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ISIS-linked Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in Sinai continues to confound Egypt's army
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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At least 100 Coptic Christian families 200 Coptic Christian academic students have been forced to flee from El-Arish, the capital city of Egypt's North Sinai governate, after being threatened by the Sinai terror group called Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM - Ansar Jerusalem - Champions of Jerusalem), which changed its name to Al Wilayat Sinai (Province of Sinai) when it changed its allegiance in 2015 from al-Qaeda to the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
The hundreds of Copts left their homes for the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, 125 miles west, where they were received by a Protestant Church, the Evangelical Church of Ismailia.
This comes after seven Coptic Christians were killed this month ABM militants, including one who was burned alive. The killings occurred after ISIS on February 19 released a video calling Copts "our priority and our preferred prey." According to reports, ABM has "kill lists" that include the names of at least 40 Copts living in Sinai.
The series of attacks is a major embarrassment to Egypt's president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi, who has been promising to eradicate terrorism from Northern Sinai after a series of terror attacks in the last two years. On Saturday, he ordered the government to take all necessary measures to provide assistance to the Coptic Christians who were forced to flee, and renewed his pledge to eliminate ISIS from Sinai, where the "undermine security and stability in Egypt."
The Muslim Brotherhood, not wanting to be blamed, has strongly condemned the killings in Sinai, but blamed them on the "military coup regime" of al-Sisi. This is an allusion to the 2013 coup, led by then-army chief al-Sisi, ousting Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government. Christianity Today and Al Ahram (Cairo) and IkhwanWeb (Muslim Brotherhood) and Middle East Eye
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Egypt's army on Monday announced that it had killed six militants in Northern Sinai since the Coptic families were forced to flee. "Law enforcement forces will continue carrying out their mission with determination to uproot terrorism and eliminate terrorist elements," said the statement.
However, this battle between Egypt's army and Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has been going on for years, and many people wonder why the army hasn't defeated ABM by now.
According to one analysis, Egypt's army is ill-equipped to deal with guerrilla warfare in urban and mountainous areas. Even more important, ABM has been able to acquire sophisticated weapons from stockpiles of weapons that were up for grabs in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi was killed in 2011. A steady stream of these weapons was smuggled by a Libyan jihadist group, Ansar al-Sharia ("Partisans of Sharia law").
One of these weapons was the Russian Kornet, an antitank guided missile, which was a game-changer. Other weapons included Grad missiles, anti-tank rocket propelled grenades, air defense Strela missiles, the latest Kalashnikov rifles, the Austrian Steyr sniper rifles, and DShK Russian machine heavy guns. These weapons have changed ABM from a small terrorist group into a large, well-armed militia.
According to another report, hundreds of trained fighters, including dozens of elite commandos, formerly in the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas in Gaza, have been defecting to ABM-ISIS in the Sinai. These same al-Qassam militants have been providing training to the ISIS fighters in Sinai. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Jerusalem Post and PJ Media
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Feb-17 World View -- ISIS forces hundreds of Christians to flee Egypt's North Sinai thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Feb-2017)
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South Africa threatens to crack down on businesses hiring
illegal immigrants
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Police in Pretoria, one of South Africa's three capital cities, used rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades on Friday to break up clashes between local anti-immigrant protesters and migrants living and working in the area. Police arrested 136 people, many of them protesters and looters armed with clubs, sticks, pipes and rocks. In retaliation, migrants armed themselves with sticks and clubs too. The migrants are from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Pakistan and other countries.
Earlier this week, migrants were targeted in the suburbs of Pretoria and Johannesburg, where shops and businesses were burned or destroyed.
Officials fear a repeat of massive xenophobic violence that occurred in 2008, when at least 60 people were killed. Atrocities including dragging migrants through the streets and burning them alive. In 2015, xenophobic violence resulted in six deaths in Durban.
As one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, South Africa draws migrants from poor countries who come to work or to escape violence. Nonetheless, the unemployment rate is over 25%, and migrants are blamed for taking jobs. Xenophobic violence frequently targets small shops and businesses run by migrants, claiming that they're drug dens and brothels.
South African politicians encourage businesses to hire citizens rather than migrants, but many businesses hire migrants because they can be paid less, and because they can be exploited in the sense of not being paid at all. LA Times and EyeWitnessNews (South Africa) and Mail and Guardian (South Africa) and The Nation (Kenya)
South Africa's home affairs minister, Malusi Gigaba, announced that officials will inspect workplaces to see if firms are employing illegal immigrants.
If implemented, this would be a different strategy than is employed in America and other countries to deal with illegal immigrants, where law enforcement targets the migrants, often resulting in deportation. In this case, the businesses that hires the migrants will be targeted.
According to Gigaba:
"Companies, businesses: Be warned. We are coming for you. We will charge them, there’s no doubt. The manager will be charged. Often times, we focus on the undocumented employee and not the company.This is the message we are taking to the rest of business and it will feature strongly in our upcoming meetings. There will be workplace inspections, and penalties for employing undocumented foreigners will be imposed. ...
The dynamics of migration, crime, drugs, prostitution, fraud and unfair labor practices are too serious to be turned into populists politicking."
Even businesses that hire legal immigrants may be targeted. Gigaba has particularly been targeting hotels, restaurants, and other businesses where migrants are often employed. According to Gigaba, "We have a commitment of the hospitality sector on the need to comply with South Africa's labor and immigration laws, especially the requirement to employ a minimum 60 percent of local people."
Gigaba also called for effective policing to target illegal immigrants, but added, "Not all immigrants are criminals."
Whether any of this will be implemented remains to be seen. It's more likely that nothing will be done, and there will be recurring rounds of xenophobic violence. Africa's history is one of tribal wars, and many of today's xenophobic attacks are based on tribal hatreds that exist to this day following the Mfecane, the huge war that engulfed southern Africa in the 1820s. The principal combatants in the Mfecane were the Ndebele, Zulu and Xhosa tribes, and they still experience violent tribal and xenophobic clashes to this day News 24 (South Africa) and BBC and Daily Post (Nigeria)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Feb-17 World View -- Xenophobic violence against migrants returns to South Africa thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Feb-2017)
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Terrorist bombings in Homs Syria trigger retaliation by al-Assad regime
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Six suicide bombers infiltrated heavily guarded security centers in Homs, Syria, on Saturday, killing 32 people and injuring 24 others. Each of the two security centers was infiltrated in coordinated attacks by three suicide bombers, where they began killing people with gunfire before detonating their bombs.
In particular, Major-General Hassan Daaboul, head of Syrian regime's Military Security Department, was killed during the attacks.
This was a very complex, well-planned major attack on some of the regime's most highly secure military installations. At the very least, this is a major embarrassment to Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and the attack was likely partially an inside job.
Syrian opposition leaders condemned the terrorist attack, and suggested that only people with security clearances could get close to the areas where the attacks took place.
Syrian state media is blaming the attack on Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance of al-Qaeda linked terrorists, including Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front, now Jabhat Fateh al-Sham or JFS). According to Syrian regime media, "the victories of the Syrian Army made the terrorists frenzied and pushed them to commit this coward terrorist atrocity in a hopeless attempt to undermine the capability of the security services, which managed to establish security and stability in Homs city."
The Syrian air force retaliated for the suicide bombings. The air force had previously stopped bombing rebel-held positions around Damascus because of an agreed ceasefire. The ceasefire was not really being held anyway, but after today's suicide bombings, the Syrian airforce resumed bombing Sunni enclaves around the city.
In a separate attack blamed on the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), terrorists shot mortar rocket shells into the targeting several sites at a gas factory, including its main natural gas pipeline, starting a fire.
Early in 2011, all Bashar al-Assad had to put up with in Homs was peaceful protests. He responded to the peaceful protests with tanks, gunfire, bombs and missiles. The picture at the top of this article shows why there are no more peaceful protests. Now that al-Assad has established "security and stability" in Homs, he no longer has to put up with peaceful protesters. Instead, he has to deal with suicide bombers from al-Nusra, and mortar rocket shells from ISIS. Sputnik News (Moscow) and SANA (Damascus) and AP and SANA (Damascus) and Xinhua (Beijing)
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A new Syria peace conference is just beginning in Geneva. There have been so many of these conferences, each one ending in farce, so no one was expecting much from the one either. The multiple coordinated attacks in Homs on Saturday seems to indicate that this peace conference will end like the others.
Last year, Bashar al-Assad predicted that the destruction of Aleppo was "history in the making," and would end the war:
"[The liberation of Aleppo was] history in the making and worthy of more than the word congratulations.History is being written in these moments. Every Syrian citizen is taking part in the writing. It started not today, but years ago when the crisis and the war on Syria began.
I think that after the liberation of Aleppo we’ll talk about the situation as ... before the liberation of Aleppo and after the liberation of Aleppo."
This was pure fantasy by al-Assad who, as I've written many times in the past, is a delusional psychopath and genocidal war criminal.
Al-Assad was thought to believe that as soon as Aleppo was destroyed, the jihadists groups would go home, as they had no reason to go on fighting. As I've written many times, this is a generational Awakening era in Syria, which means that young people would never simply give up and go home.
In fact, this gives rise to a question I've raised many times. Al-Assad started his massive exterminations of Sunni civilians, including many women and children, simply because they were peacefully protesting. Suppose, hypothetically, al-Assad "won" the war in some sense. What would he do if young people started protesting again -- which would certainly happen in a generational Awakening era? Would he start barrel-bombing innocent women and children again? And in a generational Awakening era, you can be certain the protests would continue.
So the obvious questions is - what happens now? Al-Nusra and ISIS aren't even party to the so-called peace talks, so they're going to continue fighting -- as long as al-Assad is in power. There is no hope whatsoever of an end to this war in Syria as long as al-Assad is in power.
Russia is widely believed to want to stop fighting in Syria. Al-Assad's army was close to collapse, by al-Assad's own admission, in 2015, forcing Russia to enter the war to keep al-Assad's army from collapsing completely. I've heard several analysts point out that Russia's economic situation is so bad that the government has to cut expenses, and withdrawing most Russian forces from Syria is one way to do that.
It may at some point occur to Russia's president Vladimir Putin that if he wants the war in Syria to end, then he has to stop supporting Bashar al-Assad, and allow someone else to replace him. There's no sign of anything like that yet, especially because Iran is bitterly opposed to allowing al-Assad to step down, but Putin at some point may realize that it's the best choice for Russia.
Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major regional war, pitting Jews against Arabs, Sunnis against Shias, and various ethnic groups against each other. Reuters (24-Feb) and AFP and Reuters and RTE (Ireland)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Feb-17 World View -- Syria's so-called ceasefire collapses after terrorist bombings in Homs thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Feb-2017)
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Washington tax reform plans may include a 'Border Adjustment Tax'
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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News reports indicate that Congressional Republicans, led by House Speaker Paul Ryan, are considering a "border adjustment tax" as one of the proposals for the tax reforms plans this year.
The details are vague, but it appears that the proposal is essentially an indirect tariff, using taxes charged to certain companies to raise prices of imported products, and tax reductions to other companies to encourage exports. It's especially targeted to American companies that close factories in the U.S. and open factories in Mexico or other countries, and then import the products manufactured in those factories back into the United States.
There appear to be two major objectives. One is to generate revenue to pay for other parts of the tax reform package. And the second is to discourage companies from moving factories and jobs to other countries.
President Trump has not endorsed the idea, but on Thursday seemed to favor it:
"It could lead to a lot more jobs in the United States. ... I certainly support a form of tax on the border. What is going to happen is companies are going to come back here, they're going to build their factories and they're going to create a lot of jobs and there's no tax."
In 1930, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill was passed, increasing import tariffs on some 900 products. The 1929 stock market panic, and the subsequent loss of many families' life savings, was blamed by the public on foreign banks and companies, and it was widely believed that the tariffs would save American jobs. Except for a few details, the public mood then is similar to the public mood today.
In my 2003 book, "Generational Dynamics - Forecasting America's Destiny," which is available as a free PDF from my download page, http://generationaldynamics.com/download, I wrote the following about the Smoot-Hawley bill:
"Perfectly reasonable acts by one country can be interpreted as hostile acts by another country. Guns and bombs are not needed to create an impression of war.And if one country's innocent act is a shock to another country and is viewed as hostile by that country, and if the people of that country are in a mood for retribution rather than compromise, than they may well look for a way to retaliate.
In that sense, the enactment of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in June 1930, can be viewed as the first of the shocking, provocative acts that led to World War II.
The Act was opposed by an enormous number of economists as being harmful to everyone, but it was very popular with the public, because of the perception that it would save American jobs. ...
Interestingly, the Smoot-Hawley Act is still debated by politicians today, with regard to whether it caused or aggravated the Great Depression or had no effect. ...
Those discussions are entirely America-centric because, for the purposes of this book, it makes no difference whatsoever whether or not the Act aggravated the American depression. We're interested in the effect it had on foreign nations.
And the effects were enormous. The bill erected large trade barriers for numerous products, with the intention of saving American jobs. How many American jobs it saved, if any, is unknown, but it virtually shut down product exports to the United States. Both Germany and Japan were going through the same financial crisis America was going through, and they were furious that America as a market was closed to them.
Japan was the hardest hit. The Great Depression was hurting Japan just as much as it was hurting America but, in addition, Japan's exports of its biggest cash crop, silk, to America were almost completely cut off by the Smoot-Hawley Act. Furthermore, Japan would have been going through a generational change: The country had undergone a historic revolution some 70+ years earlier, culminating in a major change of government (the Meiji Restoration) in 1868, and the people who had lived through that revolution would be dead or retiring by the early 1930s.
So one thing led to another, and in September 1931, almost exactly a year after Smoot-Hawley, Japan invaded Manchuria and later northern China. Britain and American strongly protested this aggression, and Roosevelt finally responded with an oil embargo against Japan.
This is the usual pattern of provocative acts on both sides. America saw Smoot-Hawley as its own business, but to Japan it was a hostile shock. Japan saw the Manchuria invasion as "Asian business," while Britain and America saw it as attacking their own Asian interests. Roosevelt saw an oil embargo as a measured response of containment, while energy-dependent Japan saw it almost as an act of war, eventually triggering Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Japan wasn't the only country affected, of course. England, Germany, Italy, and many other countries were hit hard by the sudden trade barriers with America. Just like in Japan, nationalistic and militaristic feelings were aroused in many countries.
