in South Sudan, bringing the total number of Chinese troops in the country to over 1,000.

While China’s quiet support for Kurdistan may be a possible irritant in Sino-Turkey relations, Beijing is nonetheless increasingly frustrated by what it perceives as Ankara’s complicity in allowing the transit of Chinese Uyghur militants into Syria and Iraq to train with Al-Qaeda affiliates and IS. China has suffered its worst terrorist attacks over the past 20 months, and the Communist mouthpiece Global Times has pointed the finger at Turkey for supporting Uyghur separatist organizations such as ETIM and Istanbul-based ETESA, which recruits from the Uyghur Diaspora.

Given that IS poses a threat to Xi Jinping’s grand strategy of the Silk Road Economic Belt, China’s Mideast energy interests, as well as a secure transit of energy resources through Xinjiang to the rest of China, Beijing may decide to play the Kurdistan separatism card and put pressure on Ankara to clamp down on IS and Uyghur militants’ anti-Chinese activities. Indeed, a 2006 Hurriyet Daily article on China’s Kurdish policy acknowledged the unspoken Beijing-Ankara quid pro quo of not supporting either Uyghur separatists or the PKK.[1]

Beijing is also upgrading military ties with Iran with an eye for establishing a potential naval base in the country, and in September the two conducted their first joint naval war games in the Strait of Hormuz. As China’s economy grows and its Mideast energy dependence increases, Beijing will be more proactive militarily to help maintain regional security and stability.

Given that IS threatens China’s core interests seen in Middle Eastern energy security and Xinjiang’s territorial integrity, an issue which has side effects on Sino-Turkey relations revolving around Uyghurs and Kurds, it is imperative for Beijing and Ankara to carefully manage the Uyghur/IS issue to help ensure the territorial integrity of China, Iraq and Turkey.

1. Mehmet Ali Birand, “China’s Kurdish policy is changing”, Hurriyet Daily News, 28 February 2006. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=chinas-kurdish-policy-is-changing-2006-02-28

The post China Increasingly Looking To Iran And Kurdistan For Energy Security – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

No end seems to be in sight for the plight of the Russian ruble, which slumped to new record lows against hard currencies Tuesday. The EUR traded at 93.5 against the ruble, and the USD at 75.

The Russian stock market also went haywire, dropping more than 15 percent as of 2:30pm Moscow time, after it dropped 11 percent the day before. Sberbank, the country’s largest lender, lost 17.77 percent, and VTB, the second biggest bank, fell by 14.29 percent. State-owned oil and gas companies Gazprom, Rosneft, and Surgut also saw shares plummet.

The emergency interest rate hike to 17 percent has failed to halt the ruble’s landslide tumble against hard currencies. The rate increase only calmed the ruble temporarily.

It has accelerated its descent in November and December along with falling oil prices. Investors have been pulling capital out of Russia over geopolitics since earlier this year, and sanctions levied by the US and EU have essentially cut Russia off from Western lending.

Most analysts agree that Russia will enter recession in the first quarter of 2015, including the Economy Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev, and the Central Bank.

On Tuesday, the CBR chief Elvira Nabiullina said a higher rate should put an end to investor speculation that has been hitting the ruble.

“We must learn to live in a new reality, to focus more on our own resources to finance projects and give import substitution a chance,” the bank chief said in a televised address Tuesday.

However, neither the rate increase nor the comments have had a big impact on ruble trading as it continued to slide. Russia’s currency has lost more than 55 percent against the dollar this year, mostly to external factors such as slumping oil and sanctions against Russia.

The post Russia: Ruble Plummets Losing More Than 20% In A Day appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The siege of a school in Pakistan by Taliban militants has ended, leaving at least 141 people dead, most of them students.

Islamist militants wearing military uniforms and strapped with explosives attacked the military-run facility in the northwestern city of Peshawar. An army spokesman said security forces killed six of the attackers.

Military officials told reporters 132 of the dead were students about 12 to 16 years old. Nine school staff members are believed to have been killed as well.

A provincial official said more than 120 others were wounded in the assault. VOA Dewaa Radio reporter Hameedullah Khan said more than 100 of the wounded are children.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was an act of retaliation for Pakistan’s offensive targeting militants in the country’s northwestern tribal region, near the Afghan border.

‘Barbaric act’

Pakistan’s President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attacks.

Sharif, who arrived in Peshawar Tuesday, said the “government will not be deterred by this barbaric act” and vowed to continue military operations against the militants. He also declared a three-day national mourning period.

Authorities said heavily armed gunmen entered the school in a highly secured part of Peshawar city about 11 a.m. local time Tuesday and fired indiscriminately at students who were taking winter exams.

The attackers took an unknown number of people hostage before Pakistan army commandos arrived at the scene and launched a rescue operation. Witnesses reported heavy gunfire from inside the school while ambulances ferried victims to hospitals.

The militant raid appeared to have caused most of the deaths in the beginning of the attack. Doctors said dozens of students are hospitalized, with some in critical condition. Authorities in Peshawar have appealed for blood donors.

Hameedullah, who was at a Peshawar hospital, said, “A lot of people are donating blood.”

He said parents, rushing to the hospital where the bodies of many of the children were brought, were “weeping. They were beating themselves, there was sorrow.” He added that there were “some moving scenes” at the hospital throughout the day.

Some students rescued

Ahsan Mukhtar, a student rescued by security forces, said, “As soon as the gunfire erupted, our teacher instructed everyone to move to a corner of the room for safety.”

Mukhtar added, “An hour later, when the intensity of the fire reduced, army soldiers arrived to rescue us, and on the way out, we saw bullet-ridden bodies of our schoolmates everywhere.”

Provincial Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said the gunmen were dressed in the uniform of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force.

Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani told Reuters, “We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain.”

The Afghan border area, where Pakistan military operations are focused, has served as a major sanctuary and training ground for Pakistani and Afghan insurgents responsible for terrorist attacks on both sides of the mostly porous border.

World reaction

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the attack, calling it “an act of horror and rank cowardice to attack defenseless children while they learn.”

Pakistani children’s education advocate and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban in a 2012 assassination attempt for her activism, responded to the attacks with resolve.

“Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this… I, along with millions of others around the world, mourn these children, my brothers and sisters – but we will never be defeated.”

U.S. President Barack Obama responded to the killings, saying that “by targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity.” Obama added that the U.S. will continue to support Pakistan’s efforts to combat terrorism and extremism.

Speaking from London, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said, “This act of terror shakes all people of conscience.”

The United Nations in Pakistan strongly condemned “the barbaric attack,” saying it is “appalled by this act of cruelty and brutality.”

Earlier Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson expressed solidarity with the country, saying “few have suffered more at the hands of terrorists and extremists than the people of Pakistan.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted on Tuesday: “The news from Pakistan is deeply shocking. It’s horrifying that children are being killed simply for going to school.”

VOA’s Ayaz Gul contributed to this report from Islamabad. VOA Dewaa Radio reporter Hameedullah contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.

The post Pakistan: Taliban Attack School, 141 Dead appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By D.S.Rajan

There is no doubt that the policy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Xi Jinping , is to further accelerate economic reforms; and at the same time, like the earlier regimes, firmly against political liberalization in the country.

Confirming the policy has been the CCP Fourth Plenum (October 2014) ‘Decision’ document which, while giving approval to the ‘socialist rule of law’ in the country, first time to happen in such sessions, did not fail to reiterate the party’s supremacy in the Chinese political system. This being so, there is evidence to point out that the CCP has come under pressure to fight against liberal voices increasingly emanating from circles close to the party itself as well as the society at large; this has led to its launch of an ideological debate with the liberals, which is progressing intermittently. Interestingly, some of the arguments from the party side to counter the liberal ideas are being made on the basis of orthodox Marxist class positions which are irrelevant to reforms, thus exposing the existence of ideological hardliners within the CCP. Who are the liberals being targeted by the party in the debate? They include influential and outspoken media representatives, some even working for CCP affiliates and academicians who have come out in favor of full economic liberalization and genuine political reforms.

A prominent subject of the ongoing debate is the concept of ‘constitutionalism’, which provides for every institution in the country including the CCP being accountable to the constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In essence, the party considers it as a Western inspired one and unsuitable for China. Among the CCP documents on the subject, is one issued by its General Office (No.9/2013), which was made public in the foreign media in June 2013. It chose ‘constitutionalism’ for attack and asked the cadres to guard against seven political “perils”- constitutionalism, civil society, universal values, media independence, criticizing errors in party history i.e. historical nihilism, questioning the policy of opening up reforms and opposing socialist nature of China’s development. It called on Party members to strengthen their resistance to infiltration by outside ideas.

Catching attention is also a pre-Plenum document of the CCP’s central party school itself which raised (October 2014) eight fundamental ideological questions; important among them concerned the CCP’s role in market economy, core socialist values, theory of class struggle and the collapse of the former Soviet Union. These questions have not been fully addressed in the plenum the main agenda of which was ‘rule of law’, not ideological matters; a full answer to them is therefore yet to come and a more lively debate can be in the offing.

Lastly, the already mentioned Plenum’s ‘Decision’ document has made party’s official position in clearest terms– “governance according to law requires that the CCP governs the country on the basis of the constitution and laws and that the party leadership and socialist rule of law are identical. Party leadership is the most fundamental guarantee for comprehensively advancing the rule of law and building country under socialist rule of law”. Not to be missed is the fact that in the Decision, there has been no mention of “constitutionalism”, a pet word for the liberals, while the term “constitution” appears 38 times. It did not say anything about strengthening the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the power of the NPC standing committee for interpreting or applying the constitution.

Echoing the view that the CCP is the supreme political force in China, are also the party and state-controlled media. They have specifically accused some of indulging in the ‘secret mission of constitutionalism talk’, of attempting to “abrogate the party leadership and to overthrow the socialist regime” (Party Construction journal, 29 May 2013), while asserting that constitutionalist systems “only belong to capitalism and bourgeois dictatorship and not to socialist people’s democracy” (Red Flag Manuscript, affiliated to the CCP theoretical organ ‘Qiu Shi’, June 2013). The party newspaper Global Times (June 2013) denounced proponents of ‘constitutionalism’ for indirectly negating China’s path of development, adding that the concept is a new way to force China to adopt Western political systems.

A Xinhua commentary political (Chinese, 23 October 2014) stated that the Plenum’s Decision “clearly and thoroughly promoted the overall objective of ruling the nation in accord with the constitution setting major tasks and making a series of new judgments and new deployments for achieving this objective. In handling Chinas matters well, the crux lies with the party and in promoting the rule of the nation; the most fundamental guarantee is the party”. Red Flag Manuscript (26 November 20114) attacked those who want to split the party leadership and ‘governance of the country in accordance with law’. It added that they “even contrast the two, as if any talk about party leadership means there will not be real law. The party leadership and socialist rule of law are identical. Socialist rule of law must maintain party leadership and party leadership must rely on socialist rule of law”. A People’s Daily editorial (4 December 2014) asserted that the fact of revolution, construction and reform having been achieved by people under the party guidance, establishes the CCP’s leading status.

Appearing important of late is another ‘Red flag Manuscript’ strongly worded write-up (26 November 2014) contributed by Zhang Quanjing, former chief of CCP Organization Department. It alleged that in China, international hostile forces are trying for peaceful evolution, color evolution, setting up of a democratic constitutional government and spread of ideas on new liberalism and democratic socialism; these forces have their agents within China. The article accused some in China of wanting to negate the CCP leadership and socialist system; they in the main attack Mao thought. “We should carry out active resolute ideological struggle against them, strengthen ‘red culture’ propaganda, like what Xi Jinping said, establish supervision over news organizations, internet and TV stations, and bring Marxists to lead the ideological sphere”. It charged some people of slandering party leaders, saying that the harm caused is greater than corruption and asked expulsion of those from the party who do not change through education. On 12 December 2014, the same journal alleged that some in China paint the party black, propagate the view points of negating the party leadership and the socialist system and create all kinds of fallacies, demanding utmost vigil against such ideas. Academicians opposing ‘constitutionalism’ concept included Professor Yang Xiaoqing of the Renmin University who argued that the concept would knock China off its path of socialist development (Red Flag Manuscript, 2013).

At the other end of the debate on “constitutionalism” is the liberal group. It consists of prominent journals, scholars and intellectuals. The Southern Weekend journal (January 2013) through its front page article titled ‘’ Dream of China, Dream of Constitutionalism’’ stressed the need for ‘constitutionalism’ in China, which was ultimately withdrawn by the party authorities. The liberal magazine Yan Huang Chun Qiu (known outside as ‘China through the Ages’), the website of which was closed down by the authorities once and now believed to be having Hu Deping, son of late Chinese leader Hu Yaobang as President, said (2 January 2013) that China’s “constitution is a consensus for political reform”.

Among liberal intellectuals, the group which brought out “Charter 2008” in October 2008 is worth mentioning. It was in essence a manifesto for human rights in China calling for deepening of reforms and recasting the present constitution. Among its signatories was the Nobel Laurette Liu Xiaobo, who is still in jail in China. Professor Yang Xiaoqing of Renmin University attacked (May 2013) liberal concepts; for him, ‘Peoples Democracy’, not ‘constitutionalism’, is a must for the country. Professor Hu Angang of Qinghua university defended “People’s Society” against ‘constitutionalism’ (July 2013).On 25 August 2013, Zhang Xuezhong, a constitutional expert of East China University of Political Science and Law, was suspended from teaching after he called the government to honour the 1982 constitution , demanding that China requires to build a real rule of law, one to which even the party is accountable. Around the same time, a scholar of the same university Tong Zhiwei demanded a fuller implementation of China’s constitution and a way to “prescribe a limit to the party’s power” and Professor He Weifang of the same university said that “constitutionalism” and the rule of law are best safeguards of liberty and the foundation of good governance in China. In the same category comes Professor Xu Zhiyong of the Peking University School of Law, who is leading a citizen right movement.

The debate is also around themes like the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, ‘class struggle’ and relevance of Mao Zedong thought, taken up in some articles in the CCP theoretical organ, ‘Qiu Shi’, ‘Red Flag Manuscript’ and the party newspaper People’s Daily. Qiu Shi (14 October 2014) glorified the Marxist idea of “People’s Democratic Dictatorship”. Global Times of the same day took care to point out that it was only a theoretical signal and not a political signal. Both People’s Daily and ‘Red Flag Manuscript’ carried in October 2014 an article of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) President Wang Weiguang which said that class struggle would never disappear in China and questioned whether the role of workers and peasants against capitalists was incompatible with the rule of law. The Red Flag Manuscript article by Zhang Quanjing already quoted above, endorsing the view of Prof Wang, said that in Socialist countries, class struggle exists and emphasized that “we must recognize the long term serious nature of the struggle between the two lines”. The CCP-run Global Times (7 October 20 14) , even doubted whether the CASS has become conservative.

Going by data available so far, one finds difficulty in deciphering whether the CCP chief Xi Jinping is a conservative or one with liberal leanings. He is in fact being seen accommodating both conservative and liberal view points. On the subject of ‘çonstitutionalism’ in the country, Xi originally appeared catering to the liberal opinion, but taking care to use only the term ‘constitution’. An instance has been his speech at the 30th anniversary of promulgation and implementation of China’s constitution (4 December 2012); quoting Article 5 of Chinese constitution on the occasion, Xi said that no organization or individual has the privilege to overstep the constitution and law. He remarked that “Rule of nation by law means first and foremost ruling the nation in accord with constitution ( yi xian zhi guo); the crux in governing by laws is to govern in accord with constitution ( yi xian zhi zheng)”. For some time, the remarks did not find mention in any of the party official documents. A primer of important speeches of Xi JInping released in June 2014 did not include them. The remarks however reappeared after a long delay; it was repeated in Xi’s address at the function organized to mark the 60th anniversary of China’s National People’s Congress (September 2014) and in the latest Plenum. The speculation is that the Party’s debate with liberals on the subject and lack of leadership consensus contributed to the delay.

At the same time, not to be ignored are signs that Xi Jinping is not totally ignoring conservative viewpoints. During his speech at the 90th anniversary function held to mark the CCP’s foundation (2011), he formulated the idea that 30 years of Mao Zedong thought and 30 years of reforms were of equal importance and value. This came to be known as the theory of “two irrefutables”. It clearly marked a departure from the 1981 evaluation of Mao. Xi’s call for party purity (March 2012) at his central party school address, also indicated his conservative bias. Under his leadership, party leading subgroups (LSGs) on deepening reforms, National Security Commission and a body for protecting internet security, were formed all directly reporting to the CCP Central Committee; these steps ran counter to the liberal demands for separation of the party from state in policy making. Xi’s ‘mass line ‘ campaign based on Mao model had a conservative character ; so is the case with the book “Collection of Xi Jinping Writings”, published in September 2014, in which Xi connected the party’s survival with Mao thought and reiterated that China’s constitution establishes the leading status of the CCP. Coming under the same category was Xi’s statement (15 October 2014) that arts must embody socialist core values and serve the people and that artists should avoid becoming slaves of the market, close to what Mao had spoken in the past on art and literature in Yanan.

An analysis of the contents of the debate reveals certain important trends.

Firstly, the ongoing discourse on ideological issues, if not properly handled, may lead to permanent intra-party divisions posing a challenge to the CCP leader Xi JInping who has declared party unity as his goal.

Secondly, Xi with an eye on consolidating his political power is accommodating both conservative and liberal opinions in making decisions. His carrying out of a crackdown on human rights lawyers, media outlets, academics, and independent thinkers in the country, may placate the former; his reform and opening up push may satisfy the latter. Whether such tight rope walking, will turn out to be a constraint on Xi in future, remains to be seen.