Germany was especially frustrated. The map of Central Europe had been redrawn some 70 years earlier during a series of wars in the 1860s, culminating in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, and the unification of Germany in 1871. The Great War (WW I) had been a mid-cycle war for Germany, and had been a humiliating defeat, especially because the American and British led Allies had imposed harsh conditions -- the loss of some German-speaking territories, and the payment of reparations. The loss of territories was especially provocative, since it partially reversed the German unification of 1871.
Germany was reaching the point where it was going to explode anyway, when the Smoot-Hawley Act was passed. On top of the reparations, the Act was seen as enormously hostile by the Germans. As in Japan, it gave rise to militaristic nationalism in the form of the rise of the Nazis. Germany remilitarized its border with France in 1936, and then annexed German-speaking parts of Eastern Europe in 1938.
So when did World War II start? It depends on what the word "start" means, but an argument can be made that America had started the war, and that the first act of war was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act."
I wrote the above in 2003, so it should not surprise anyone that today I consider the proposed "border adjustment tax" to be a very dangerous idea.
A recent blog post by economists at the New York Fed claims that the proposed tax will have little effect on either imports or exports, which means little effect on revenue or jobs. But whether or not that's true is irrelevant to this discussion.
As in the case of the Smoot-Hawley bill, the main issue is not the effect on the US, but the effect on other nations. Any such border tax would quickly raise nationalist feelings in other nations. There would be retaliatory tariffs enacted in other countries. Some countries might be severely damaged economically, and even if they're not, they would blame any economic problems they have on the American tariffs, and might look for even more far-reaching forms of retaliation.
Some people might argue that the proposed "border adjustment tax" is so small and so limited that it couldn't possibly have such a negative effect. Once again we can look to history to see whether that's true. According to an article in the June 21, 1930, issue of The Economist:
"The signature by President Hoover of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Bill at Washington is the tragi-comic finale to one of the most amazing chapters in world tariff history, and it is one that protectionist enthusiasts the world over would do well to study. The reason for tariff revision was a desire to restore a balance of protection which had been tilted to the disadvantage of the agriculturalist. But so soon as ever the tariff schedules were cast into the melting-pot of revision, log-rollers and politicians set to work stirring with all their might, and a measure which started with the single object of giving satisfaction to the farmer emerges as a full-fledged high tariff act in which nearly 900 duties have been raised, some extravagantly. Such is the inevitable result of vested interests working through political influence, ending in signature by a president, antagonistic to the bill, under compulsion of political necessities."
So the original Smoot-Hawley bill was to be very small, just providing a little protection to farmers, but once the door was opened, the bill exploded.
The same thing would happen today. Congress would be inundated with high-paid lobbyists from all sorts of industries demanding that their products be "protected" by the border adjustment tax. History tells us that that the final bill would be a hodge-podge of special interests and industries, with few winners but lots of losers, and a great deal of nationalistic fury in many other countries.
The proposal for even a "small" border adjustment tax starts us down a path that can lead to the same kind of disaster that the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act caused. New York Fed Blog and Economist (18-Dec-2008) and Economist (21-Jun-1930) and History Hub and Generational Dynamics - Forecasting America's Destiny (PDF)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Feb-17 World View -- Border Adjustment Tax versus the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Law thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Feb-2017)
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BBC reporter Mike Embley is completely full of crap
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un, died last week in Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia. Malaysian investigators have determined that two women used a handkerchief to apply poison to Jong-nam in the middle of the airport, and he died several minutes later from the poison on the way to the hospital. The two women are in custody.
Malaysia's police have identified either North Koreans in connection with the assassination, two of whom are in custody, while two others have fled the country.
Two other North Koreans wanted for questioning are hiding out in the North Korean embassy. One is a senior diplomat, Hyon Kwang Song. The other works for the state-owned Air Koryo airline. Malaysia has asked North Korean officials to make both of them available for questioning, a request that has not been granted and may never be granted. Straits Times (Singapore) and NBC News
North Korea's state-run news agency KCNA published its own version of "a citizen of the DPRK [North Korea]" died. The KCNA report does not give his name (Kim Jong-nam), and does not say that he's related to the president. Here are some excerpts from the KCNA report:
"Pyongyang: A citizen of the DPRK bearing a diplomatic passport suddenly fell into a state of shock before boarding an airliner and died on the way to a hospital in Malaysia on February 13.At that time the Foreign Ministry of Malaysia and the hospital side informed the DPRK embassy in Kuala Lumpur exercising the right to consular protection of DPRK citizens that they confirmed he died of heart stroke and decided to transfer his body to the embassy and get it cremated.
So the DPRK embassy confirmed his identity and asked the Malaysian side to transfer his body.
However, no sooner had south Korean conservative media published a false report that he was “poisoned to death”, citing it as “source from the government” that night, then the Malaysian secret police got involved in the case and recklessly made it an established fact, only to make matters complicated.
The DPRK embassy made it clear that autopsy is not necessary as his death had already been confirmed as the one due to heart stroke and autopsy should never be done as he enjoyed extraterritorial right according to the Vienna Convention as a carrier of diplomatic passport.
Nevertheless, the Malaysian side, in disregard of the DPRK’s just demand and international law, made an autopsy of the body without any prior agreement with the DPRK side and its presence. Moreover, the Malaysian side clamored for the second autopsy without publishing the results of the first autopsy."
The KCNA goes on to say that the whole thing was a plot of the South Korean government:
"What merits more serious attention is the fact that the unjust acts of the Malaysian side are timed to coincide with the anti-DPRK conspiratorial racket launched by the south Korean authorities. ...On February 14, a day after his death, Chongwadae of south Korea kicked up a fuss over it and the south Korean authorities were busy holding a ministerial meeting on February 16, showing an excessive response. Moreover, they openly discussed the issue of THAAD deployment though it has nothing to do with the death of a DPRK citizen.
This proves that the south Korean authorities has long expected the case since it worked out a scenario for it."
So, if I understand the KCNA report, it's accusing South Korea of having planned the entire scenario for this "citizen's" death via "heart stroke."
The report concludes, "The DPRK will never allow any attempt to tarnish the image of the dignified power of independence and nuclear weapons state but make a thorough probe into the truth behind the case." Free Malaysia Today / KCNA (Pyongyang)
It appears that Malaysia and North Korea have had close relationships in the past. Citizens of Malaysia are able to travel to North Korea and visit without a visa. However, relations have been on a downward trajectory for some time, particularly as North Korea has been testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
A major turning point in relations occurred in March 2016, with the unanimous adoption by the Security Council of resolution, which imposed stringent international sanctions on North Korea following a nuclear hydrogen bomb test. Malaysia seriously implemented the sanctions requirements, as did many other nations, serious souring relations between the two countries.
The assassination of Kim Jong-nam has added a new level of vitriol. North Korea's Ambassador Kang Chol demanded that Malaysia immediately turn the body to the North Korean embassy without conducting an autopsy. When Malaysia refused, Kang denied that Jong-nam is related to Kim Jong-un, and said Malaysia is "colluding with hostile forces," referring to South Korea.
Kang's accusations are a major insult to Malaysia. Malaysia recalled its ambassador to North Korea "for consultation," and foreign minister Anifah Aman said Kang's allegations "are culled from delusions, lies and half-truths."
Malaysian officials are refusing to release the body except in accordance with international law and Malaysian law. This means fully investigating "the cause of death together with its motive as it happened in our country."
The investigation is turning into a Shakespearean drama, with royal family members bumping each other off. Malaysian officials are demanding that a family member of the dead man come to Malaysia to identify the body and to undergo a DNA test, in order to that it's really Kim Jong-nam. Malaysian media are saying that some family member is expected to arrive on Saturday. Speculation is that it will be his son Kim Han-sol, though police are denying that report. The Diplomat and Straits Times (Singapore) and Sin Chew (Malaysia)
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As I'm writing this, I just heard BBC reporter Mike Embley state as a fact that Steve Bannon "is a white supremacist, anti-Semitic, and ran a news web site specializing in fake news."
I've worked with Steve Bannon, and I've been cross-posting on Breitbart since 2010, and none of this is even remotely true.
Mike Embley, if you're reading this: You're completely full of crap. It's hard for me to believe that anyone as stupid as you is on the air.
In 2005, the BBC suffered huge budget cuts after the Hutton Report found that they purposely lied all the time. The BBC calling anyone else "fake news" is laughable.
(Generational Dynamics articles are provided as a public service, for those who wish to prepare for what's coming. Neither Breitbart nor anyone else pays me for Generational Dynamics.)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Feb-17 World View -- Malaysia - N. Korea relations turn toxic over assassination of Kim Jong-un's half brother thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Feb-2017)
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China's ASEAN neighbors express increasing anxiety over
China's illegal militarization
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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China has built artificial islands and military bases, annexing regions belonging to other countries, all in violation of international law, and specifically declared illegal by the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague last year, but that isn't stopping China from continuing its massive illegal and dangerous military buildup in the South China Sea.
On Wednesday, reports emerged from unnamed US intelligence officials that China has built on its artificial islands more than twenty buildings designed to hold long-range surface-to-air missiles. The buildings are concrete structures with retractable roofs. The structures appear to be 20 meters (66 feet) long and 10 meters (33 feet) high.
When asked, China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang evaded the issue by saying, "China carrying out normal construction activities on its own territory, including deploying necessary and appropriate territorial defense facilities, is a normal right under international law for sovereign nations."
It's always so depressing to have to write these stories where China claims protection under international law when it's wildly violating international law and repeating the acts of the Nazis by annexing other countries' territories. This could only have led to a world war then, and it's going to lead to a world war now.
This week, China also announced that it will revise its 1984 Maritime Safety Law, with the purpose of barring selected foreign ships from passing through the South China Sea, which China claims. It's believed that the changes are intended to target the United States.
Foreign ships that enter without approval will be fined 300,000-500,000 yuan ($43,706-72,844) and those violating Chinese laws will be expelled, presumably by means of military force. "China's waters are open to foreign ships as long as they do not damage the waters' safety, order, or China's sovereignty," according to a Chinese official.
These actions come as an American aircraft-carrier strike group led by USS Carl Vinson conducting "routine" naval and air operations in the South China Sea this week similar to activities that have been performed for years to protect freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion worth of trade passes each year. However, China calls these operations a "threat to China."
The two Chinese actions this week -- installing long-range surface-to-air missiles and planning to military action targeting foreign ships in the South China Sea -- bring the region and the world closer to war.
Reuters and VOA and Global Times (Beijing) and Lawfare and Asia Times
Chas Freeman, a former assistant secretary of defense, said that China's apparent installation of long-range surface-to-air missiels is an "unfortunate, but not (an) unpredictable development," and said that the purpose of these buildings is not to signal President Trump, as some journalists are suggesting:
"There is a tendency here in Washington to imagine that it's all about us, but we are not a claimant in the South China Sea. We are not going to challenge China's possession of any of these land features in my judgment. If that's going to happen, it's going to be done by the Vietnamese, or ... the Filipinos ... or the Malaysians, who are the three counter-claimants of note."
Indeed, China's neighbors in ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) are increasingly expressing concerns about China's military activities. Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said on Tuesday:
"The ASEAN ministers have been unanimous in their expression of concern about what they see as the militarization of the region. In so far as certain reclamation of certain features built on the South China Sea that had been completed, they (ASEAN ministers) have noticed, very unsettlingly, that China has installed weapons systems in these facilities that they have established."
The complaints by the Philippines are particularly telling, because president Rodrigo R. Duterte last year made a very public spectacle of "throwing the United States" out of the Philippines, and seeking to replace the US with China. As it's turned out, Duterte has been unable to eject the US because of opposition within his own government, and because of anxiety over China's increasingly hostile activities in the South China Sea.
The Philippine government is becoming particularly anxious over Scarborough Shoal, which has been a Philippine fishing ground for centuries. China has taken military control of the region around Scarborough Shoal, but has not yet built an artificial island or military base there, as it has in the Spratly Islands. An attempt by China to build a military base in that region could generate a strong nationalist backlash in the Philippines, with unpredictable political results.
A military base on Scarborough Shoal would effectively sit on the doorstep of Subic, where US and Philippine forces are based. China could extend its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities into the eastern reaches of the South China Sea by placing an over-the-horizon radar system at Scarborough as it has done on some of its possessions in the Spratlys. The shoal also commands the northeast exit of the sea, so a Chinese military outpost there could stop other countries' navies from traveling through the South China Sea.
Vietnam is well aware that its military stands little or no chance in a naval battle versus China, having already lost a naval battle to China in 1988. Vietnam has been adopting an asymmetric strategy of sea-denial. This strategy uses missiles and submarines to deny China access to the same South China Sea regions where China is denying access to the Vietnamese.
Vietnam has just received a fleet or Russian-build diesel-electric submarines, equipped for sea denial in the traditional sense with torpedoes and mines, as well as Russian-made Klub-S sea-launched land-attack cruise missiles (SLCM) that can hit targets as far away as three hundred kilometers.
India is in talks with Vietnam to sell them short range surface-to-air missiles. Nearly half of India's trade passes through the South China Sea, and its government is taking steps to maintain freedom of navigation and overflight.
Increasingly, we've been seeing an alliance among several countries -- India, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, and Russia -- to take steps to guarantee that the South China Sea remains open to everyone.
The populations of China and all of these countries today are in a highly emotional, nationalistic state, and this military buildup on all sides cannot end up in any way but a major war.
Asia One (Singapore) and CNN and The Diplomat (2-Feb) and Reuters and New Indian Express
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Feb-17 World View -- China preparing to install long-range missiles in South China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Feb-2017)
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China commands Xinjiang Uighurs to install tracking
devices in all cars
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Officials in northwest China's province of Xinjiang on Tuesday ordered that all car owners install devices that will permit authorities to track the cars at all times. The cars will be tracked by means of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, which is China's homegrown system to reduce reliance on the US global positioning system (GPS).
The devices will have to be installed by June 30. After that date, owners will be unable to purchase petrol for their cars. Installation of the devices is free, though the owners will be charged for the devices' internet access that continually reports the car's position to the Chinese authorities.