Lastly, prospects for future legal reforms in the country seem to have risen now, considering the Party Plenum’s focus on ‘governance of the country in accordance with constitution’.

(The writer, D.S.Rajan, is Distinguished Fellow, Chennai Centre for China Studies. Chennai, India. Email: dsrajan@gmail.com)

The post China: Xi Jinping’s Ideological Dilemma – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

If Azerbaijan and the Caucacus region in general have seldom generated much media attention, that it is not say that we, the public, should not be paying very close attention to this seemingly insignificant part of the world.

Sitting at a geo-strategic knot of utmost importance, Azerbaijan might be small and clustered in between regional super-powers, but that is not to say that Baku cannot wield tremendous political gravity.

However small and lost amid a sea of greater powers, Azerbaijan and its Caucausian neighbors — Armenia and Georgia — could soon prove to carry the keys to world security and stability, especially since radicalization and sectarian-based violence continues to corrupt and spread far and wide into the Middle East and Eurasia, threatening to engulf all in its path.

As noted by Eldar Mamedov – political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP), “The unraveling of Iraq may have some interesting, even alarming implications for the Caspian Basin state of Azerbaijan.”

And indeed, unlike other Arab states in turmoil, including Libya and Syria, Iraq has a religious and cultural profile that somewhat mimics Azerbaijan’s. Looking at developments in this particular region of the world and how Islamic radicals have exploited ethnic and sectarian fault-lines, one could use Iraq as a cautionary tale.

For one, both countries have Shia Islamic majorities with large Sunni minorities. In addition, both have lengthy experience with coercive, top-down secularism. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party promoted secularism during the three-and-a-half decades it held power in the country. In Azerbaijan, the secular tradition dates back to the Bolsheviks’ arrival in power in the 1920s and extends to the present day.

Although it is difficult to make a linear analogy, there are two significant ways in which the disintegration of Iraq might pose security challenges to Azerbaijan and thus the region as a whole.

Mamedov asserted that “The first and most obvious is connected with the rise in Iraq of a Sunni jihadist movement, known as ISIS – Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham – This development, over time, could stoke sectarian tension in Azerbaijan, a country where, even though secularism remains a powerful force in society, religion is making a strong comeback.”

For Shia worldwide, including those in Azerbaijan, opposing the violently anti-Shia ISIS movement is an existential issue, one which could spiral out of control should radicals’ advances remain unchecked.

If for now, Shia leaders in Azerbaijan have urged sectarian restraint, understanding that calls for action would only serve to fan further sectarian-based animosity and enmity in between communities, that it not to say that it will remain so.

There has already been an incident in the southern Azerbaijani town of Sabirabad, where local Shia residents attacked a man belonging to the Sunni Salafi movement – ultra-orthodox Sunni.

Although such incidents are still rare in secular Azerbaijan, signs that religious passions have been awaken are quickly emerging. As noted by Mamadov, “a rapidly rising number of citizens are using faith to help define their identities.”

He added, “Where older generation of Azerbaijanis saw themselves as Muslims mostly in a cultural sense, untroubled by religious semantic and sectarian labels, the Youth are not only very conscious of their identities but they are globalist in their outlook.”

At such a time when the Islamic world stands to face so many immediate existential threats, tensions in Iraq and Syria are bound to carry throughout, galvanizing an increasingly disenfranchised generation into action.

And if for now, few Azerbaijanis have answered the calls of radicals, Islamists’ E-propaganda could soon found a comfortable echo in the Caucasus, where ethno-sectarian tensions against Armenia have been already heightened since late November.

Among Azerbaijani Sunnis, the consolidation and expansion of the territorial foothold of ISIS in Iraq could act as a magnet, attracting the discontented to the jihadist banner. This phenomenon has already occurred in Syria, where some Azerbaijanis, such as a prominent An-Nusra fighter, Hattab al-Azeri, have taken up arms against Bashar al-Assad’s regime with an eye toward gaining experience that could be used one day against Ilham Aliyev’s administration in Baku. ISIS’ gains in Iraq, then, would seem to significantly increase the opportunities for and capabilities of Azerbaijani jihadists one day to launch terror and propaganda campaigns in Azerbaijan.

Again if such a threat remains for now remote, Azerbaijan represents an opportunity groups such as ISIS will likely attempt to seize and exploit, especially since like Iraq and Syria, Azerbaijan possesses vast energy resources, and thus immense wealth.

A second set of challenges is linked to the prospect of Iraq’s disintegration along ethnic lines. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has announced plans to prepare a referendum on the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan. While a vote is not imminent, there is little doubt that if and when it took place, the pro-independence stance would win easily. This would encourage Kurds in Turkey and Iran to want to join their brothers in a new Kurdish state.

And while no state other than Israel has so far expressed clear support for an independent Kurdistan, an expectation that a Kurdish state might be pro-Western in orientation could conceivably lead to a subtle change in the position of the West. Indeed, the idea of remapping the Middle East along more homogenous sectarian and ethnic lines, once a purely mental exercise, is now being taken more seriously in Western policy-making discussions.

The problem for Azerbaijan is that there is considerable overlap between the Kurdish and Azeri populations in the western Iran. A Kurdish attempt to neatly separate, then, could easily spark tension in Iran, Azerbaijan’s neighbor. That, in turn, could ignite a nationalistic backlash among Iranian Azeris, placing the government in Baku in a difficult position.

While Azerbaijani state officials have been keen not to antagonize Iranian officials in order to retain functional and amicable relations with Tehran the idea of a ‘greater Azerbaijan’ might gain more traction if regional borders start being re-drawn, and if the West and Iran fail to reach a mutually acceptable nuclear deal, thus causing new Western efforts to economically and diplomatically isolate Tehran. A potential ‘greater Azerbaijan’ would be as likely to be as pro-Western and Israel-friendly as an “independent Kurdistan.”

Should such agenda be push forth though, it is most likely violent armed confrontations will ensue, potentially putting Baku at risk of complete institutional annihilation as both Russia and Iran will oppose any direct pro-western “remapping.”

Although Baku cannot hope to compete or even influence developments in Iraq, Russia and Iran, it has become evident that President Ilham Aliyev has already grasped shifting regional polarities, aware that whatever decisions his administration will take in regards to Armenia and foreign relations in general will have far-reaching repercussions.

The post When Radicalization Becomes A Supra-Regional Threat – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The prosecution of 35 football fans on coup-plot charges is a blatant misuse of the criminal justice system. The trial of supporters of Beşiktaş football club, associated with its Çarşı fan group, began today in Istanbul.

The group joined mass anti-government protests in June 2013 triggered by opposition to government plans for development on the site of Gezi Park in central Istanbul. The evidence presented in the prosecutor’s indictment contains no allegation of activities that either fit the charge of an attempt to overthrow the government or of the other offenses for which the defendants are on trial, such as acting as a criminal gang and resisting the police.

“Charging these Beşiktaş football club fans as enemies of the state for joining a public protest is a ludicrous travesty,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The indictment contains no evidence to support the coup attempt charges and should never have come to court. The prosecutor should immediately indicate that he does not believe the charges should be pursued and ask the court for their acquittal.”

The evidence in the Istanbul prosecutor’s September 2014 indictment against the 35 consists of intercepted telephone calls and text messages, the defendants’ possession of gas masks and goggles to avoid teargas, and video footage showing that the fans were at the demonstrations, along with thousands of others.

There is no specific allegation of any violent activity or criminal conduct and no suggestion that firearms the police found in some defendants’ homes were used or planned for use during the protests. The defendants’ intercepted telephone calls and text messages express opposition to the government, excitable sentiments of support for the demonstrations, and a few rhetorical claims but do not constitute evidence of criminal activity.

All the defendants in this trial are at liberty.

“It is alarming to see that President Erdoğan’s characterization of the Gezi protests as an attempt to overthrow the government has been adopted by the prosecutor as the basis of this indictment,” Sinclair-Webb said. “It reveals a great deal about the enormous pressure being exerted on Turkey’s justice system by the government.”

The Çarşı trial is one among hundreds of ongoing legal proceedings against thousands of demonstrators who participated in the anti-government protests in cities around the country triggered by the Istanbul Gezi Park sit-in. Some trials have ended in defendants being acquitted while others are continuing. Those charged with terrorism offenses and still on trial spent up to 10 months in pretrial detention before being freed on bail.

Among the cases in Istanbul, a trial began in June of five organizers of Taksim Solidarity, a platform of 128 nongovernmental organizations supporting the Gezi Park campaign and sit-in. They were charged with forming a criminal gang, inciting and participating in unlawful demonstrations, and refusing orders to disperse. The next hearing of their ongoing trial with 21 codefendants is scheduled for January 2015.

Another ongoing trial of 255 people who participated in the Gezi Park protests is under way in a separate Istanbul court. That group is charged with joining unlawful demonstrations, refusing orders to disperse, and damaging public property. Among the defendants are people who had taken refuge in a mosque and doctors who treated them for excessive exposure to teargas. The next hearing is scheduled for March.