According to a Chinese official explaining the demand, possibly making a little joke:
"All vehicles must install the system, so that they can be tracked wherever they go. It also helps car owners to find their cars quickly if it's been stolen or taken [by terrorists]."
This is only the latest in a series of seemingly desperate attempts by China's authorities to bring the region's ethnic Uighurs under control.
The Uighurs are a Turkic ethnic group who are almost all Sunni Muslims. Since 1949, when China crushed the short-lived state of East Turkestan, China has been promoting large-scale immigration of Han Chinese from other parts of China into Xinjiang province. In addition, Chinese authorities have marginalized the Uighurs, giving the best homes and jobs to the Han Chinese. Today, the Uighurs make up about 45% of Xinjiang's population, while 40% are Han Chinese.
This forced massive migration of Han Chinese into their cities, marginalizing the Uighurs in their own homeland, has infuriated the Uighurs, and has led to a jihadist separatist movement.
In July, 2009, thousands of Uighurs rioted and demonstrated against Chinese rule. The riots were triggered when two Uighur migrant workers, working in a toy factory in southeast China, were accused of raping a Han woman, a charge which appears to have been fabricated. The two Uighurs were killed in a Han Chinese mob attack on their dormitory. In Xinjiang, Chinese officials Chinese officials accused the Uighurs of attacking Han Chinese in their home, and struck back against the Uighurs brutally. Shanghaist and BBC and Global Times (Beijing)
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In a massive show of military force, thousands of black clad, heavily armed troops have paraded through cities in Xinjiang province. On Saturday, hundreds of troops staged a mass "anti-terror rally" in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang.
Zhu Hailun, the region’s deputy Communist party chief, promised an unflinching campaign against the Islamic terrorists and separatists:
"We shall load our guns, draw our swords from their sheaths, throw hard punches and relentlessly beat, and strike hard without flinching at terrorists who must be brought down a peg or two.With the caring and strong leadership of the Communist Party Central Committee, where President Xi Jinping serves as the core … the strong support of 23 million people from all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, and with the powerful fist of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, all separatist activities and all terrorists shall be smashed to pieces."
On Thursday of last week, a similar military parade was held in the city of Kashgar. A special forces operative said, "We are ready for [combat] and we definitely will win."
This massive show of force, as well as the demand to install tracking devices in all cars, follows two terror attacks in Xinjiang in recent weeks. Two weeks ago, three militants attacked Han Chinese with machetes, killing five and injuring five more, before they were shot by police. In December, five people were killed when attackers drove a vehicle into a government building.
It's possible that the terror attacks were triggered by a program by China's government in the last three months of 2016 to destroy thousands of mosques in Xinjiang under the pretense of protecting the public from unsafe buildings. One police officer was quoted as saying:
"Convincing the people that one of the purposes for demolishing the mosques was for the safety of the worshipers was a bit difficult. Some of them laughed at us when we explained the purpose, and some of them stared at us to show their disagreement."
Government officials in Kashgar confirmed that 70% of the mosques that city were demolished. South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and Guardian (London) and Radio Free Asia (19-Dec-2016)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Feb-17 World View -- China clamps down on Uighurs in Xinjiang province thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Feb-2017)
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Pakistan blames Afghanistan after a week of multiple terror attacks
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan had been falling in 2015 and 2016, compared to previous years, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had promised that the year 2017 would be a further improvement. That's why a new surge in terror attacks in Pakistan has shocked the nation and is a personal embarrassment to Sharif.
Six terror attacks occurred in the space of four days:
There were other terrorist attacks earlier in the year, including a bomb in a vegetable market in Pakistan's tribal region on January 21, kill 25 civilians and injuring 87 more.
In 2014, Pakistan's military launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb, which attacked Taliban militants hiding in the tribal region (FATA) between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistani government officials have credited Zarb-e-Azb as the reason why terror attacks in Pakistan fell in 2015 and 2016.
On February 13 of this year, the day of the terror attack in Lahore, Pakistan's UN ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the UN Security Council:
"This comprehensive approach [Operation Zarb-e-Azb] has succeeded in expelling terrorist organizations from our territory and greatly constrained their ability to carry out lethal attacks, as evident from the dramatic decline in the number of such attacks, despite the cowardly attack in Lahore."
There's a certain irony to this claim: As the number of terror attacks in Pakistan declined in 2015, the number in Afghanistan increased. The two figures may well be linked, because Operation Zarb-e-Azb caused thousands of Pakistani Taliban militants hiding out in the FATA to flee across the border into Afghanistan, where they could have linked up with the Afghan Taliban.
The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2015 had special geopolitical significance, because the resurgent Taliban forced President Barack Obama to reverse his promise to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan. BBC and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Al-Jazeera
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Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan are rising sharply as Pakistan is essentially blaming Afghanistan for the recent surge in terror attacks. Pakistan's army is taking these steps following Thursday's terror attack on the Sufi shrine in Sehwan:
Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry in Kabul summoned Pakistan's ambassador to protest the border shelling.
Pakistan's military chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, said on Monday that the army was fighting the "common enemy" of terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and he called "for more effective border coordination and cooperation" to prevent cross-border movement of terrorists.
Last week, Pakistan handed over to Afghanistan a list of 76 fugitive militants hiding in Afghanistan, and demanded that immediate action be taken against them.
On Monday, Afghanistan handed over to Pakistan a list of 32 training centers and 85 militant leaders involved in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, and demanded that immediate action be taken against them.
There have been similar lists in the past, and little or no action has been taken on either side. Whether this time will be different remains to be seen.
Dawn (Pakistan) and Pak Observer and Tolo News (Afghanistan) and VOA
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Feb-17 World View -- Pakistan artillery pounds terrorist 'safe havens' in Afghanistan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Feb-2017)
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US aircraft carrier renews challenge to China in the South China Sea
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
A terrorist car bomb exploded in a marketplace in Somalia's capital city Mogadishu on Sunday, killing 39 and injuring dozens more.
No one has claimed responsibility, but the al-Qaeda linked terror group al-Shabaab has been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in Somalia. Although al-Shabaab did not claim responsibility, a senior al-Shabaab official threatened more attacks targeting any clans that collaborate with the new president, saying "We will fight against him during his four-year term."
The new president, who took office on February 8, is Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed — nicknamed Farmajo. Farmajo holds a dual Somali-American citizenship. In 1988, as a Somali government employee working in the Somali embassy in Washington, he feared for his life after criticizing the Somali government, and applied for asylum in the U.S. Since then, he earned several college degrees and settled in Buffalo, NY, as a civil servant in the New York Department of Transportation.
His ambition was to return to Somalia and help bring peace to the violent country. After meeting with and impressing Somalia's president in 2010, he became prime minister of Somalia. His fight against both al-Shabaab and corruption made him very popular in his home country. Five years later he ran for president, winning a surprise victory, and took office two weeks ago, on February 8.
Beyond terror attacks, Farmajo will have to deal with many other severe problems facing Somalia. Somalia's clans have been fighting in a civil war since 1991, and a severe drought puts the country at risk of famine.
Farmajo's popularity, his American dual citizenship, and his education in American values and governance apparently have made him a huge threat to al-Shabaab, and we can apparently expect more terror attacks targeting people and clans cooperating with Farmajo. AFP and VOA and Politico
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In a new challenge to China's illegal construction of artificial islands and military bases in the South China Sea, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and the Carl Vinson Strike Group entered the South China Sea on Sunday to perform "routine" freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs).
As in previous operations, the Carl Vinson will simply transit the South China Sea, establishing the right of all nations to do the same, and especially for commercial ships to do so freely. Chinese media claim, without providing a reason, that these freedom of navigation operations are a military threat to China.
These operations have been going on for years, but there's a question about whether there will be a change in policy under the administration of president Donald Trump. The issue is how close the Carl Vinson will navigate to China's artificial islands and military bases. In the Obama administration, the American ships stayed at least 12 nautical miles from any of China's artificial islands. There is some speculation that, in the Trump administration, the American ships will travel closer than 12 nautical miles. This would be fully justified under international law, since the artificial islands are illegal, but it would infuriate the Chinese, and possibly trigger some kind of military confrontation. VOA and Navy Times (12-Feb) and Global Times (Beijing)
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Iraq's army, backed by American-led coalition warplanes, launched a major new military offensive on Sunday with the objective of recapturing western Mosul from the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
Iraq had hoped to recapture the entire city by the end of 2016, but only recaptured the eastern portion last month.
Analysts are giving several reasons why recapturing western Mosul is going to proceed very slowly:
Humanitarian agencies are gearing up to aid 250,000 to 400,000 civilians who may flee because of the fighting. AP
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Feb-17 World View -- US-backed Iraqi army launches major new offensive in western Mosul thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Feb-2017)
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Assassination of Kim Jong-un's half-brother in Malaysia threatens
relations with China and North Korea
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Two events in the last week -- North Korea's test of a long-range ballistic missile and the assassination, possibly by North Korean agents, of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of president Kim Jong-un -- have infuriated and embarrassed China's leaders, since they enormously complicate China's foreign policy.
The ballistic missile test is particularly troubling to China's leadership for several reasons:
China's announcement on Saturday that it would suspend all coal shipments from North Korea was a surprise, but not totally unexpected. On Monday of last week, the day after the ballistic missile test, China prevented a North Korean ship from unloading a shipment of 16,295 tons coal, worth about US$1 million, at a Chinese port, and ordered that it be returned to North Korea. However, China blamed the rejection not on the ballistic missile test, but instead on a claim that the coal contained higher-than-permissible level of mercury.
China's announcement could have significant economic impact on North Korea. In order to import foreign goods, North Korea needs foreign reserves. In order to get foreign reserves, it needs to export goods. About 90% of North Korea's exports go to China, and most of that is coal. So this announcement will severely limit the foreign goods that North Korea can import.
The intent is that by limiting North Korea's ability to import, the country will be unable to import that equipment required for further development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. It's not clear that this objective is realistic, as Kim Jong-un has previously been willing to allow his people to starve rather than to allow his nuclear weapons program to starve. No matter what the intent, Kim will let his people starve and will torture, jail and execute anyone who objects.
China implemented a partial ban on coal imports from North Korea last year, but left open a loophole that would allow some coal imports if they would benefit the North Korean people. The partial ban turned out to be a joke, because North Korean manipulated the loophole and actually increased coal imports to China by 12-14% after the partial ban was announced, which was extremely embarrassing to China.
China criticizes other nations for destabilizing the region, even though China continually destabilizes the region by confiscating other countries' territories and building illegal military bases in the South China Sea, while threatening Japan in the East China Sea. This entire political strategy is being thrown into chaos by the actions of North Korea.
China has the ability to bring North Korea to its knees economically, but both China and Kim Jong-un are well aware that doing so is a very high-risk strategy. A government coup in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital city, could bring to power someone that favors peaceful reunification with South Korea -- something that's quite possible now that three or four generations have grown up since the end of World War II and the Korean War. Or an even worse scenario is that a retaliatory act by Kim Jong-un might be directed at either China or South Korea (or Japan or the US), and this could lead to a war on the Korean Peninsula that would draw in the Chinese military and would result in millions of North Korean refugees pouring into China.
The point is that China is rapidly running out of choices. Allowing Kim Jong-un to continue ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development is extremely dangerous to China, but trying to stop that development with economic sanctions is also extremely dangerous. One can only speculate what China might try next -- perhaps some sort of military action or commando raid on North Korean military targets. But this is just one more area, like the situations in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where China's leaders are running out of time and they know it, and may become desperate enough to do something stupid. Yonhap News (Seoul) and BBC and Washington Post
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Police in Malaysia have arrested four suspects believed to be linked to the assassination on Wednesday Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of Kim Jong-un, the president of North Korea.
A woman tentatively identified as 28-year-old Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam has been positively identified as the assassin from CCTV footage from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. She allegedly covered Kim Jong-nam's face with a cloth laced with poison, causing his death within minutes. Before being captured, she changed her appearance several times. On Wednesday, she was wearing a white shirt with the large letters "LOL" on the front. A second woman said that they both thought that the whole thing was a prank sponsored by a reality TV show.
It has not been proven whether North Korea is responsible for the assassination, and there are other actors that might have wanted him dead. Jong-nam was playboy, and one can even imagine that the assassination might have been launched by a former girlfriend. But most people believe that Kim Jong-nam was killed under orders of his half-brother, Kim Jong-un, North Korea's child dictator.
This is not the first execution of a family member. On New Year's Day 2014, Kim Jong-un announced that he had ordered the execution of his uncle and mentor Jang Song-thaek, calling him "factionalist scum." According to unconfirmed reports at the time, Kim had his uncle thrown into a room with several ravenous dogs that hadn't eaten in several days. So although Kim Jong-nam wasn't eaten by ravenous dogs, the execution of Jang Song-thaek provides a recent precedent for the execution of close family members.
Malaysia has always gone out of its way to maintain good relations with China, but the assassination of Kim Jong-ang in Kuala Lumpur airport, whether ordered by North Korea or not, is causing a rift in relations between the two countries.
North Korea demanded the immediate return of the dead body to North Korea. Malaysia responded that the death occurred on Malaysian soil, and a full series of autopsies would be performed first. Furthermore, Malaysia would not return the body to North Korea until a DNA sample from Kim Jong-un was provided, in order to complete the autopsy.
On Friday, close to midnight, North Korea's ambassador to Malaysia, Kang Chol, stood in front of the morgue where the body was lying and gave a hysterical rant:
"We strongly urge and demand the Malaysian side not to be entangled with a political plot by the hostile forces towards the DPRK [North Korea] who want to damage image of our republic. And, to release the body immediately. ...The Malaysian side forced the post-mortem without our permission and witnessing. We will categorically reject the result of the post-mortem conducted unilaterally excluding our attendance. They are colluding with the hostile forces towards us who are desperate to harm us of malice."
It's not clear who the "hostile forces" are, but they're assumed to be China or South Korea.
On Saturday, Malaysia's Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam responded to the North Korean ambassador:
"North Korea can reject or show disapproval. But we are doing things according to our law. Something happened in our country. We don't do it according to their law. If murder or death (occurs) in our country, there is a process we go through. There is no short cut in forensics as far as we are concerned. ...We will release [the autopsy result] once it is ready, and hope to release it within this week. We are currently waiting for the toxicology report, which is an important test to confirm. Once it is done, the results will be given to the police as early as we can and it is up to the police to release it. We want to get correct results before releasing it."