The post Turkey: Football Fans On Trial For ‘Coup’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jeremy M. Sharp*

Despite conflict on its borders, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan appears to remain a relatively stable and reliable partner for the United States in the Arab world. Jordan’s strategic importance to the United States may be increasing given its ongoing participation in Operation Inherent Resolve against the Islamic State (IS, aka the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL/ISIS). Across the Middle East, US-Jordanian military, intelligence, and diplomatic cooperation seeks to empower political moderates, reduce sectarian conflict, and eliminate terrorist threats.

Jordan’s small size, lackluster economy, divided population, controlled political system, weak resource base, geographic location, and cooperation with the West are inherent vulnerabilities that U.S. policy makers seek to mitigate. The kingdom fears a terrorist backlash stemming from its participation in coalition air strikes against the IS. The government also is concerned over its ability to materially provide for over 618,000 United Nations-registered Syrian refugees currently residing in Jordan (there may be hundreds of thousands of more who are unregistered). Finally, Jordanian leaders also believe that should recent clashes over Jerusalem continue, such violence could spread to the kingdom and radicalize Jordanians of Palestinian origin either against their own government or against Israel. This past October, Jordan and Israel celebrated the 20-year anniversary of their bilateral peace agreement amidst an overall tense diplomatic atmosphere over the status of holy sites in Jerusalem.

Syria, Iraq, and the Islamic State1

Jordan’s Role in Operation Inherent Resolve2

The Obama Administration considers the kingdom of Jordan to be an important part of the anti- Islamic State coalition. The Jordanian Air Force has conducted strikes against Islamic State militants. In mid-October, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL General John Allen expressed the Administration’s “support for the targeted airstrikes by the Jordanian Air Force in Syria.” Jordan has approximately 85 combat aircraft, including at least 60 F-16s, and its fighters flew alongside U.S. planes in striking the Islamic State’s front lines around the besieged Syrian city of Kobane. However, it is unlikely that Jordanian contributions to any multilateral effort will consist of ground forces. Many Jordanians likely fear that an overt Jordanian presence in Iraq would give the Islamic State or radicalized Jordanian citizens further cause to target the kingdom.

Jordan could make other contributions to U.S. efforts, such as intelligence sharing, continued overt training of Iraq Special Forces, and possible clandestine training of Syrian rebels. Jordanian intelligence was reportedly pivotal to the U.S. finding and killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian national who founded the Islamic State’s antecedent, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQ-I). Several media reports suggest that Jordanian Special Operations forces assisted U.S. troops in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue American journalist James Foley, who had been held captive by the Islamic State prior to his recent execution. Politically, Jordan has ties to Sunni tribes in Western Iraq who could be valuable partners in the fight against the Islamic State. Currently, approximately 1,700 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Jordan, presumably to bolster its security.

Recent developments in Jordan’s role in Operation Inherent Resolve include:

• In November 2014, media sources in Jordan reported that the Jordanian government has agreed to train Iraqi Army personnel under Jordanian-U.S. supervision inside Jordan.
• In November 2014, France announced it was positioning six Mirage fighter jets in Jordan to conduct air strikes in Iraq.
  Syrian Refugees in Jordan

The continued inflow of Syrian refugees is placing tremendous strains on the Jordanian government. The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Refugees in November 2014 estimated that there were 614,000 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan, increasing the country’s population by 10%. Jordanian border authorities at times have blocked some refugees from entering the kingdom and forcibly deported others due to security concerns or the strains the refugee population has placed on the country’s northern provinces. Rents have nearly tripled in border towns such as Mafraq and Ramtha, making housing unaffordable for many Jordanians. Jordan’s hospitals, schools, sanitation and water systems are facing similar strain. Some Jordanian observers are writing articles openly questioning the wisdom of continuing to accept Syrian refugees and warning that resource, budget, and demographic pressures may disrupt life in the kingdom for a decade or more. According to the U.S. State Department, since large-scale U.S. aid to Syrian refugees began in FY2012, the United States has allocated more than $445 million in multilateral humanitarian assistance to help Jordan cope with the Syrian refugee crisis.

Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinians

Helping secure a lasting end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the highest priorities of the Jordanian government. Although Jordan joined other neighboring Arab states in a series of military conflicts against Israel between 1948 and 1973, the late King Hussein (ruled 1952-1999) ultimately concluded that peace with Israel was in Jordan’s strategic interests due to Israel’s conventional military superiority, the development of an independent Palestinian national movement that threatened both Jordanian and Israeli security, and the need for Jordan to regain Western support after it backed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq politically in the first Gulf War.3

Consequently, in 1994 Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty,4 and King Abdullah II has used his country’s semi-cordial official relationship with Israel to improve Jordan’s standing with Western governments and international financial institutions, on which it relies heavily for external support and aid.

Nevertheless, the persistence of Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to be a major obstacle to Jordan’s development. The issue of Palestinian rights resonates with much of the population, as more than half of all Jordanian citizens originate from either the West Bank or the area now comprising the state of Israel. There are an estimated 2 million United Nations-registered Palestinian refugees in Jordan, and, while many no longer regard their stay in Jordan as temporary, they have retained their refugee status both as a symbolic sign of support for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and in hope of being included in any future settlement.5

Furthermore, for King Abdullah II and the royal Hashemite family, who are of Arab Bedouin descent and whose legitimacy historically derives from the support of tribal families from the east bank of the Jordan River, finding a solution to the conflict is considered a matter of political survival. Although the Palestinians may be less rooted in Jordan than its East Bank citizens, because they constitute a majority and express some grievances about their status within Jordan relative to East Bankers, addressing their grievances regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is of critical importance to the monarchy. The royal family and their tribal constituents vehemently reject periodic Israeli calls for the reunification of the West Bank with Jordan proper (dubbed the “Jordanian Option”), a maneuver that could inevitably alter the demographic and political status quo in Jordan. King Abdullah II has repeated the mantra that his father introduced after relinquishing Jordan’s claims to the West Bank: “Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine.”

Dispute with Israel over Jerusalem

In late 2014, tensions in Jerusalem have increased, leading to disputes in the normally cordial Israeli-Jordanian bilateral relationship.6 In late October, after an Israeli rabbi known for supporting Jewish worship on the Temple Mount (known by Muslims as the Haram al Sharif or Noble Sanctuary) was wounded in a targeted shooting, Israeli authorities killed the Palestinian shooter and on October 30 completely shut off access to the Mount/Haram, claiming the need to calm tensions. Access resumed the following day.

On November 5th, Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations over Israeli actions in Jerusalem. According to Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, “We have sent repeated messages to Israel directly and indirectly that Jerusalem is a red line.”7 Per long standing arrangements with Israel dating back to 1967 and then subsequently confirmed in their 1994 bilateral peace treaty, Israel “respects the special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem.”8 The Jordanian waqf (or Islamic custodial trust) has long administered Mount/Haram and its holy sites, and this role is key to bolstering the religious legitimacy of the Jordanian royal family’s rule. Successive Jordanian monarchs trace their lineage to the Prophet Muhammad.

Although Jordan has recalled its ambassador to Israel in the past (most recently from 2009 to 2012), this current diplomatic episode appears to represent a more serious bilateral rupture because it follows the recent breakdown in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, the summer war in Gaza, and overall heightened tensions in relations between the Obama Administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has tried to reduce tensions in trilateral talks among the United States, Israel, and Jordan. In a recent visit to Jordan, Secretary Kerry noted that both sides have agreed to take specific and practical actions to restore calm, de-escalate the situation, and instill confidence that the status quo will be upheld.9

Disputes over Jerusalem that appear to circumscribe King Abdullah II’s role as guardian of the Islamic holy sites create a domestic political problem for the King. Some Jordanians have been calling for the abandoning of a potential 15-year, $15 billion natural gas supply deal with Israel, and in mid-November, according to one report, “some Jordanian parliament members called for a moment of silence and read verses from the Koran to honor two Palestinians who killed five Israelis praying at a synagogue.”10

Overall, the governments of Israel and Jordan would most likely prefer to accommodate one another rather than pursue confrontation; however, Prime Minister Netanyahu and King Abdullah II each have domestic opponents who seek political gain from confrontation over Jerusalem. On November 20, Jordanian authorities arrested a high level member of the Muslim Brotherhood after he criticized the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, accusing UAE of serving “Zionist agendas.”

Israeli-Jordanian Cooperation

The Dead Sea:11 Recently, Jordan and Israel have pursued several potential resource and energy cooperative agreements. On December 9, 2013, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority signed a regional water agreement that could pave the way for the Red-Dead Canal, which is a multi-billion dollar project to address declining water levels in the Dead Sea. The Red-Dead Canal is a decades-old plan to provide freshwater to water-scarce countries in the surrounding area while simultaneously restoring the Dead Sea.