It's very easy to get the feeling that both sides are hiding things, and that there's a lot more to come out.
The assassination of Kim Jong-nam has also further strained relations between China and North Korea, beyond the amount they were already strained by the long-range ballistic missile test.
Kim Jong-nam had been exiled from North Korea in 2001 after he was discovered using a phony passport. He's been living in Macau in China under Chinese protection. On Wednesday, he was at Kuala Lumpur airport preparing to fly back to Macau. If North Korea performed the assassination, it would be a new major humiliation to China.
China's state media Global Times published a story on Wednesday saying that "It is sincerely hoped that [North Korea] will step up and provide answers to a world that right now can only patiently wait." That story also criticized North Korea for using assassination at all:
"Regardless of how intense a country's political struggle might be, there is no doubt that it should never rely on assassination methods as means for its advancement. Human civilization is now in the 21st century, and such a savage and outdated political device should be cast into the museums of history."
This is an interesting point. Assassination is so old, so savage, so outdated, so twentieth-century. It's better to use more modern methods. If China doesn't like someone, they like to use more modern techniques -- kidnapping, and years of being thrown into a hole and starved, and receiving daily beatings and torture. For China in the 21st century, that's so much more thoroughly modern and stylish. AFP and The Star (Malaysia) and Global Times (China)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Feb-17 World View -- China announces it will block imports of North Korea's coal thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Feb-2017)
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Ireland demands a 'soft border,' while Scotland contemplates independence
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair called for the people "to rise up in defense of what we believe – calmly, patiently, winning the argument by the force of argument; but without fear and with the conviction we act in the true interests of Britain," to persuade the electorate to change their minds and decide that Britain should remain in the European Union after all.
Blair's speech comes two weeks after Britain's House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to authorize Prime Minister Theresa May to invoke "Article 50," which means that the real negotiations will begin between Britain and the EU. According to the relevant treaty, Britain will officially leave the EU exactly two years after Article 50 is invoked. It's now expected that Article 50 will be invoked early in March.
Blair is an extremely controversial figure, even though he won three elections and was Prime Minister for a decade. The people on the right hate him because he's in the Labor Party. The people in the Labor Party hate him because he defended Britain's participation in the Iraq war. So I suppose he reasoned that when you're hated that much, then you really have nothing to lose by taking an unpopular stand on an issue.
Blair is concerned that the far right is so dominating the Brexit issue that millions of people who are against Brexit have no way to articulate their feelings:
"They will claim we’re dividing the country by making the case. It is they who divide our country – generation from generation, North from South, Scotland from England, those born here from those who came to our country precisely because of what they thought it stood for and what they admired."
Blair is referring to the fact that younger generations, who voted against Brexit, believe that they are being left without a future because of the selfish pro-Brexit vote of the older generations. He refers to the fact that while England and Wales voted for Brexit, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted against it, and they're being forced out of the EU against their will. And of course the last sentence refers to the bitter immigration issue.
Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of the pro-Brexit campaign, and current Britain's Foreign Secretary, was his usual colorful self in responding to Blair. He said:
"This is a discussion we had most of last year and it came out very firmly in favor of leaving the EU.We heard all these arguments last year - not a thing has changed - and I think it really is insulting the intelligence of the electorate to say that they got it wrong."
He called Tony Blair the "Remoaner-in-chief" (playing on the word "remain"), and said that people should turn off the TV when Blair appears. Tony Blair's speech - transcript and Daily Mail (London) and Telegraph (London)
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Of the four nations in the United Kingdom, England and Wales voted in favor of Brexit, while Scotland and Northern Ireland opposed it. People and politicians in both regions are furious that they're being forced to leave the European Union against their will.
On September 18, 2014, Scotland held a referendum on the question of whether Scotland should leave the UK and become an independent country. This would have dissolved the 1707 union between England and Scotland that came out of the War of the Spanish Succession. Voters rejected the referendum, with 55.3% voting no. Many in Scotland are bitter that they are going to be forced to leave the European Union even though they voted 62% against Brexit.
In his speech, Tony Blair said that Scotland's demands for independence from Britain are "more credible" because of Brexit, and that a new referendum was "back on the table."
Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, and leader of Scotland's pro-independence movement has always been a bitter political enemy of Tony Blair, but on this issue she says, "There’s a quality of analysis & argument in Blair's speech today that has been totally lacking from Labor to date." She added:
"The argument is now very different than it was in 2014 and is even more compelling than it was in 2014. Because what Brexit has shown is that within the UK Scotland’s voice isn’t listened to and doesn’t appear to count for much, so the argument for taking control, taking charge of our own society and our place in the world becomes ever more strong."
However, several Scottish ministers disagreed with Sturgeon, saying that only about 25% of the people of Scotland want a new referendum. Scottish politician Willie Rennie said:
"The case for independence is weaker, not stronger, now, especially with the pounds 15 billion black hole in the Scottish public finances that would hit our NHS and schools."
For Northern Ireland, the reality of Brexit goes well beyond economic issues. Once Britain leaves the EU, Northern Ireland will also leave the EU, while the Republic of Ireland (Southern Ireland) will remain in the EU. At that point, they will no longer be part of the same country, but will be two separate countries. The border between the two will be the only remaining land border between the UK and the EU.
Ireland has a long bitter history of religious and factional wars, and it's only in recent years that the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland has been open for free travel of people and goods. So many people are opposed to the idea of jeopardizing the open border and, as in the case of Scotland, are furious that London is making decisions that will deeply affect the lives of the Irish.
Enda Kenny, the prime minister of the Republic of Ireland, said that avoiding a "hard border" is essential for the people on the entire island.
"[L]et me be absolutely clear on one point. It is a matter of vital national interest for Ireland that we do not return to the days of a hard border that we knew only too well. Or indeed create a new one in the future.The European Union has always been about removing barriers, about bringing people together in peace and prosperity. The treaty of Rome, which we will celebrate on its 60th anniversary next month, is one of the greatest peace agreements in history. Without it, there could have been no Good Friday Agreement.
So, I am in absolutely no doubt that the European Union, which has done so much to support reconciliation on this island, will defend the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement. I am confident that the European Union will not bring us back to a border of division."
Unfortunately, Kenny and the other Irish politicians will have little to say about it. An open border would permit anyone to migrate from Europe to the UK simply by passing through Ireland. Similarly, goods could be transferred from Europe to the UK by traveling across the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. With most UK and EU politicians deeply nationalistic and deeply angry with each other, there may be little charity available for the Irish people, who have already learned that their wishes carry little weight in London. Telegraph (London) and Guardian (London)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Feb-17 World View -- Britain's Tony Blair calls for the people 'to rise up' and reverse Brexit thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Feb-2017)
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Pakistan again in shock as Sufi shrine bombing is
fifth terror attack in a week
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The people of Pakistan are once again expressing shock at the continuing string of violent terrorist attacks that target specific religious groups, including Sufis, Shia Muslims, and Christians.
On Thursday, a suicide bomber blew himself at a Sufi shrine, the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sehwan, just north of Karachi, killing 76 people and injuring several hundred more. The shrine was targeted during a a Sufi ritual called Dhamaal, when hundreds of devotees were present inside the premises of the mausoleum of the saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, which is the reason for huge numbers of casualties.
Jamaat ul-Ahrar (JuA, Assembly of Freedom) claimed responsibility. JuA has long been one of the terrorist groups under the umbrella group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). JuA split off from TTP in the middle of 2014 in a disagreement caused by TTP's plans to hold peace talks with Pakistan's government. JuA rejoined TTP in 2015, but has also declared allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). For that reason, ISIS is also claiming responsibility for the attack.
On March 15, 2015, JuA claimed responsibility for suicide bombers at two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant, also in Lahore, killing 15 people and injuring 70. Dawn (Pakistan) and BBC and AP
On Monday, a strong explosion at Chairing Cross in Lahore, Pakistan, killed at least 16 people and injured 73 more. The incident occurred as hundreds of pharmacists were gathered to protest a new regulatory law. Some analysts claim that the intended target was not the pharmacists but the police guarding the protest. Jamaat ul-Ahrar (JuA, Assembly of Freedom) took credit for Sunday's explosion in Lahore.
On March 27 of last year, JuA took credit for the Easter massacre of Christians in Lahore in a terror attack. That attack killed more than 69 people, mostly women and children, and injured more than 300. That attack was supposed to kill Christians, but as it turned out, most of the people killed were Muslims. At the time, a JuA spokesman issued a statement: "Members of the Christian community who were celebrating Easter today were our prime target. [However,] we didn't want to kill women and children. Our targets were male members of the Christian community."
There have been several terror attacks in the last week. On Sunday a newsman was killed when his van was attacked. On Wednesday, three suicide bombers killed seven people when they targeted villages around Peshawar in northwest Pakistan. Daily Pakistan and Geo TV (Pakistan)
In what has become a regular ritual, the government of Pakistan is once again declaring war on the Taliban. According to critics, the government only follows through half-heartedly on such announcements, distinguishing "the good Taliban," which attacks targets in India, from "the bad Taliban," which attacks targets in Pakistan. Often, the same group is involved in both kinds of attacks.
Speaking on Thursday, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa promised that each drop of blood will be avenged:
"Each drop of nation’s blood shall be avenged, and revenged immediately. No more restraint for anyone. ...The active cooperation among the valorous citizen of the country, the Army, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and intelligence agencies is cornerstone of Pakistan’s success against terrorism.
The terrorists are trying to regroup in safe havens in Afghanistan and are attempting to spread doubts and despondency in the society, hence we all collectively shall fail their desperate maneuvers.
Hostile agencies should avoid playing with regional peace and stability as we reserve the right to respond, despite our current policy of restraint."
After a terror attack, many Pakistan Taliban terrorists flee across the border into Afghanistan, where Pakistan's security forces are not permitted to follow. Many Pakistanis blame India for providing safe havens in Afghanistan to Pakistani Taliban terrorists. The News (Pakistan) and Pakistan Observer and India Today
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Feb-17 World View -- Pakistan promises to avenge 'each drop of blood' after multiple terror attacks thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Feb-2017)
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Obamacare follows Nixon's wage-price controls in financial 'death spiral'
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In July 2009, a couple of days after President Barack Obama's health plan was announced, I wrote "Obama's health plan, a proposal of economic insanity, appears to be losing support", in which I said the following:
" Politicians say that our health system is "broken," and perhaps it is. Politicians say that health-related costs have been rising faster than inflation, and they say that some people (the poor, the unemployed, the minorities, the sick, etc.) don't have health insurance.In other words, the worst of what the politicians say is wrong with our health care system may well be true, but the insanity is believing that you can just pass a law and the problems will be solved. As bad as things are now, passing a 1,000 page law will make things much, much worse. ...
President Obama's health care plan amounts to price controls and rationing. This is a recipe for total disaster."
I knew this because I'd seen the same thing happen before, in the 1970s with President Richard Nixon's wage-price controls. Nixon's program was supposed to bring the inflation rate from 4% down to 2%. This is exactly the kind of thing that liberals really love. But within three years, Nixon's controls had cause inflation to surge to 12%.
Like many liberal economic programs, including Obamacare, Nixon's controls were an utter disaster for the economy, and the economy didn't recover for almost a decade. Whatever you think of Watergate, at least Nixon had the decency to agree to end wage-price controls after three years, after enough damage had been done
The signs that Obamacare was collapsing have been clear now for almost two years, as several large insurance companies, UnitedHealthCare, Aetna, BlueCross BlueShield, and others, have announced partial or complete pullouts from Obamacare because of massive financial losses.
On Wednesday another company, Humana Inc., announced that it will leave the Obamacare exchanges at the end of 2017. According to the company's statement:
"Regarding the company’s individual commercial medical coverage (Individual Commercial), substantially all of which is offered on-exchange through the federal Marketplaces [Obamacare], Humana has worked over the past several years to address market and programmatic challenges in order to keep coverage options available wherever it could offer a viable product. This has included pursuing business changes, such as modifying networks, restructuring product offerings, reducing the company’s geographic footprint and increasing premiums.All of these actions were taken with the expectation that the company’s Individual Commercial business would stabilize to the point where the company could continue to participate in the program. However, based on its initial analysis of data associated with the company’s healthcare exchange membership following the 2017 open enrollment period, Humana is seeing further signs of an unbalanced risk pool. Therefore, the company has decided that it cannot continue to offer this coverage for 2018. Through the remainder of 2017, Humana remains committed to serving its current members across 11 states where it offers Individual Commercial products. And, as it has done in the past, Humana will work closely with its state partners as it navigates this process."
Humana's announcement refers to the "2017 open enrollment period," which is the period when people can enroll for 2017 coverage. In Tennessee, for example, 15% fewer people signed up in the 2017 open enrollment period than in the previous year.
Humana's announcement also refers to an "unbalanced risk pool." This means that the reason that fewer people are signing up is that healthy people are not signing up, which sick people continue to sign up at the same rate. This means that fewer healthy people are available to pay for health care for sick people.
Health insurer Aetna lost $450 million in Obamacare exchanges last year. It has already pulled out of most Obamacare markets, but hasn't announced yet whether it will pull out of the remaining ones. Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said that the "death spiral" of Obamacare is going to continue:
"It’s not going to get any better; it’s getting worse. You saw my friend, Bruce, at Humana say, 'We're out.' ...That logic shows just how much the risk pool is deteriorating in the ACA [Obamacare] and how poorly structured the funding mechanism and premium model is. I think you will see a lot more withdrawals this year of plans. ... My anticipation would be that in '18, we’ll see a lot of markets without any coverage at all."
Supporters of Obamacare point to statistics that millions more people are insured than before Obamacare. Well of course they are. That's because over 80% of all Obamacare customers receive big subsidies. Give people something for free and they'll take it.
Even so, fewer people are signing up because being "insured" with Obamacare often means paying big monthly premiums and then not really being insured at all. Many people with Obamacare have Medicaid and can't find a doctor to treat them, or they have something like a $10,000 deductible, so they have to pay their entire bills anyway. My guess is that millions more people today are effectively uninsured than were uninsured before Obamacare.
This is exactly the kind of thing that I predicted would happen when I wrote my article in July 2009. This isn't rocket science. This is common sense. But when policymakers in the Obama administration are too stupid to understand even Economics 1.01, then there is no common sense.
Obamacare is an economic disaster of epic proportions, worse than Nixon's wage-price controls. Congress is now considering various "repeal or replace" options to salvage something from the Obamacare disaster, but as in the case of Nixon's wage-price controls, the destruction is so deep that it will take years to repair it, and things will get worse before they get better. Human Press Release and The Hill and Business Insider and The Tennessean
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As I've been reporting since 2015, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is facing an existential crisis, with a huge and accelerating deficit expected to reach 22 billion pounds ($32 billion) by 2020.
The NHS is massively cutting services, with hospitals reducing the number of beds, and more than one-third closing their maternity units and their Accident & Emergency departments (known in America as Emergency Rooms).
Since surgery is extremely expensive, the NHS is taking several steps to reduce the amount of surgery:
With NHS in its own "death spiral," supporters are demanding huge tax increases before 2018 in order to maintain the current levels of service. Whether taxpayers can afford those huge increases remains to be seen. Guardian (London) and Belfast Telegraph and London Express and Guardian (21-Apr-2015)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Feb-17 World View -- Obamacare and Britain's NHS continue in financial 'death spiral' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Feb-2017)
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Brief generational history of Cameroon
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In the hope of quelling protests by the Anglophone (English-speaking) population of Cameroon, the government shut down all internet access to to the Anglophone regions of the country, beginning on January 17. The shutdown has been going on for five weeks, and covers 20% of the population.
The activist group Internet Without Borders has estimated that small businesses have lost over $700,000 because they are no longer able to conduct much of their business without the internet. They add that the outage had blocked entrepreneurs who are an important part of the economic activity of the country. The UN has said that the termination of Internet services was an "appalling violation" of the right to freedom of expression, because it's a clear attempt by the government to stifle citizen protest actions.
It's interesting that the internet didn't even exist not too many years ago, and now it's said to be a basic human right. Africa News and IT News Africa and Newsweek
(See this 23-Nov-16 World View article for the early history of Cameroon.)
Historically, Cameroon was colonized by a variety of European countries, but by the end of World War two there were two colonies, the Anglophone "British Cameroons" colony and the Francophone "French Cameroun" colony.
The last generational crisis war was the "UPC Revolt," 1956-1960, which was a bloody civil war by communists attacking the French government in the Cameroun colony. The outcome was independence in 1961, when the British Cameroons colony and the French Cameroun colony were merged into a single country, and the Anglophones became a disadvantaged and marginalized minority. Today, the Anglophone regions are known as the "Southern Cameroons."
By 1995, an Anglophone secessionist movement had begun under a group called the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC). This was a generational Awakening era, like America in the 1960s, that splits the population along generational lines, characterized by widespread student riots and demonstrations. The government cracked down on the protesters, though not as violently as in some other countries in Awakening eras (Syria, Burundi, for example). Those protests are continuing today, with younger protesters demanding complete independence, and older Anglophones advocating a semi-autonomous region, but still within the nation of Cameroon. Deutsche Welle and Dibussi Tande Blog - pro-Anglophone (1-Nov-2006)
The trial of three English-speaking protesters facing the death penalty opened at a military court in Cameroon on Monday. The protesters, Felix Agbor Balla, Fontem Aforteka'a Neba and Mancho Bibixy, pleaded not guilty to charges of acts of terrorism, complicity in acts of terrorism, insurrection, propagation of false news, calling for civil war and calling for a return to the federal system. However, the trial was postponed until March 23 to give the prosecution time to gather more evidence.
The defendants are being tried under a 2014 law created to help combat militants from Nigeria-based Islamist militant group Boko Haram whose fighters regularly launch attacks in Cameroon.
The internet shutdown was a government response to protests that began in November, along with a strike by English-speaking teachers, lawyers and students over alleged government bias in favor of French-speaking Cameroonians. At times, the protests have turned violent.
Shutting down the internet to the Southern Cameroons region is the kind of thing that looks like an act of desperation and backfires during a generational Awakening era. Does anyone seriously believe that young protesters are going to stop protesting because the internet has been shut down? It's much more likely that all the protesters, young and old, will be infuriated by the shutdown, and protest more vigorously, or even become more violent. RFI and Reuters
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Feb-17 World View -- Cameroon shuts down internet for English-speakers protesting French-speakers thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Feb-2017)
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China's foreign policy becomes complicated by North Korean test
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session on Monday, and issued a statement strongly condemning North Korea's ballistic missile launches.
The missile was launched on Sunday from North Korea’s Banghyon air base in the western North Pyongang Province. It reached an apogee of 344 miles and traveled out to about 313 miles before splashing into the Sea of Japan. Analysts say that the missile test is significant because the new missiles use solid fuel, and because it can be launched from vehicles traveling over rough terrain, both of which make them harder to detect than liquid-fuel-based missiles.
The missile test shows that it could reach targets in South Korea, China and Japan, and that North Korea is getting close to developing a nuclear missile that could reach the United States.
The UN Security Council statement said:
"The members of the Security Council deplore all the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ballistic missile activities, including these launches. ...[We call] upon all member states to redouble their efforts to implement fully the measures imposed on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by the Security Council."
Some Security Council members have called for imposing additional economic sanctions on North Korea, but are few choices left beyond those that have already been imposed. Furthermore, it's pretty clear that North Korea will continue developing nuclear and missile technology irrespective of any imposed sanctions. Reuters and Defense News and Deutsche Welle
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On Monday, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had to answer questions about North Korea's ballistic missile test. The exchanges became fairly testy, illustrating how anxious China is about the situation, and about how complicated it's making China's foreign policy. Here are some excerpts showing the testy exchanges (the DPRK is North Korea, and the ROK is South Korea):
Q: The DPRK allegedly tested a new type of nuclear-capable missile yesterday. ...A: We have noted relevant reports and are closely following the developments. The Security Council resolutions contain clear provisions on launches using ballistic missile technology by the DPRK. China is opposed to the DPRK's launch which violates the Security Council resolutions.
Given the current circumstances, relevant parties should not engage in mutually provocative moves which could heighten regional tensions. All parties need to exercise restraint in a joint effort to maintain regional peace and stability. ...
Q: There is sort of a saying that China has leverage over the DPRK. Has the US communicated with China over the missile test and asked China to do more? Analysts speculate that the missile test is an opportunity for China to tie up its greater cooperation on the Korean nuclear issue with US cooperation in keeping peace and stability of the South China Sea. Is that a valid speculation?
A: The root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue lies in the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK. As a permanent member of the Security Council and a responsible member of the international community, China has always enforced the Council's resolutions in their entirety, promoted peace talks, and made unremitting efforts to facilitate the settlement of the issue of Korean Peninsula. China's efforts have been widely acknowledged and acclaimed by the international community. ...
Q: You just mentioned that the root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue lies in the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK. Could you be more specific as to how the differences between the DPRK and the ROK lead to the nuclear and missile issue?
A: What I said just now was that the root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue lies in the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK. This is not the first time for us to say so. This is a viewpoint that has been repeatedly emphasized.
Q: Does China believe that Washington should take the initiative on tackling the issue of missile test by the DPRK?
A: The root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue lies in the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK. ...
Q: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that China, who has complete control of what sustains the government of the DPRK, should play a bigger role. Do you agree with him?
A: I have actually given the answer when addressing other journalists' questions. The root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue is the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK. Given that, we hope that relevant parties make more efforts to resolve the DPRK nuclear and missile issue."
As you can see, an exasperated Geng Shuang answered several questions the same way, essentially blaming the United States and South Korea. I'll bet he was happy when that press conference was over. AP and China Foreign Ministry
Last year, the US and South Korea announced the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in South Korea. It's considered to be the most advanced anti-missile system available anywhere today because it can blast incoming missiles out of the sky with 100% success rate. The stated purpose of the deployment would be to protect South Korea from a North Korean ballistic missile attack.
China has expressed enormous fury over the installation of THAAD in South Korea. When the announcement was made last year, Chinese media have attacked South Korea with inflammatory rhetoric, and recommended harsh economic sanctions against South Korea. China has even been calling for anti-THAAD demonstrations in South Korea.
The reason that China has been freaking out over THAAD is that it also protects South Korea from a ballistic missile attack launched by China. Furthermore, THAAD's advance detection systems would provide early warning for a Chinese missile attack on the United States.
Sunday's ballistic missile test by North Korea severely complicates China's foreign policy with regard to this issue, because it makes a THAAD system in South Korea even more necessary. According to Chinese media:
"Establishing THAAD on the Korean Peninsula has always been part of Washington’s plan to expand and enhance its anti-missile network in the region. Aside from anti-missile cooperation with allies such as Japan and Australia, the US has also deployed the THAAD system in Hawaii and Guam, destroyers with missile interceptors in the Sea of Japan, and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors on the Japanese soil. ...However, inviting the ROK to join the game being played by the US and Japan does not just respond to the DPRK’s nuclear threats but also places more countries including China under US military surveillance. Keeping Japan and the ROK committed to its Asian policy would be another boon to the US. ...
However, the two allies are yet to offer any solid evidence to reassure Beijing that the anti-missile battery does not target any third party. Nor have they taken any action such as removing radars that might be used to spy on China to prove their point. China will not sit idle while Washington and Seoul press ahead with THAAD in the name of handling the “DPRK threat”."
Another system is the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system. It's a centralized, automated, command-and-control (C2) and weapons control system that was designed as a total weapon system, from detection to kill. The high-powered radar is able to perform search, track, and missile guidance functions simultaneously, with a track capacity of more than 100 targets. There are currently 84 U.S. Navy ships in service with the AEGIS Weapons System installed: 22 Cruisers and 62 Destroyers. There are an additional three new construction Destroyers with the AEGIS Weapon System installed that will enter service in FY 2018.
The North Korean missile test is going to substantially increase demand for additional THAAD and Aegis systems, and pose additional problems for China's planned missile attack on the US and its allies. China Daily and Global Times (Beijing) and US Navy
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Feb-17 World View -- America's likely response to N. Korean test: THAAD, Aegis missile defense systems thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Feb-2017)
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Hezbollah keeps on fighting, but says it will honor Syria ceasefire
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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On Sunday, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, Iran's puppet terrorist organization, gave a major televised speech to his followers insisting that Hezbollah fully supported the ceasefire agreement that had been negotiated three weeks ago by Russia, Iran and Turkey. He said that he was responding to reports in the Arab press that there were major disagreements between Iran and Russia, and claimed that he wanted the forces of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad to keep on fighting, and to continue to eliminate as much of the Sunni population as possible. Nasrallah contradicted those reports in his televised speech:
"We [support] an agreement that ends the bloodshed and paves way for a national reconciliation [in Syria]. Hezbollah and Iran support the ceasefire, the reconciliation, and the political settlement in Syria, while some Arab states are still backing the military option.Hezbollah strongly supports, not just the Astana ceasefire, any ceasefire agreed upon in Syria [in order to] prevent bloodshed and pave the way for political solutions."
Nasrallah was referring to the peace talks that were held last month in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan.
Nonetheless, there is currently no ceasefire. Hezbollah forces took the lead in fighting in the region called Wadi Barada in the suburbs of Damascus, under control of anti-Assad rebels who are theoretically supposed to be protected by the ceasefire agreement. According to Nasrallah, Hezbollah is continuing to fight "terrorists" in Syria.
In fact, none of the groups fighting in Syria -- Iran, al-Assad, Hezbollah, Russia, Turkey -- is honoring the ceasefire. The next round of peace talks is scheduled for February 20.
As I've been writing for years, Generational Dynamics predicts that in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will be on one side, and the US, Russia, India and Iran will be on the other side. Reuters and Press TV (Tehran)
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Reports of disagreements between Russia and Iran began with last month's Astana peace talks because they didn't go as planned. There was sharp disagreement over the participation of the United States in the negotiations, which Russia favored and which Iran considered to be unacceptable.
The final statement produced by the Astana talks called for a ceasefire, but no Syrians were party to the statement, as it was signed only by Turkey, Iran and Russia. The negotiators for the anti-Assad rebels wouldn't sign it unless it called for al-Assad to step down. Al-Assad's negotiators wouldn't sign it because they objected to Turkey's participation, and to Turkish forces in northern Syria where they're fighting ISIS.
The catalyst for all these disagreements is al-Assad himself. It's now widely agreed that al-Assad is so divisive that there will never be peace in Syria as long as he's in power. At the very least, he would have to step down and be replaced by someone from his own Alawite clan.
The anti-Assad rebels want him gone. The Turks want him gone too, but are willing to put up with him if it means an end to the Syrian war. The Russians want their military bases to lie within a stable Syria, but they're not tied to al-Assad, and are willing to consider having him step down at some time in the near future.
But Iran is adamant that al-Assad must stay, and cannot even be replaced by someone with similar policies. According to one analysis, the cause springs from the fact that Iran is quite isolated in the region, as the only Shia Muslim state, but surrounded by Sunni Muslim and Christian states. Thus, Iran is forced to rely on non-state alliances -- the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, the Badr Organization in Iraq, Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and Shia/Alawite Bashar al-Assad in Syria -- forming the "Shia Crescent." According to this analysis, if Iran is not completely loyal to al-Assad, then all the other non-state groups in its coalition will receive a signal that they're expendable as well, which would destabilize the entire coalition. Instead, Iran sees that it must remain completely loyal to al-Assad, and Hezbollah militias must remain in Syria to protect Iran's interests there -- including from the Turks and the Russians.
During the peace talks in Astana, Turkey demanded that Hezbollah's militias be pulled out of Syria, and Iran rejected that demand for the reasons just given.
In fact, according to Debka, Iran is planning for a much more aggressive role for Hezbollah in Syria. As long-time readers know, I like to reference Debka's subscriber-only newsletter (sent to me by a subscriber), which is written from Israel's point of view, because they have military and intelligence sources that provide valuable insights. However, as usual, I have to warn readers that they definitely do get some things wrong. The information that I'm presenting here from their newsletter is not confirmed by any other sources I've seen, but it's generally consistent with other reports.