The “Red-Dead” concept is to pump water from the Red Sea, desalinate some of it, and then transfer remaining saltwater north and below sea level to the Dead Sea. The proposal has been extensively studied; however, its estimated high cost ($10 billion to $12 billion) has hindered implementation. Moreover, since Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority all govern territory or have claims to territory adjacent to the Dead Sea, continued political uncertainty caused by the lack of an Israeli-Palestinian final status agreement also has hindered construction. Palestinians reject moving the canal project forward without a conflict-ending agreement with Israel in place delineating their territorial and riparian rights regarding the Dead Sea and its shore. Nevertheless, Jordan has pursued the Red-Dead Canal concept. Jordan is one of the most water-deprived countries in the world and is constantly searching for new water resources. In August 2013, the Jordanian government announced its intent to construct a scaled-down version of the canal entirely on Jordanian territory. Jordan would then send desalinated water to its southern city of Aqaba and possibly sell excess water to Israel, while sending remaining seawater to the Dead Sea to replenish it. Environmentalists, who have long criticized plans to restore the Dead Sea using Red Sea water, assert that rather than risk damaging the Dead Sea’s ecosystem, countries should stop diverting water from the Jordan River, which feeds the Dead Sea.

Under a December 2013 agreement, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority have agreed to a water swap. Half of the water pumped from the Red Sea will be desalinated in a plant to be constructed in Aqaba, Jordan, over the next three years. Some of this water will then be used in southern Jordan. The rest will be sold to Israel for use in the Negev Desert. In return, Israel will sell freshwater from the Sea of Galilee to northern Jordan and sell the Palestinian Authority discounted freshwater produced by existing Israeli desalination plants on the Mediterranean. The other half of the water pumped from the Red Sea (or possibly the leftover brine from desalination) will be channeled to the Dead Sea.

Natural Gas: In December 2013, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel and Jordan were negotiating the terms of the sale of Israeli natural gas to Jordan.12 The kingdom depends on oil and gas imports and, since 2011, cut-offs in the supply of Egyptian natural gas due to unrest in the Sinai have cost the Jordanian government several billion dollars by compelling it to import more expensive alternatives. In Egypt under Mubarak, energy cooperation with Israel had been a source of controversy and a symbol of corruption, and the government of Jordan could face domestic criticism if the deal moves forward.

Country Background

Although the United States and Jordan have never been linked by a formal treaty, they have cooperated on a number of regional and international issues for decades. The country’s small size and lack of major economic resources have made it dependent on aid from Western and friendly Arab sources. U.S. support, in particular, has helped Jordan deal with serious vulnerabilities, both internal and external. Jordan’s geographic position, wedged between Israel, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, has made it vulnerable to the strategic designs of its powerful neighbors, but has also given Jordan an important role as a buffer between these potential adversaries. In 1990, Jordan’s unwillingness to join the allied coalition against Iraq disrupted its relations with the United States and the Gulf states; however, relations improved throughout the 1990s as Jordan played an increasing role in the Arab-Israeli peace process and distanced itself from the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

Domestic Politics and the Economy

Jordan, created by colonial powers after World War I, initially consisted of desert or semi-desert territory east of the Jordan River, inhabited largely by people of Bedouin tribal background. The establishment of the state of Israel brought large numbers of Palestinian refugees to Jordan, which subsequently unilaterally annexed a small Palestinian enclave west of the Jordan River known as the West Bank.13 The original “East Bank” Jordanians, though probably no longer a majority in Jordan, remain predominant in the country’s political and military establishments and form the bedrock of support for the Jordanian monarchy. Jordanians of Palestinian origin comprise an estimated 55% to 70% of the population and generally tend to gravitate toward the private sector due to their exclusion from certain public sector and military positions.14

The Hashemite Royal Family

Jordan is a hereditary constitutional monarchy under the prestigious Hashemite family, which claims descent from the Prophet Muhammad. King Abdullah II (age 51) has ruled the country
since 1999, when he succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father, the late King Hussein, after a 47-year reign. Educated largely in Britain and the United States, King Abdullah II had earlier pursued a military career, ultimately serving as commander of Jordan’s Special Operations Forces with the rank of Major General. The king’s son Prince Hussein (b. 1994) is the designated crown prince.15

The king appoints a prime minister to head the government and the Council of Ministers (cabinet).16 On average, Jordanian governments last no more than 15 months before they are dissolved by royal decree. This seems to be done in order to bolster the king’s reform credentials and to distribute patronage among a wide range of elites. The king also appoints all judges and is commander of the armed forces.

Constitution, Parliament, Political Parties, and Judiciary

The Jordanian constitution (promulgated in 1952 and last amended in 2011) empowers the king with broad executive powers. According to Article 35, “The King appoints the Prime Minister and may dismiss him or accept his resignation. He appoints the Ministers; he also dismisses them or accepts their resignation, upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister.” The constitution also enables the king to dissolve both houses of parliament and postpone lower house elections for two years.17 The king also can circumvent parliament through a constitutional mechanism that allows provisional legislation to be issued by the cabinet when parliament is not sitting or has been dissolved.18 The king also can issue royal decrees, which are not subject to parliamentary scrutiny. The king commands the armed forces, declares war, and ratifies treaties. Finally, Article 195 of the Jordanian Penal Code prohibits insulting the dignity of the king (lèse-majesté) with criminal penalties of one to three years in prison.

Political parties in Jordan are extremely weak, as the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Action Front (IAF) is the only well-organized movement. Most parties represent narrow parochial interests and are composed of prominent individuals representing a particular family or tribe.

Jordan’s constitution provides for an independent judiciary. According to Article 97, “Judges are independent, and in the exercise of their judicial functions they are subject to no authority other than that of the law.” Jordan has three main types of courts: Civil courts, special courts (some of which are military/state security courts), and religious courts. In Jordan, state security courts administered by military (and civilian) judges handle criminal cases involving espionage, bribery of public officials, trafficking in narcotics or weapons, black marketeering, and “security offenses.” Overall, the king may appoint and dismiss judges by decree, though in practice a palace-appointed Higher Judicial Council manages court appointments, promotions, transfers, and retirements.

The Economy

With few natural resources19 and a small industrial base, Jordan has an economy which is heavily dependent on external aid from abroad, tourism, expatriate worker remittances,20 and the service sector. Among the long-standing problems Jordan faces are poverty (15%-30%), corruption, slow economic growth, and high levels of unemployment, nominally around 13% but thought by many analysts to be in the 25%-30% range.21 Youth unemployment is nearly 30%. Corruption22 is particularly pronounced in Jordan. Use of intermediaries, referred to in Arabic as “Wasta” (connections), is widespread, and many young Jordanians have grown frustrated by the lack of social and economic mobility that corruption engenders.23 Each year, thousands of Jordanians go abroad in search of better jobs and opportunities. Like many poor countries, Jordan suffers from a “brain drain” of its most talented workers, and the government has struggled to develop incentives to keep its well-educated, highly skilled workers close to home. The government is by far the largest employer, with between one-third and two-thirds of all workers on the state’s payroll.

The Government’s Chronic Fiscal Deficit

Due to sluggish domestic growth (In October 2013, the IMF forecasted GDP growth of 3.3% in 2013, rising to 3.5% in 2014), high energy/food subsidies and a bloated public sector workforce, Jordan usually runs annual budget deficits (total public debt is $25 billion) which it partially offsets by appealing to the international community for direct budget support. For 2014, the government is projecting expenditures of $11.4 billion against domestic revenues of $5.86 billion. The government anticipates that foreign grants will help off-set this shortfall, and according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Jordan’s total budget deficit in 2014 will be just over 4% of GDP.24 Credit agencies downgraded Jordan’s rating in 2013, projecting that the total debt-to-GDP ratio will hit 84% in 2013 and reach close to 90% of GDP in 2014.25 Five years ago total debt to GDP was 60%.

In order to keep Jordan fiscally stable, the International Monetary Fund agreed to a three-year, $2 billion loan in August 2012. As part of the IMF deal, Jordan is expected to cut spending and may increase consumer electricity prices. It already has increased taxes on mobile phones and contracts. However, when the government cut subsidies which raised the prices of cooking gas, diesel, kerosene, and gasoline in 2012, large scale protests broke out across the country, and the king subsequently reversed some cuts though others have remained in place. In Jordan, protests over economic issues could be the likeliest trigger of changes to government policy, as well as perhaps to its political system.

According to one member of Jordan’s parliament, “Unlike political protests and parties that lack unity or a voice that represents Jordanians, the labor strikes have focused on demands that improve their livelihoods…. They come with a list of specific demands and they have largely succeeded.”26 Jordanian lawmakers also at times challenge the King’s decision-making on subsidies. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, “On most political issues the legislature can generally be counted on to support the regime, but MPs regularly challenge the government on economic policy, and in particular on any attempts at structural reform and economic liberalization.”27

U.S. Foreign Assistance to Jordan

The United States has provided economic and military aid, respectively, to Jordan since 1951 and 1957. Total U.S. aid to Jordan through FY2013 amounted to approximately $13.83 billion.