According to the newsletter, Iran is developing an "unacknowledged cold war" with Russia, by taking control of assets within Syria that give it enough influence to challenge both Russia and al-Assad. Some of these steps are as follows:
According to the newsletter, Iran can use these assets as leverage in any future peace negotiations for Syria, in order to guarantee that its interests are fully protected. The National (UAE, 28-Jan) and Reuters (25-Jan) and Middle East Eye and Debka
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Feb-17 World View -- After Syria's so-called ceasefire, tensions grow over the future of Bashar al-Assad thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Feb-2017)
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Iraq's army poised to begin Battle of Mosul in the west
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Seven people were killed on Saturday during protests that turned violent after thousands of people flooding into central Baghdad to protest Iraq government corruption.
Several hours later, at least seven Katyusha rockets were launched from northern Baghdad, landing in the heavily protected Green Zone.
The huge protests were called by the powerful Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whom some of you may remember as playing a highly contentious role in the Iraq war ten years ago, challenging US forces with his Mahdi militias. He's very closely linked to the clerics in Iran.
Al-Sadr's political enemy is former prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki. He became prime minister in 2006 with America's help, and remained in office for eight years. In 2008, al-Maliki ordered the Iraqi army to clean out the city of Basra, the stronghold of al-Sadr's militias. Some of you may remember al-Maliki as the person in charge when President Obama withdrew all American forces from Iraq in December 2011. Al-Maliki's first action was to purge Sunnis from Iraq's government.
Al-Maliki's reign was so destructive and divisive to Iraqi society that he was forced out in 2014. The current prime minister is Haider al-Abadi, who has been trying to bring the country together again, but who is being charged by al-Sadr with corruption, and with supporting the return of al-Maliki in elections scheduled for September. At the same time, al-Abadi is head of the Iraqi army which is attempting to recapture Mosul from the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
The protests and violence between supporters of the al-Sadr and al-Maliki are Shia versus Shia Muslim violence. That violence is expected to increase as the September elections approach. But one-third of Iraq's population are Sunni Muslims, and their role in the September elections is still to be fully defined. Middle East Eye and BBC and Washington Post
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Iraq's prime minister Haider al-Abadi had hoped that the army, heavily backed by US and coalition warplanes and logistics, would have completed its recapture of Mosul from ISIS by the end of 2016, but the battle is taking far longer than expected. According to Iraq's government, east Mosul with a population of 500,000 has been taken and cleared of ISIS fighters, and the army is now poised to begin a decisive battle to retake western Mosul, with a population of 750,000.
The urban style fighting is extremely nasty. ISIS has laid hundreds of booby-trapped explosive devices in buildings throughout the city. The ISIS fighters move around in tunnel systems that have been built in preparation for this battle.
The government now estimates that the Battle of Mosul will take about two more months. Air Force Times and CBS News and Washington Post (13-Jan)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Feb-17 World View -- Iraq: Supporters of al-Sadr and al-Maliki turn again to violence in Baghdad thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Feb-2017)
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Greece will evacuate 75,000 people in Thessaloniki to defuse WW II bomb
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Years before the term "Brexit" was invented, referring to Britain leaving the European Union, people were talking about a possible "Grexit," referring to Greece leaving the euro currency and returning to its old drachma currency. As Greece enters new negotiations with its lender for another bailout loan, some people are suggesting that Grexit may be a reality this time.
Greece faces a €7.5 billion debt repayment in July. In order to meet that payment, Greece's lenders -- the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission (EC), and the International Monetary Fund(IMF) -- will have to lend Greece more money. (This is like borrowing from your MasterCard to pay your Visa.)
So there's plenty of time to negotiate an agreement by July, and that's why the lenders are meeting with Greece now. Unsurprisingly, a meeting on Friday in Brussels failed to reach an agreement after five hours.
According to Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem:
"We made substantial progress today and are close to common ground for the mission to return to Athens in the coming week. [All sides have] a clear understanding that a timely finalization of the second (bailout) review is in everybody’s interest."
So there'll be more meetings next week in the hope of reaching a breakthrough by the next meeting of eurozone finance ministers on February 20, but no really expects that either. In fact, it's unlikely that the impasse will be broken before the very last moment, and that would be just before the debt payment is due in July.
However, there are other kinds of deadlines that come sooner. There will be elections in the Netherlands on March 15 and in France in April through June. It would be nice to get a final settlement before those elections, since the election results may force the negotiations to start from the beginning.
The creditors are demanding that Greece increase its budget surplus from 2% of GDP in 2017 to 3.5% in 2018. This would require more tax increases, broadening the tax base, and more cuts in pensions. But many in Greece's government are saying enough is enough. Pensions have already been cut 11 times since the onset of the crisis in 2010, and the government is refusing to cut them further.
The Greek people may be unwilling to tolerate any more austerity. If Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras goes along with the pension cuts, then his government may lose a vote of confidence, forcing new elections before July. Greece's bond yields are also beginning to spike up to crisis levels, indicating that investors are getting very nervous about Greece again, just like the old days. And in that case, Grexit may really occur this time.
So things are still pretty calm, but don't be surprised if the old days come back, and there are several weekly crises to navigate. Kathimerini and AP and Nasdaq
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A state of emergency has been declared in Thessaloniki and surrounding municipalities after a 500-pound unexploded World War II bomb was found during work to expand underground fuel storage tanks.
The bomb was dropped during an air raid in the city on September 17, 1944, around lunchtime. It was dropped by British and American planes targeting rail facilities held by the Nazis.
Around 72,000 residents will be subjected to a forced evacuation before the bomb disposal unit will start its operation on Sunday morning. The evacuation zone will be 2 km (1.2 miles) around the bomb. This will be the biggest evacuation in Greece since World War II. At first the team will remove the detonator and will then transport the bomb to a firing range for controlled explosion. AP and Russia Today
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Feb-17 World View -- Grexit risk: Greece may refuse a new round of austerity thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-Feb-2017)
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Closure of Dadaab demanded after 2015 Garissa University attack in Kenya
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Attempts by the government of Kenya to close down Dadaab refugee camp, the world's largest refugee camp, have been set back by a decision by the country's High Court ruling that closing the camp is unconstitutional. According to judge John Mativo:
"The government's decision specifically targeting Somali refugees is an act of group persecution, illegal discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional."
Dadaab was set up in 1991 to house families fleeing conflict in neighboring Somalia, including the lawlessness and recurrent droughts. (Recall that 1993 was the year of the famous "Black Hawk Down" incident, where Somali militia fighters shot down two American helicopters using rocket-propelled grenades. Mobs then hacked the fallen pilots to death with machetes and dragged their mutilated bodies through the streets as trophies.)
At its peak in 2012, the Dadaab refugee camp housed nearly a half-million people. Many children had been born there and grown to adulthood without ever leaving the camp. Since then, some Somalis have left the camp and returned home voluntarily, and today Dadaab is home to some 256,000 people.
A government spokesman said that Dadaab had become a haven for al-Shabaab terrorists from Somalia, and that the court decision would be appealed:
"The key reason for closure of the camp was that it had become a launch pad for various terrorist attacks by al-Shabaab. The camp has lost its humanitarian nature and become a haven for terrorism and other illegal activities.The lives of Kenyans matter. Our interest in this case, and in the closure of Dadaab refugee camp, remains to protect the lives of Kenyans.
The closure of Dadaab camp has always drawn varying interest and opinions, both nationally and internationally however, the lives of Kenyans matter. It is for this reason that we shall be strongly appealing the decision by the High Court."
In 2013, Kenya, Somalia and UNHCR signed a tripartite agreement that all refugees should leave the camp and UNHCR would repatriate them all voluntarily to Somalia by November 2016. However, the UNHCR effort failed, and only 20,000 were repatriated.
Amnesty International called Wednesday's High Court ruling "historic":
"Today is a historic day for more than a quarter of a million refugees who were at risk of being forcefully returned to Somalia, where they would have been at serious risk of human rights abuses. This ruling reaffirms Kenya's constitutional and international legal obligation to protect people who seek safety from harm and persecution."
The Star (Kenya) and BBC and AFP
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The plans for Dadaab changed dramatically in April 2015, when the Somalia terrorist group al-Shabaab killed over 147 people, mostly Christian students, at Garissa University College in Kenya. The students were massacred in their dormitories. Christians were singled out and shot dead. 79 were injured, and 587 were led to safety.
The Garissa attack had an effect on Kenya's public not unlike the effect of the 9/11/2001 attack on Americans. Kenya announced numerous changes to improve security, and one of them was that the Dadaab refugee camp should be closed within three months.
The date for closure kept getting pushed back. In May of last year, Kenya said that would close down the camp by the end of the year. In November, the date was pushed into 2017.
The problem is that most of the refugees in Dadaab were born there and have spent their whole lives there, so they have no place to go. Kenya's government has tried "bribing" the refugees by offering $200 apiece to leave voluntarily. But with 260,000 refugees still remaining in the camp today, it's pretty clear that the effort to close the camp is failing and, according to some people, will never succeed.
At any rate, Wednesday's High Court decision means that the attempt will end completely, at least for the time being. The Nation (Kenya)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Feb-17 World View -- Kenya's High Court blocks attempt to close Dadaab refugee camp thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Feb-2017)
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China-Philippines détente unravels over Scarborough Shoal
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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When Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte announced last October that he was throwing the US military out of the Philippines and would be turning to China instead, I wrote that this flip-flop could not last for long, because the Philippine people had an overwhelmingly favorable view of the U.S., and a far less favorable view of China. It's a core principle of Generational Dynamics that, even in a dictatorship, major decisions are made by masses of people, by generations of people. The attitudes of politicians are irrelevant, except insofar as they represent the attitudes of the people.
Last October, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that the country would not allow the US military to use its base in the Philippines even for its freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea. Since then, Duterte has already been forced to backtrack on his threat to throw the US military out.
Now Duterte's own ministers are expressing alarm that China may be building a new military base on Scarborough Shoal, which has been a fishing ground for Philippine fishermen for centuries.
Now the very same Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana is now saying that China should not be permitted to build military facilities on Scarborough Shoal because, in combination with China's other illegal military bases, this would give China complete military control of the entire South China Sea:
"They encroached. They occupied three islands [in the Spratlys] plus they are trying to get Scarborough. So to us that is unacceptable.If we allow them, they will build. That’s very, very disturbing. Very much [more] disturbing than Fiery Cross because this is so close to us. ...
"The Americans, that’s their red line. Red line meaning you can’t do that there, so they [China] did not do it.
If we had a strong military presence [in the South China Sea], we can stop them [China] but we don’t. I am still hoping in the future some reasonable guy there in Beijing will come to see the light that this is ours. That is shooting for the moon but who knows?"
The "red line" refers to a warning that President Barack Obama gave to China's President Xi Jinping last year against building an artificial island at Scarborough Shoal. A Chinese military base on Scarborough Shoal would put Chinese fighter jets and missiles within easy striking distance of US forces that are stationed in the Philippines, as well as the Philippines' own forces. The shoal also commands the northeast exit of the sea, so a Chinese military outpost there could stop other countries' navies from traveling through the South China Sea.
Early last month, during his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson said that China's artificial islands and military bases in the South China Sea were an "illegal" activity and added:
"We're going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed."
Chinese media have responded that the US cannot implement this threat without waging a large-scale war. On Wednesday, China's foreign ministry promised Peace In Our Time: "We are absolutely not interested in conflicts with other countries and call for maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea as this is in the interests of all states." International Business Times and AFP and Tass (Moscow)
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Needless to say, I'm fascinated by the sudden interest by the mainstream media in Steve Bannon and The Fourth Turning. An article last week about Steve Bannon in Time mentioned the Fourth Turning.
A more important article came out this week in the form of an analytical article by Linette Lopez in Business Insider. Unfortunately, she has no idea what she's talking about, and knows absolutely nothing about generational theory, although she thinks she does.
Her thesis is that Steve Bannon wants to use this theory to bring about a world war. That's crazy. What generational theory does is predict that a world war is coming, whether we like it or not, and tells us to prepare for it.
The Fourth Turning was the foundational work for generational theory. It was a brilliant work when it was written by Neil Howe and William Strauss in the early 1990s, but they applied it only to English and American history since the 1400s, and today their work is badly out of date.
In 2003 I took over further development of generational theory, corrected a number of the early errors, and expanded it to all countries and places at all times in history. I launched the website http://GenerationalDynamics.com, which has been a platform of continuing development of generational theory. There are now almost 4,000 articles on the website containing hundreds of analyses and predictions, all of which have come true or are trending true. None has been proven wrong. No web site, analyst, journalist, or politician has come even close to the analytical and forecasting success of GenerationalDynamics.com. It's a truly historic development.
It's true that generational theory predicts a new world war. But it makes no difference whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton had won the presidential election, because no politician can either cause or prevent a world war.
However, to use an analogy, if your boat is sailing through a storm, then the boat captain can neither cause nor prevent a storm, but if a storm is coming, then one captain may do a better job than another in guiding the boat through the storm. The crazy thing would be for the boat captain to know that a storm is coming, but ignore it completely, and make no preparations whatsoever.
My personal belief is that America will be best guided through the coming storm by a president who has the benefit of an understanding of Generational Dynamics, because that's the only methodology that describes what's actually going on in the world.
So the reason that Linette Lopez is completely wrong is that she has no understanding whatsoever of generational theory. She has no clue. Lopez would tell a boat captain not to prepare for a storm, even if the weather forecast says that a storm is coming. She thinks we should just all be Pollyannas and pretend that nothing bad will ever happen. Linette Lopez is recommending the path to total disaster.
Ironically, Neil Howe himself has almost completely abandoned his own Fourth Turning theory by supporting views similar to those of Linette Lopez. This is explained by the fact that Howe supports Democrats, and so is committed to opposing anything from Donald Trump, even when it's his own Fourth Turning theory. This is just one more of the bizarre twists that are common in today's world.
Generational Dynamics says that a world war is coming, and that no politician can either cause or prevent it. But what politicians can do is prepare for it, and that's what we can hope that Steve Bannon and Donald Trump are doing, to the benefit of all of us. Business Insider and Time
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Feb-17 World View -- Mainstream media frets over Steve Bannon, the Fourth Turning, and Donald Trump thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Feb-2017)
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Epicenter of Syrian conflict moves from Aleppo to Idlib and al-Bab
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Just when you think you know all the depraved atrocities that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has committed, new evidence leaks out that shows even more grotesque actions by this psychopathic killer and war criminal.
These actions began in 2011, when there were thousands of people peacefully demonstrating against al-Assad. They took place in secret in Saydnaya Prison, a facility that al-Assad turned into a "human slaughterhouse," according to Amnesty International, based on interviews with 84 people, including 31 former inmates, four former guards, three former judges and three doctors. Thousands of these peaceful demonstrators were brought to Saydnaya for extreme torture and execution.
The prisoners were people who were perceived to oppose the government in some way. They came from all sectors of Syrian society. Many are demonstrators, long-time political dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists, doctors, humanitarian aid workers and students.
According to one former inmate, they were tortured from the moment they arrived:
"You are thrown to the ground and they use different instruments for the beatings: electric cables with exposed copper wire ends — they have little hooks so they take a part of your skin — normal electric cables, plastic water pipes of different sizes and metal bars. Also they have created what they call the “tank belt”, which is made out of tire that has been cut into strips. ... They make a very specific sound; it sounds like a small explosion. I was blindfolded the whole time, but I would try to see somehow. All you see is blood: your own blood, the blood of others. After one hit, you lose your sense of what is happening. You’re in shock. But then the pain comes."
Prisoners are stripped naked and thrown into cells for months. Prisoners were severely beaten regularly. Prisoners were forced to rape each other. There were starved and given little food and water. The only escape was death, with regular mass hangings of up to 50 at a time. At least 17,723 people were killed in government custody between March 2011 and December 2015, an average of 300 deaths each month.
As far as is known, these actions are still going on today, in Saydnaya and other Syria prisons.
This is not the first time al-Assad's horrors have leaked out into the public. In 2014, an al-Assad defector supplied 55,000 photos of about 11,000 men whom al-Assad had tortured using electrocution, eye-gouging, strangulation, starvation, and beating on prisoners on a massive "industrial strength" scale. Al-Assad was so pleased and proud of this torture that he made sure each act was photographed.
Throughout my lifetime, I've heard people describe the Holocaust and say, "Never again!" But al-Assad is a man who gets obvious pleasure from gouging out people's eyes or pulling out their fingernails, or sending missiles into school dormitories to kill children, or dropping barrel bombs laden with metal, chlorine, ammonia, phosphorous and chemical weapons on civilian neighborhoods, or using Sarin gas to kill large groups of people. He considers all Sunni Muslims to be cockroaches to be exterminated. Bashar al-Assad is the greatest genocidal monster in today's world, comparable to Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Stalin from the last century. There is no mass weapon of destruction, nor any gruesome form of torture, that he won't use to satisfy his psychopathy. Amnesty International and CNN and Vox
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The destruction of East Aleppo was supposed to be the shock and awe that brought Syria's civil war to an end, but that hasn't happened yet. Tens of thousands of residents of Aleppo have fled to Idlib, which is now being controlled by a combination of "moderate" anti-Assad rebels, fighters from the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), and fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front, now Jabhat Fateh al-Sham or JFS).
Once again you have air strikes killing civilians. Although the air strikes appear to be from Russian warplanes, once again you have Russia denying that it's conducting air strikes. In Aleppo that would have meant that Syria's warplanes were conducting the airstrikes, but in Idlib there's the complication that US warplanes are attacking ISIS targets.
There's also continued fighting in northern Syria, led by Turkey's Operation Euphrates Shield. The fighting is now centered around the city of al-Bab. At the beginning of the operation in August of last year, the main fighters were the Free Syrian Army (FSA) of "moderate" anti-Assad rebels. But now in al-Bab, it's elite Turkish army fighters leading the effort, supported by Turkish fighter jets.
This situation is a time bomb for several reasons:
BBC and AP and Al Jazeera
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Feb-17 World View -- Investigation reveals depraved new atrocities by Syria's Bashar al-Assad thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Feb-2017)
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China sails warships near Japan's Senkaku Islands
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In a show of military force, China sailed three warships past the Senkaku Islands on Monday, just two days after Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis visited Japan and reaffirmed the US commitment to defend the islands if attacked by China.
Although the Senkaku Islands are just a collection of large, barren rocks, it's believed that they lie in a region with vast oil and gas reserves. Japan says that the islands have been their sovereign territory since the 1800s. China says that they've been their sovereign territory since "ancient times," and that their claims are "indisputable," but China says exactly the same things about any other country's territory that it wants to confiscate. China's claims in the South China Sea are not only "disputable," they're also illegal according to a ruling by a United Nations court in the Hague. Some of China's "ironclad proof" was investigated by the BBC and found to be a hoax.
The United States has taken no position on whether Japan or China own the Senkaku Islands, but have agreed that Japan is currently administering the islands. During the early part of the administration of President Barack Obama, there was some question whether Obama would agree to defend the islands under the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security that was signed in 1960. The issue was cleared up in April 2014 during a visit by Obama to Japan, he announced, "The policy of the United States is clear -- the Senkaku Islands are administered by Japan and therefore fall within the scope of Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. And we oppose any unilateral attempts to undermine Japan’s administration of these islands."
The administration of President Donald Trump once again reaffirmed the US defense of the Senkaku Islands last week when ]US Defense Secretary James Mattis visited Japan and said:
"I made clear that our long-standing policy on the Senkaku Islands stands -- the US will continue to recognize Japanese administration of the islands and as such Article 5 of the US-Japan Security Treaty applies."
China's Foreign Ministry responded quickly:
"Diaoyu [Senkaku] and its affiliated islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times. These are historical facts that cannot be changed. The so-called US-Japan security treaty was a product of the Cold War, and it should not harm China's territorial sovereignty and legitimate rightsWe urge the US side to adopt a responsible attitude and stop making wrong remarks on the issue of the sovereignty of Diaoyu Islands."
It's getting very tiresome to hear that China always describe their empty claims as indisputable facts, but the real concerns is that the Chinese are becoming so angry and frustrated that they'll take real military action. Sending three warships near the islands, as they did on Monday, is harmless as far as it goes, but with nationalistic feelings high in both China and Japan, a miscalculation leading to a military clash is a real possibility. CNN and Fox News
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US-China tensions have been growing steadily for years, especially as China has built illegal artificial islands and illegal military bases in the South China Sea. But these tensions seem to have taken a major spurt since Donald Trump became president, because of Trump's willingness to go much farther than Obama in challenging "politically correct" norms.
Even before taking office, Trump accepted a phone call from Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai has refused to endorse the "one-China policy" that precludes Taiwan's independence, and Trump has said that the one-China policy is open for negotiation. Younger generations in Taiwan increasingly favor independence, and it's clear to China that time is not on their side.
Early last month, during his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson said that China's artificial islands and military bases in the South China Sea were an "illegal" activity and added:
"We're going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed."
An editorial in Chinese state media said, "Unless Washington plans to wage a large-scale war in the South China Sea, any other approaches to prevent Chinese access to the islands will be foolish."
This talk of war has led to some media questions about how ready China is for war.
China has only one aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, but it's much smaller than US aircraft carriers, having been purchased from the Soviet Union in 1988.
The Liaoning can carry up to 24 fighter jets and about 12 helicopters, while U.S. Navy’s current Nimitz-class warships, such as the USS Ronald Reagan, stationed in Japan, can handle more than 60 aircraft. An even larger carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, will be put into service in 2017.
That would indicate that China is far behind the United States in sea power, but the first of two new all-Chinese aircraft carriers, the Shandong-1, is expected to begin sea trials this year.
People frequently point out to me that China would not attack the United States because the US has a superior military. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, that makes sense for most wars, but not for generational crisis wars. When America's South attacked Fort Sumter, launching the American Civil War, it was predictable that the North would win because it was three times as big, but the South attacked anyway. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it was predictable that America would win because it was five times as big, but Japan attacked anyway.
As a population, China is in a highly emotional state right now. They've become extremely nationalistic. Their younger generations are looking for action, believing that China is strong enough to beat the US. On the US side, most people believe that President Trump means business in a way that President Obama never did, and that Trump may well take some military action to fulfill Rex Tillerson's threat to prevent China from accessing its artificial islands in the South China Sea.
Generational Dynamics predicts that the US and China are going to war. It's impossible to predict what will trigger that war, or when it will begin. But whether it begins next month, next year, or thereafter, it will be part of the greatest world war in history. VOA and The Diplomat and The Statesman
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Feb-17 World View -- Tensions rise between China and Trump administration thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Feb-2017)
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Australian politics in turmoil over refugee deal
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Australian officials, led by Australia's prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, have said that the plan to resettle up the 1,250 refugees from Australia in the United States had been "confirmed several times over" by Donald Trump administration officials.
The deal was made in November by President Barack Obama in the waning days of his administration. The US will take 1,250 refugees that Australia has sent to two "detention centers" on Pacific islands, one on Papua New Guinea's (PNG's) Manus Island, and one on the island nation of Nauru, under agreements reached with both countries. The reason that they had been sent to detention centers is not because they were known to have committed crimes, but because they had arrived by boats run by human traffickers. Australia has refused to let them resettle on Australian soil in order to discourage human trafficking, and the policy has actually been very successful in that regard.
Nonetheless, the detention centers are considered to be violations of international law for several reasons, including the fact that they're described as filthy and rat-infested, with numerous stories of beatings, torture, and sexual abuse.
Although the deal was announced in November, it's been mostly ignored until last week when president Donald Trump held a phone conversation with Australia's president Malcolm Turnbull. The mainstream media described the phone call as contentious, and claimed that Trump had hung up on Turnbull, something that both Trump and Turnbull have derided as "fake news."
Trump characterized the refugee deal as "the worst deal ever," and there was speculation that Trump would cancel the deal. However, Trump took the position that he was bound by the international agreements made by the previous administration, and he has confirmed that the US will take in up to 1,250 of these refugees, after subjecting each of them to "extreme vetting." Australian Broadcasting and Business Insider and CNBC
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Australian politics were already pretty toxic over the use of the Pacific island refugee detention centers, but the news about the Trump-Turnbull phone call and the new attention given to the US-Australia refugee deal has caused additional turmoil:
With regard to the last point, the Trump-Turnbull phone call was not the only event in the last week to reignite the refugee debate.
A 37 year old woman refugee known only as "Dee" had requested in December to be flown from the Nauru detention center to Australia to care for a high-risk pregnancy. Australia refused, infuriating activists, but finally was forced on Friday to permit her to come to a hospital in Brisbane.
Ironically, citizens of Nauru may be approved for transfer to Australian hospitals, but since Dee was a refugee, her transfer was not approved (until Friday). Canberra Times and Special Broadcasting Service (Australia) and Stuff (New Zealand) and BBC and Red Flag
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Feb-17 World View -- Trump will honor Australia refugee deal, despite calling it 'worst deal ever' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Feb-2017)
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Egypt's air force accused of bombing rebel targets in South Sudan
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Anti-government rebels in South Sudan are accusing Egypt of conducting bombing raids on rebel targets. A statement published by the rebels accuses South Sudan's president Salva Kiir of risking a regional war.
South Sudan is the world's youngest nation, having gained independence from Sudan in 2011. The region's last generational crisis war was an ethnic war mainly between two tribes, the Nuer and the Dinka. That war climaxed with the "Bor Massacre," which began on November 15, 1991, killing tens of thousands of people and displacing hundreds of thousands of people over a three month period.
A new conflict began on December 15, 2013, led by the president Salva Kiir, of the Dinka tribe, fighting against forces led by vice president Riek Machar, of the Nuer tribe. Kiir and Machar signed a peace agreement in August 2015, but that did little good.
South Sudan is in a generational Awakening era, and this renewed war between the Dinkas and the Nuer would have fizzled out, except that both sides have been importing weapons, often using funds meant to fight poverty. The situation in South Sudan is similar to the war in Syria, which would have fizzled out long ago if it weren't for massive military aid from Russia, Hezbollah and Iran.
The rebels are accusing Egypt of replicating the situation in Sudan by playing the part that Russia is playing in Syria, and bombing rebel targets on behalf of the government.
Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid denied the alleged air strikes, saying: "Egypt does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries." Reuters and South Sudan News Agency
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The statement by anti-government rebels accusing Egypt of bombing rebel targets in South Sudan says that Egypt and South Sudan are in a "dirty deal" between Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and South Sudan's president Salva Kiir, and that the deal involves involving weapons sales and sabotage of an Ethiopian dam project:
"There is a dirty deal going between Kiir and El-Sisi. the issue of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is one of the main deals being finalized in Cairo. Our intelligence sources in Kampala and Juba confirmed that Egypt wants South Sudan and Uganda to be her regional allies so that she can advance its covert sabotage campaign against the Ethiopian Dam. The man [Kiir] is a double agent; he will cause many problems for the entire East Africa region."
The statement refers to a Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project that Ethiopia has been trying to get built for years. Ethiopians see as is a great national project and a means of overcoming poverty.
There is considerable opposition to the dam project in Egypt because it would affect the flow of water along the Nile river. Egypt depends on the Nile river to supply most of Egypt's drinking war, to irrigate the Nile Delta, and to generate half of the country's electricity through the operation of Egypt's Aswan High Dam.
Egypt's long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak was able to block development of the Ethiopian dam, but after the "Arab Awakening" in 2011, and the coup that overthrew him, Ethiopia began building the dam. It's expected to be completed in July. Egypt and Ethiopia have signed an agreement saying that Ethiopia guarantees that Egypt's water supply will not be affected, but that hasn't fully reassured many Egyptians.
The South Sudan rebel statement, if true, would indicate that Egypt's al-Sisi and South Sudan's Kiir covertly sabotaging the dam in a "dirty deal" that will keep Kiir in power. Egypt Independent and Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Sudan Tribune
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Feb-17 World View -- Egypt accused of 'dirty deal' to sabotage an Ethiopian dam project thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Feb-2017)
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Generational Dynamics interpretation of Burma (Myanmar) atrocities
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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A devastating new report by the UN office of human rights shows a huge scale of ghastly atrocities committed by Buddhists targeting ethnic Rohingya Muslims.