The Five-Year Aid Deal

On September 22, 2008, the U.S. and Jordanian governments reached an agreement whereby the United States will provide a total of $660 million in annual foreign assistance to Jordan over a five-year period (FY2010-FY2014). Under the terms of their non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), this first-of-its-kind deal commits the United States, subject to future congressional appropriation and availability of funds, to providing $360 million per year in Economic Support Funds (ESF) and $300 million per year in Foreign Military Financing (FMF).28 According to the Jordanian government, the agreement “reaffirms the strategic partnership and cooperation between the two countries.” Coming at a time when the overall budget for foreign aid was constrained by U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the deal was a testament to strong U.S.-Jordanian relations. In 2014, the United States and Jordan may negotiate the terms of a new five-year aid deal.

Economic Assistance

The United States provides economic aid to Jordan as both a cash transfer and for USAID programs in Jordan. The Jordanian government uses cash transfers to service its foreign debt. Approximately 53% of Jordan’s ESF allotment goes toward the cash transfer. USAID programs in Jordan focus on a variety of sectors including democracy assistance, water preservation, and education (particularly building and renovating public schools). In the democracy sector, U.S. assistance has supported capacity building programs for the parliament’s support offices, the Jordanian Judicial Council, Judicial Institute, and the Ministry of Justice. The International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute also have received U.S. grants to train, among other groups, some Jordanian political parties and members of parliament. In the water sector, the bulk of U.S. economic assistance is devoted to optimizing the management of scarce water resources, as Jordan is one of the most water-deprived countries in the world. USAID is currently subsidizing several waste treatment and water distribution projects in the Jordanian cities of Amman, Mafraq, Aqaba, and Irbid.

Food Aid

Jordan periodically receives U.S. food aid administered by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) under Title I of the Food for Peace Act (P.L. 480), under the Section 416(b) program permanently authorized by the Agricultural Act of 1949, and under the Food for Progress Act of 1985 as a grant. Between FY1999 to FY2006, Jordan received approximately $238.52 million in food aid to purchase wheat. Jordan received no food assistance between FY2007 to FY2010. In FY2011, the United States provided Jordan with $19 million aid to purchase 50,000 metric tons of wheat. In September 2012, the United States agreed to provide Jordan with 50,000 metric tons of wheat valued at $17 million.

Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)

In FY2006, Jordan was listed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) as a Threshold country in the lower middle-income bracket. On September 12, 2006, the MCC’s board of directors approved up to $25 million in Threshold Program assistance for Jordan. Even prior to the selection, the possible choice of Jordan had come under severe criticism. Freedom House, the organization whose annual Index of Freedom is drawn upon for two of the “Ruling Justly” indicators, urged the MCC board to bypass countries that had low scores on political rights and civil liberties. It argued that countries like Jordan that fall below 4 out of a possible 7 on its index should be automatically disqualified. Jordan, however, did well on 3 of the 6 other indicators in this category. Several development analysts further argued that Jordan should not be eligible, asserting that it is already one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid, has access to private sector capital, and is not a democracy. In selecting Jordan, the MCC board appears not to have been swayed by these arguments.

In September 2010, the Millennium Challenge Corporation approved a five-year, $275.1 million compact with Jordan to increase the supply of water available to households and businesses in the cities of Amman and Zarqa. The compact also will help improve the efficiency of water delivery, wastewater collection, and wastewater treatment. If estimates hold true, the clean drinking water generated as a result of the MCC compact may be enough to supply almost 1 million Jordanian citizens with freshwater.

Loan Guarantees

In September 2013, the United States announced that it was providing its first-ever loan guarantee29 to the Kingdom of Jordan. USAID notified Congress of its intent to obligate up to $120 million in FY2013 ESF-OCO to support a $1.25 billion, 7-year sovereign loan guarantee for Jordan. According to the State Department, “this guarantee reinforces the firm U.S. commitment o the people of Jordan by strengthening the Government of Jordan’s ability to maintain access to international financing, while enabling it to achieve its economic development and reform goals. In February 2014, during a visit to the United States by King Abdullah II, the Obama Administration announced that it would offer Jordan an additional five-year, $1 billion loan guarantee. The Administration has notified Congress that $72 million out of the $340 million of OCO-ESF for Jordan in the FY2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act will be used to support the subsidy costs for the new loan guarantee.

Military Assistance

U.S.-Jordanian military cooperation is a key component in bilateral relations. In 1996, the United States granted Jordan Major non-NATO Ally (MNNA) status, a designation that, among other things, makes Jordan eligible to receive excess U.S. defense articles, training, and loans of equipment for cooperative research and development. Since 2009, Jordan has received excess U.S. defense equipment valued at approximately $81.69 million.30U.S. military assistance is primarily directed toward enabling the Jordanian military to procure and maintain conventional weapons systems. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants to Jordan enable its Air Force to maintain a modest fleet of F-16 fighters and purchase Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM). FMF grants also provide financing for Jordan’s purchase of U.S. Blackhawk helicopters in order to enhance Jordan’s border monitoring and counter-terror capability. Jordan is currently the single largest provider of civilian police personnel and fifth- largest provider of military personnel to U.N. peacekeeping operations worldwide. In addition to large-scale military aid grants for conventional weapons purchases, Jordan also receives grants of U.S. antiterrorism assistance from the Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs account (NADR) and from International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLCE) account.

Possible Congressional Action on U.S. Aid to Jordan

The House and Senate versions of the FY2015 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bills (H.R. 5013 and S. 2499) support foreign assistance to Jordan above the levels set out in the previous five-year MOU.31 Both the House and Senate bills specify not less than $360 million in ESF and not less than $300 million in FMF for Jordan for FY2015. Both the House and Senate also would provide $340 million in State and Foreign Operations OCO funding to Jordan for “the extraordinary costs related to instability in the region.” S. 2499 also states that OCO funds may be used for Jordan’s security requirements along the border with Iraq and Syria. Any funds appropriated in the Department of Defense appropriations bill for these purposes could add to these amounts.

In addition, President Obama has submitted two supplementary OCO spending requests to Congress for FY2015 which, if passed, could increase aid to Jordan. The President’s June 2014 request included a proposal for a $1.5 billion Syria Regional Stabilization Initiative (RSI) that would, among other things, expand efforts to “build the capacity of the Syrian opposition and of neighboring countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq to manage the growing spillover effects of the Syrian conflict. The President’s second request in November 2014 seeks $100 million in FY2015 OCO FMF for Jordan.

Although most U.S. aid to Jordan is administered by the State Department, the Department of Defense has begun a limited train and equip program with the Jordanian military. In FY2015, Jordan may receive 1206 assistance for the first time. The Pentagon has notified Congress of its intent to spend $11.16 million to provide ammunition and communications equipment to Jordanian border guards. Moreover, the Senate Appropriation Committee’s version of the FY2015 Defense Appropriations bill (H.R. 4870) would provide Defense Department’s Operation and Maintenance (O&M) funds, a Defense-wide account, that may be used to “reimburse the government of Jordan, in such amounts as the Secretary of Defense may determine, to maintain the ability of the Jordanian armed forces to maintain security along the border between Jordan and Syria.”

Congress may also consider stand-alone legislation to assist Jordan. H.R. 5648, the United States- Jordan Defense Cooperation Act of 2014, would accelerate arms exports to Jordan and, among other things, provide an interest-bearing account for appropriated FMF to Jordan.

U.S.-Jordanian Trade

Jordan ranked 73th among U.S. trading partners in volume of trade with the United States in 2012. According to the United States Trade Commission, in 2012 Jordan exported over a billion dollars in goods and services to the United States, a large percentage of which consisted of apparel and clothing accessories. In 2012, Jordanian imports from the United States reached $1.6 billion. Principal U.S. commodities imported by Jordan consisted of aircraft parts, machinery and appliances, vehicles, and cereals. Two measures, in particular—the Free Trade Agreement and Qualifying Industrial Zones—have helped expand U.S.-Jordanian trade ties and could create more opportunities for U.S. investment in Jordan.

Free Trade Agreement

On October 24, 2000, then-President Clinton and King Abdullah II witnessed the signing of a U.S.-Jordanian Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated duties and commercial barriers to bilateral trade in goods and services originating in the two countries. Earlier, in a report released on September 26, 2000, the U.S. International Trade Commission concluded that a U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement would have no measurable impact on total U.S. imports or exports, U.S. production, or U.S. employment. Under the agreement, the two countries agreed to enforce existing laws concerning worker rights and environmental protection. On January 6, 2001, then- President Clinton transmitted to the 107th Congress a proposal to implement the Free Trade Agreement. On July 23, then-U.S. Trade Representative Zoellick and then-Jordanian Ambassador Marwan Muasher exchanged letters pledging that the two sides would “make every effort” to resolve disputes without recourse to sanctions and other formal procedures. These letters were designed to allay concerns on the part of some Members over the possible use of sanctions to enforce labor and environmental provisions of the treaty. President Bush signed H.R. 2603, which implemented the FTA as P.L. 107-43 on September 28, 2001, during King Abdullah’s visit to Washington, DC, following the September 11, 2001, attacks. For additional information, see CRS Report RL30652, U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, by Mary Jane Bolle.

Qualifying Industrial Zones

One outgrowth of the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty was the establishment of “Qualifying Industrial Zones” (QIZs), under which goods produced with specified levels of Jordanian and Israeli input can enter the United States duty free, under the provisions of P.L. 104-234. This act amended previous legislation so as to grant the President authority to extend the U.S.-Israel free trade area to cover products from QIZs between Israel and Jordan or between Israel and Egypt. QIZs were designed both to help the Jordanian economy and to serve as a vehicle for expanding commercial ties between Jordan and Israel. Although QIZs have succeeded in boosting U.S.- Jordanian trade, there has been only a modest increase in Jordanian-Israeli trade.

Currently there are 13 QIZs in Jordan employing approximately 43,000 people (working eight- hour days, six days a week), 74% of whom are foreign workers from South and Southeast Asian nations including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Employers apparently view foreign laborers as more skilled and productive than native Jordanians. In addition, it is difficult for employers to recruit native Jordanians since workers typically live on site, and many are hesitant to separate from their families, though in some areas native Jordanians are provided with free transportation to the QIZs. According to one Jordanian labor leader, foreign workers are attractive to employers because “they are like slaves. They work them day and night.”32 Labor rights activists also have complained that Jordanian workers in the QIZs are excluded from a new minimum wage law.

Military Cooperation

The United States is helping Jordan modernize its armed forces. The Jordanian military, though well trained and disciplined, has less personnel and weaponry than the militaries in each of Jordan’s neighboring countries. In recent years, Jordan has used U.S. military assistance grants to purchase Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, upgrades for its fleet of F-16 fighters (approximately 70-80), and Black Hawk helicopters. The United States also delivered three Patriot anti-missile batteries to Jordan in early 2003 prior to the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq.
Joint Exercises and Training

A U.S.-Jordanian Joint Military Commission has functioned since 1974. Nearly 300 Jordanian military personnel study in the United States each year. In recent years, Jordan has been among the top three recipients of U.S. International Military Education and Training (IMET) funding. In FY2013, approximately 257 Jordanian officers participated in this program.33 IMET also funds the equipping of English language labs in Jordan. Combined training exercises by U.S. and Jordanian military units continue to take place in Jordan (dubbed “Early Victor”), at least on an annual basis and sometimes more often. In June 2013, U.S. troops participated in a multinational training exercise in Jordan known as “Eager Lion.” In addition, the United States has supported the construction of the King Abdullah II Center for Special Operations Training (KASOTC). The center has been partially financed by the United States, including with $99 million in appropriations from the FY2005 Emergency Supplemental Act (P.L. 109-13). It serves as a regional headquarters for counter-terrorism training.34 In 2003, Jordan built a Special Operations Command and the Anti-Terrorism Center in order to boost counter-terrorism capabilities within the military.

About the author:
*Jeremy M. Sharp
Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs

Source:
This report was published December 2, 2014 by the Congressional Research Service with the title, Jordan: Background and U.S. Relations, and may be accessed here (PDF).

Notes:
1. See also, CRS Insights, The Islamic State in Syria and Iraq: A Possible Threat to Jordan? http://www.crs.gov/pages/Insights.aspx?PRODCODE=IN10143
2. For additional background, see CRS Report R43612, The “Islamic State” Crisis and U.S. Policy, by Kenneth Katzman et al.
3. In 1991, Congress suspended the delivery of U.S. economic and military aid to Jordan as a result of its support for Iraq. See Section 502 of P.L. 102-27, the Dire Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Consequences of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation Administration, Veterans Compensation and Pensions, and Urgent Needs for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 1991 and For Other Purposes.
4. Jordan and Israel signed the peace treaty on October 26, 1994. Later, the two countries exchanged ambassadors; Israel returned approximately 131 square miles of territory near the Rift Valley to Jordan; the parliament repealed laws banning contacts with Israel; and the two countries signed a number of bilateral agreements between 1994 and 1996 to normalize economic and cultural links. Water sharing, a recurring problem, was partially resolved in May 1997 when the two countries reached an interim arrangement under which Israel began pumping 72,000 cubic meters of water from Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee) to Jordan per day (equivalent to 26.3 million cubic meters per year—a little over half the target amount envisioned in an annex to the peace treaty).
5. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) maintains a large presence in Jordan, including part of its headquarters (the other part is in Gaza City). UNRWA has 7,000 staff in Jordan, comprising mostly teachers, doctors, and engineers. It operates 172 schools in Jordan (providing education through 10th grade, then the remainder provided by government). According to UNRWA officials, their budget is $104 million a year. At this point, 83% of all U.N.-registered refugees live outside of UNRWA camps.
6. For background on recent confrontations over Jerusalem, see CRS Insights, Jerusalem: Recent Israeli-Palestinian Tensions and Violence, by Jim Zanotti, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs (jzanotti@crs.loc.gov, 7-1441), November 20, 2014.
7. “Jordan-Israel Relations in Crisis over al-Aqsa Mosque Strife,” Reuters, November 5, 2014.
8. Article 9, Clause 2 of the peace treaty says that “Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.” In 2013, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) reaffirmed in a bilateral agreement with Jordan that the King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will continue to serve as the “Custodian of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem,” a title that successive Jordanian monarchs have used since 1924.
9. Remarks With Jordanian Foreign Minister Judeh After Their Meeting, John Kerry, Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Amman, Jordan, November 13, 2014.
10. “Relationship between Israel and Jordan grows warier amid tensions in Jerusalem” Washington Post, November 23, 2014.
11. See, Testimony of Jeremy M. Sharp, Hearing on Water as a Geopolitical Threat, Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, January 16, 2014.
12. “Energy Firms Near Deal to Sell Israeli Gas into Jordan Deal Would Move Israel Closer To Becoming an Energy Exporter,” Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2013.
13. Though there was very little international recognition of Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank, Jordan maintained control of it (including East Jerusalem) until Israel took military control of it during the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and maintained its claim to it until relinquishing the claim to the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1988.
14. Speculation over the ratio of East Bankers to Palestinians (those who arrived as refugees and immigrants since 1948) in Jordanian society tends to be a sensitive domestic issue. Jordan last conducted a national census in 2004 (the next census may take place in 2014), and it is unclear whether or not the government maintains such statistics. Over time, intermarriage has made it more difficult to discern distinct differences between the two communities, though divisions do persist.
15. In July 2009, King Abdullah II named his then 15-year-old son, Prince Hussein Bin Abdullah, as crown prince. The position had been vacant since 2004, when King Abdullah II removed the title from his half-brother, Prince Hamzah.
16. In March 2013, King Abdullah II consulted with members of the 17th parliament before choosing a prime minister. Although the King retains the constitutional authority to appoint and dismiss the prime minister, he has pledged to reach a consensus with lawmakers before choosing a premier. The Muslim Brotherhood, which boycotted the election leading to the formation of the current parliament, seeks a parliamentary system of government in which the prime minister would be chosen by the largest block in parliament.
17. The king also may declare martial law. According to Article 125, “In the event of an emergency of such a serious nature that action under the preceding Article of the present Constitution will be considered insufficient for the defense of the Kingdom, the King may by a Royal Decree, based on a decision of the Council of Ministers, declare martial law in the whole or any part of the Kingdom.”
18. New amendments to Article 94 in 2011 have put some restrictions on when the executive is allowed to issue temporary laws.
19. Jordan possesses substantial reserves of phosphates and potash. No significant oil and gas fields have been discovered. However, Jordan has one of world’s largest reserves of oil shale. Officials estimate that the country contains the world’s fourth-largest oil shale reserves. In 2006, Royal Dutch/Shell signed an oil shale exploration agreement with the Jordanian government. Estonia’s Enefit Eesti Energia AS also has signed agreements on oil shale projects. In 2012, the Canadian company, Global Oil Shale Holdings (GOSH), reached an agreement with the Jordanian government to produce oil shale as well. For further background, see, “Amman Unlocks Energy Potential,” Middle East Economic Digest, August 7, 2009.
20. It is estimated that up to 20% of GDP comes from remittances. Nearly 10% of Jordan’s population (600,000 est.) reside and work in Arab Gulf countries.
21. One factor that exacerbates the unemployment situation in Jordan is the social stigma attached to menial labor jobs. Referred to as the “culture of shame,” Jordanian tribal traditions look down on certain types of employment such as construction. In fact, the government estimates that there are approximately 300,000 to 400,000 foreign laborers in Jordan working as domestic laborers, bricklayers, and other tasks. According to the Jordanian Employment Ministry, Egyptians make up 68% of foreign workers in Jordan.
22. Jordan was ranked 49 out of 180 countries surveyed in Transparency International’s 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index.
23. In 2006, the Jordanian parliament passed a law establishing an Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) which has taken on several high level investigations in recent years, specifically looking into accusations of graft in a public housing project (Decent Home for Decent Living) and a water works project (Disi Water Conveyance).
24. “2014 budget is Criticised by local Economists,” Economist Intelligence Unit, November 20, 2013.
25. “Moody’s Downgrades Jordan Credit Rating two Notches to B1,” Reuters, June 26, 2013.
26. “In Jordan, Protests Focus on Prices and Economy,” New York Times, May 30, 2012.
27. “Parliament puts Pressure on Government over Fuel Prices,” Economist Intelligence Unit, March 7th 2013.
28. Under the terms of the MOU, annual foreign aid (non-supplemental) to Jordan will rise by nearly 50%, from an estimated $460 million per year to $660 million.
29. Congress initially authorized additional economic assistance to Jordan in Section 7041 of P.L. 112-74, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012. P.L. 113-6, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 specified that such assistance should take the form of a loan guarantee. Section 1706 (j) of the same Act also appropriated $30 million (from FY2011) for the initial cost of sovereign loan guarantees. The Department of State and USAID intend to transfer and merge $120 million appropriated in FY 2013 Foreign Military Financing (FMF) OCO funding, into ESF OCO for additional subsidy costs related to the bond issuance.
30. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Country Information Paper, Jordan. According to the Defense Department, in December 2013 the United States delivered 35 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPS) to Jordan as requested by the Jordanian military earlier in 2013.
31. In report language accompanying S. 2499, the Senate version of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, appropriators note that “the Committee supports the renegotiation of the memorandum of understanding [MOU] with Jordan at levels of funding that reflect the costs related to instability in the region, including border security requirements, budget support, and energy dependence.”
32. “Industrial Zones Create Little Work for Jordanians,” Financial Times, February 9, 2009.
33. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), Country Information Paper, Jordan.
34. According to one description of the new U.S.-Jordanian facility, “If special forces have to conduct house-to-house searches, KASOTC provides that infrastructure in a training environment…. If they have to rescue hostages on an airplane, KASOTC provides the plane. If they have to rescue hostages from an embassy, KASOTC provides an embassy structure.” See, Joan Kibler, “KASOTC,” Special Operations Technology Online Edition, volume 6, issue 2, March 19, 2008.