For months, Burma (Myanmar) police and soldiers have been committing ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State by scorched earth attacks, burning down their villages, and committing massacres, rapes and other atrocities that have forced tens of thousands to flee for their lives across the border into Bangladesh.
Burma has tacitly admitted guilt by forbidding any journalists or humanitarian groups from entering Rakhine State to investigate. As we've reported in the past, evidence of atrocities keeps leaking out, despite desperate and laughable attempts to hide them. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented the ethnic cleansing through a series of "before and after" satellite images. Burma's government agrees that the satellite images show that Rohingya villages are being burned down, but they make the laughable claim that the Rohingyas are burning down the villages themselves in order to embarrass the government. There have also been dozens of videos showing Burma's police beating and raping Rohingya civilians, but Burma's government claims that all of these videos are phony and have been fabricated.
So to get around Burma's restrictions, the UN office of human rights conducted extensive interviews of hundreds of the tens of thousands of refugees who had been forced to flee across Burma's border into Bangladesh, and were living in filthy refugee camps such as Cox's Bazar. In addition, the UN team interviewed numerous representatives of UN system agencies, NGOs, health professionals and other experts.
The interviewers heard one story after another of killings, beatings, rape, sexual violence, shootings, stabbings, and wholesale destruction of home and property. 52 of the 101 women interviewed reported being raped or subjected to sexual violence. Seven of them were girls who had been gang-raped. Some of the raped girls and women were killed afterwards.
The report contains many personal stories. A woman said, "They killed the baby by stomping on it with their heavy boots. Then they burned the house."
A 12-year-old boy said: "I was at home with my 13-year old uncle, when the army broke into the house. They beat us with sticks, metal rods and kicks. We were crying, pleading for mercy. An army officer hit me hard with a metal rod on my right arm, causing severe injury. We were dragged out of the house, which was set on fire. My uncle, who attempted to flee was caught, beaten and thrown into a burning house." Independent (London) and UN human rights report on Burma and BBC
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Burma's government has refused to allow any international journalists or investigators into the region, and has used every possible disinformation technique for months to deny that the atrocities are taking place. These include the laughable technique of claiming that the Rohingyas are killing each other and burning down their own villages to embarrass the government.
However, this new report has been so devastating that Burma's government has been forced to acknowledge it. Even so, U Zaw Htay, the spokesman for Burma's president Htin Kyaw, said on Friday that they hadn't seen the report, and added, "We will review the report from the UN and we will respond, either in an official statement or in an individual response (to questions)."
Later on Friday, the spokesman said, "These are extremely serious allegations, and we are deeply concerned. We will be immediately investigating these allegations through the investigation commission led by Vice-President U Myint Swe Where there is clear evidence of abuses and violations, we will take all necessary action."
International pressure is building on Aung San Suu Kyi, who is believed to be the most powerful politician in Burma today. When she was under arrest for many years by the army, she won the Nobel Peace prize, and now she's considered to be some kind of human rights hero (heroine). But this slaughter of Muslims by Burmese Buddhists has been going on for years, and has become far worse in the last few months, but she continues to deny that there are serious crimes being committed.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein said on Friday, "I did speak to Aung San Suu Kyi about an hour and a half ago. I called upon her to use every means available to exert pressure on the military and the security services to end this operation."
We'll have to see whether anything gets done or can get done. This is a growing problem that will destabilize the region, and lead to new hostilities, possibly triggering a major regional generational crisis war. Irrawaddy Times (Burma) and Reuters
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, these atrocities are coming out of deep hatred by Buddhists of Muslims, based on numerous generational crisis wars between the two groups over the centuries.
Every time I post a story about Burma, some commenters apparently get confused and think that it's the Rohingya's that are killing, torturing and raping the Buddhists. But no it's not. For the last few years, the Buddhists have been the perpetrators, and the Rohingya Muslims have been the victims.
In fact, as I've described several times in the past, the actions being taken by Buddhists against Muslims today are very similar to actions taken by Nazis against the Jews. These kinds of atrocities are standard fare for all religious and ethnic groups.
One commenter in the past pointed out that Muslims conducted atrocities against Buddhists in previous wars, decades and centuries ago. That's undoubtedly true. That's part of how the generational cycle works, with new generations in each side vowing revenge for atrocities committed against their grandfathers. Each side vividly recalls the atrocities committed by the other side, but strangely enough have no memory whatsoever of atrocities committed by their own grandfathers.
Some people believe that Buddhists are such peace loving people that they never fight or never rape or never commit atrocities. Any ethnic or religious group that really lived that way would not survive for long, but would be exterminated by some other ethnic or religious group before long. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, all religious and ethnic groups act the same way, and in fact use religion to justify their actions.
The Buddhist xenophobic hatred of Muslims in Burma goes very deep. The root of the violence is xenophobic attacks by Buddhists led by Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu and his "969 movement," against the Rohingya Muslims, including rapes, torture and other atrocities committed by Buddhists, targeting the Rohingyas. The Rohingyas have a darker skin than Burmese, and they speak a Bengali dialect.
What is clear is that the current situation is becoming increasingly dangerous for the entire region.
The Buddhist atrocities started to become significant worse since October 9 of last year, when nine Myanmar border police were killed in an attack blamed on Rohingya militants. This was the first act of violence by Rohingyas in revenge.
CNN has reported on an interview with members of Harakat al-Yaqeen, or "Faith Movement," who are claiming responsibility for the October 9 attacks, and who are the first armed insurgency to emerge from the Rohingyas. The leader Atah Ullah said in the interview:
"We, the vulnerable and persecuted people, have asked the international community for protection against the atrocities by the government of Myanmar, but the international community turned its back on us. Finally, we cannot take it anymore."
This armed insurgency is only the beginning. The government of Muslim-majority Malaysia is furious, and is condemning the government of Burma, violating the regional rule of not interfering in the internal affairs of neighbors. And the situation is ripe for infiltration and recruitment by jihadists, such as al-Qaeda or the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). CNN and Reuters
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Feb-17 World View -- Devastating UN report on Burma shows scale of ghastly atrocities by Buddhists targeting Muslim Rohingyas thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Feb-2017)
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Massive Romanian protests linked to 1989 ouster of violent dictator
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Hundreds of thousands of people turned out on Wednesday in cities across Romania to protest a new decree by the center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD). The new decree permits corruption by government officials.
Although the PSD holds a parliamentary majority after winning an election last month, leaders of the party are currently facing corruption charges that bar them serving as ministers. In particular, PSD chairman in Liviu Dragnea would become prime minister, but in April 2016 he received a two-year suspended jail sentence for vote rigging.
The new decree would change the law so that Dragnea would be cleared of his suspended jail sentence, allowing him to become prime minister. The law would also free dozens of his left-wing cronies, such as Dan Voiculescu, currently serving 10 years for abuse of power and money laundering. Euro News and Reuters
The protests are the biggest since the 1989 revolution. At that time, the country was in the grip of a vicious Stalinist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. Few dared to protest because the Secret Police would jail, torture and kill them. However, a spontaneous protest of hundreds of thousands of people began to demand the ouster of Ceausescu, forcing him to try to flee with his wife Elena. They were quickly captured, tried, and then executed on Christmas Day 1989.
Since then, the government has been one of the most corrupt in the world, with the politicians governing the country having stolen as much as possible, with the help of people from the former communist party and the former secret police of Ceausescu's reign.
When Romania joined the European Union in 2007, it was under the condition that Romania would institute severe reforms in the administration of justice and in government corruption. The European Commission has been closely monitoring Romania each year since then, to chart progress in judicial reform and the fight against corruption.
The most recent EC report, issued just two weeks ago, documented progress in many areas, but still concluded: "Corruption prevention is still weak and is not yet established as a core obligation of public administration."
Romania's government announced the new changes in the law just as the EC report was published. The new law is a major reversal of Romania's programs to reduce corruption. Since Romania was admitted to the EU on the condition that judicial and government corruption be reduced to international norms, Romania's membership in the EU might be in jeopardy, if it weren't for the fact that EU leaders are more concerned in today's post-Brexit world that the EU might fall apart anyway. Deutsche Welle and European Commission and Transparency International and The 1989 Romanian Revolution and the Fall of Ceausescu
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Feb-17 World View -- Hundreds of thousands of people protest left-wing corruption in Romania thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Feb-2017)
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Israel approves large settlement -- first new settlement in West Bank in decades
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Under court order, Israeli security forces began on Wednesday the forced eviction of settlers from the Amona settlement in the West Bank.
In 2014, Israel's High Court ruled that the Jewish settlement had been built on private Palestinian land, and that the settlement was illegal. The court ordered the government to evacuate and demolish the community by December 25, 2016. But under fierce pressure from settlers and their Knesset supporters, the government in late December secured a 45-day extension from the court until February 8.
Israel's government had hoped that the expulsion would go smoothly, as they had made an agreement that the evacuated settlers could move to an adjacent plot of land on the same hilltop as Amona. However, local Palestinians objected to this plan, saying that the adjacent plot was also privately owned by Palestinians, and an Israeli human rights group Yesh Din petitioned the court on behalf of the Palestinians to prevent this agreement. Last month, the court agreed with the Palestinians, and issued a temporary injunction halting the construction of the new settlements.
So Israel's government had to back off from the offer of the adjacent settlement, and replaced it with an offer to move to the Ofra settlement, which was farther away but was considered legal under Israeli law. This new offer was considered unacceptable by Amona residents, although it was finally accepted on Wednesday.
Amona activists set up makeshift roadblocks and other defenses, as an army of thousands of unarmed police officers on Wednesday came to Amona to carry out the evacuation and demolition orders. By Wednesday evening, 20 police officers were injured and 12 protesters were arrested.
Pinchas Vallerstein, who represents the Jewish settlers, was unhappy about the evacuation, but said that it was necessary:
"If you want to live in a democratic society and that’s important to you, you can disagree with a decision that the court makes, but at the end of the day, you have to live by it."
However, Abdulrahman Saleh, the mayor or a nearby Palestinian town, has little faith in Israel's legal system. He says,
"I feel the democracy in Israel is just for their people. But for Palestinians, either in [historical Palestine] or here – it is like [Syria's president] Bashar al-Assad, it’s dictatorial. And for their people, it is 100 percent democracy."
Times of Israel and CS Monitor
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For the first time in 20 years, Israel announced that it will build a new settlement in the West Bank. Previous announcements of new settlers' homes in the West Bank have been homes added to existing settlements.
The new settlement will have 3,000 homes. This is the third announcement of this type since Donald Trump became president on January 20. The previous announcements were for 2,500 housing units in the West Bank, and 550 in East Jerusalem. At the time that the 2,500 housing units were approved, Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the expansion was just a "first taste."
Many people believe Netanyahu is pursuing an extremely aggressive new settlement building policy because Trump is more sympathetic to settlement construction than Barack Obama. According to Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi:
"The silence of the new American government, including those who actively support the settlements in the White House and the administration as a whole, has emboldened Netanyahu to persist with his settlement activities."
Israel claims that the new West Bank settlements are legal under international law, but many in the international community disagree, saying not only that they're illegal but also that they're a barrier to a "two-state" peace deal. This refers to the fantasy that there will be some kind of negotiation that will lead to an agreement that Israel and a Palestinian state will exist side-by-side in peace and harmony. Generational Dynamics predicts that Arabs and Jews will re-fight the 1948 genocidal war between Arabs and Jews that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. BBC and CNN and Jerusalem Post
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Feb-17 World View -- Israel expels residents of Amona West Bank settlement, testing rule of law in Israel thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Feb-2017)
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Thousands of US troops in Poland conduct joint drills with Polish troops
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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After almost two years of stalemate in the fighting in Donbass in eastern Ukraine between the Ukrainian army and Russian anti-government militias, the fighting has suddenly flared up again in the last three days. Heavy artillery shelling on both sides has killed at least 33 civilians, and has left thousands of people in the government-held town of Avdiivka without water and electricity, at a time when temperatures at night fall to -20C (-4F).
Several analysts are saying that the renewed fighting is a reaction to the new Trump administration. Kiev-based independent political analyst Vadim Karasyov said an escalation in the east could be beneficial to both the separatists and the Ukrainian government:
"Kiev is eager to win support of the new Trump administration, and for this they need to show that separatists and the Kremlin are derailing the peace accords. For the Kremlin, it's important to show that it holds war and peace in its hands — if the new U.S. administration wants peace in Ukraine, it needs to offer something in return."
Russian troops invaded eastern Ukraine after anti-Russian protesters in Kiev, Ukraine's capital city, forced the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich to step down, after he reneged under pressure from Moscow to to sign a trade agreement with the European Union.
Russia always denied that there were Russian army troops in Ukraine, and when it was proven there were, the Russians claimed that they were just "volunteers." That also turned out to be disinformation, as 80% of Russia's army is a volunteer army. America has an all-volunteer army. So saying that Russian troops in Ukraine are "volunteers" is like saying that America's troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are "volunteers."
The worst occurred in July 2014 when the Russians in eastern Ukraine shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 passenger plane with a Russian Buk 9M38 missile that was transported by a Volvo truck from Russia.
After Russian troops annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula in 2014, the war in eastern Ukraine became stalemated, as Russia moved its troops and supplies away from Ukraine to Syria. But now the fighting is escalating again, and there are fears that a larger war may result again. AP and Al Jazeera and EurActiv
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About 3,500 American troops conducted live-fire exercises with Polish troops on Tuesday. Poland's president Andrzej Duda welcomed the US commitment of troops, calling it a "historic moment":
"We welcome our allies here today with open arms. I do believe that this presence is going to further strengthen the transatlantic bond and our collective security."
The US commitment of troops came about because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and annexation Crimea. Anxieties were raised in Poland other countries that they might be next. That explains the effusive praise that the American troops are receiving. Many Poles consider the threat from Russia real, and believe that the Russians will not invade Poland if it meant firing on American soldiers.
After the military exercises, the soldiers are to be distributed across Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Baltic countries. The headquarters unit will be stationed in Germany. Radio Poland and Russia Today
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Feb-17 World View -- New fighting between Ukraine and Russia flares up in eastern Ukraine thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Feb-2017)
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