The post Jordan: Background And US Relations – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty

Thailand appears to be heading for a royal change of guard at the very top. The widely revered and ailing 87-year-old king, Bhumibol Adulyadej or Rama IX of the Chakri dynasty, has not been seen in public for quite some time. Bhumibol is the world’s longest serving monarch, having ascended the throne in 1946. The wife of the crown prince, Maha Vajiralongkorn, Princess Srirasmi, has been ousted with the announcement that she has been stripped of all titles and privileges. The 43-year-old Srirasmi married Vajiralongkorn in 2001 as his third wife.Pictures and videos of Srirasmi in revealing dresses have surfaced in the public domain. The motive seems to be to malign her character and lower her standing among the public at large. There is also speculation in Bangkok that Vajiralongkorn, the crown prince and heir-apparent, has dumped the exiled former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, and joined hands with the royal family and the military government that ousted the government of Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, in May this year. The crown prince has reportedly fathered a son from another woman whom he has married secretly.

Bangkok’s elite and its allied royal family members detest Thaksin, who managed to influence and dominate Thai politics even from exile in Dubai. A former policeman, Thaksin made billions from his telecommunications empire and fought for power and control from abroad as a fugitive, after being sentenced to two years in prison in 2008. Thaksin had built a powerful lobby in the police. He also reportedly constructed a palace for Vajiralongkorn in an effort to secure the crown prince’s support. Srirasmi’s ouster coincides with the arrest of some of the country’s top policemen, including Pongpat Chayaphan, an uncle of Srirasmi and the head of the corruption-ridden Central Investigation Bureau. Thaksin had churned up Thai politics by building a formidable rural-based vote bank using public welfare programmes, and became prime minister in 2001. His politics sidelined the traditional royalist Democrat Party, which was unable to muster enough electoral support to thwart Thaksin. The royalists ultimately joined hands with the Thai army to oust Thaksin in a coup in 2006 and managed to convict him in a case involving the sale of shares in his telecommunications company. Thailand’s pliable judiciary and its royalist links ensured that Thaksin was convicted. This did not deter him and his party, in a new avatar, made a comeback. He installed his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, as the first woman prime minister of Thailand, after fresh elections were held in 2011. She, too, was ousted by the Thai judiciary and the army again mounted a coup in May this year.

Thailand has the most stringent lese-majeste laws in the world. The developments surrounding Srirasmi have set tongues wagging in Thailand but the media practices drastic self-censorship, lest it fall foul of lese-majeste laws. Political intrigue and squabbling is endemic among the Bangkok elite, the royalty and politicians. The king and his conspiratorial queen, Sirikit, have lost their earlier sheen in the eyes of an increasingly sceptical public. It is widely rumoured that the king, ailing and frail for many years, may be nearing the end of his life. Members of the royalty, however, claim that his condition is stable. The king is reported to suffer from Parkinson’s disease, a progressive disorder of the nervous system. A gall bladder surgery in early November may have left him weaker than before. Over the last few years, the king has appeared in public in a wheelchair, has not spoken and, apart from waving weakly, has not shown any physical activity.

Media in Thailand have reported that Thai authorities have also seized assets worth more than $300 million including cash, gold, land deeds, amulets, Buddhist artworks and images from properties owned by the former CIB chief.Srirasmi owned an antique shop in Bangkok and a connection is sought to be made with her uncle’s large collection of antiques that were acquired by blackmail. As many as 50 law enforcement officials’ names are said to appear on a bribe payment record seized from a businessman connected with an oil-smuggling ring.The campaign against Srirasmi, a commoner from a humble background, has, therefore, been revived. An infamous video showing her topless during the birthday celebration of her pet dog in 2001 has resurfaced along with many photos of Srirasmi in various stages of undress. These are either taken by the crown prince or someone close to the couple. The Thai royal family never liked Srirasmi, who has been described at different times as a cocktail hostess or an aspiring singer. Royal family and privy council members are suspected to have bribed servants in the prince’s household to get hold of these pictures to discredit her. The plan is to ensure that Srirasmi does not become queen when Vajiralongkorn eventually becomes king. Another issue is Srirasmi’s son, nine-year-old Dhipangkor, who suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, making it difficult to put him in the line of succession after the 62-year-old prince. Another reason for Srirasmi’s ouster is that the prince now has another wife, his fourth, who has borne him a son. She is Suthid, a commoner and a former Thai Airways flight attendant. She lives in Munich where the prince visits her frequently.

The treatment being meted out to Srirasmi is not dissimilar to the banishing of the prince’s second wife,Yuvadhida Polpraserth. She, too, was a commoner. The prince got Yuvadhida commissioned as a major in the Royal Thai Army and she participated in royal ceremonies. After he met Srirasmi, Yuvadhida was accused of adultery and driven out of Thailand. She lives in London with their four children who were stripped of their passports and royal perquisites. One daughter was later rehabilitated and is now a princess. She was reportedly abducted from the United Kingdom at the prince’s behest.

Ever since the king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, suffered a stroke in July 2012 that ended his ability to play an active role in Thai political life, Thailand has been in the throes of a succession struggle. Royal family factions have fought over the competing candidates, Vajiralongkorn or his sister, the popular princess, Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Maha Chakri remains single and has not shown any interest in marriage. The prince is not popular within the royal family for his shady dealings with Chinese gangsters, his womanizing and his apparent refusal to adhere to royal rules. The United States of America embassy cables, leaked by WikiLeaks in 2011, refer to these issues.The king, however, supported the claim of Vajiralongkorn in spite of his aberrant behaviour.Thailand’s stringent lese-majeste laws have prevented any discussion of the prince’s conduct.

Vajiralongkorn’s behaviour has long worried Thailand’s royal family, its allied elite and the army. It seems that developments relating to Srirasmi and the arrest of her policeman uncle and others are part of a well-planned move to weed out undesirable elements. Severing relations with Thaksin is, probably, also part of this game plan. Thais are paranoid about a post-King Bhumibol era. Several generations have known no other king. The king, though not always correct in his political judgment, has generally played a stabilizing role in Thailand and there is nervousness about the crown prince taking over as king. The crown prince appears to have fallen in line with the wishes of the royal family as a price that he has to pay to succeed his father as the next king of Thailand.

(The author is a Distinguished Fellow with Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a former Indian Ambassador to Thailand)

Courtesy: The Telegraph, December 16, 2014

The post Thailand: The King, Princesses, Uncles And The Crown Prince – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.