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Croat commanders committed war crimes while trying to create
a 'Greater Croatia'
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Croat General Slobodan Praljak, a commander of the Bosnian Croat forces during the Bosnian war, was sentenced on Wednesday to a 20-year prison sentence for war crimes during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s. The sentence was handed down in the last days of the existence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Upon hearing that his 20-year prison sentence had been upheld, Praljak shouted, "I, Slobodan Praljak, reject the verdict! I am not a war criminal!"
The judge ordered him to sit down. He refused to sit down, but instead raised his hand as if to be preparing to shout something else. But it turned out that his hand contained a small bottle. He drank from the bottle, and declared, "What I am drinking now is poison."
Praljak's lawyer was sitting in front of Praljak, so did not actually see him drink the poison, but she heard what he said. She shouted "My client says that he has taken poison!"
At that, the judge ordered that the bottle be preserved. The judge shut down the tv coverage and cleared the courtroom. An ambulance arrived to take Praljak to a hospital, where he died several hours later.
Reporters expressed astonishment that Praljak had been able to find a way to bring the bottle of poison with him into the courtroom, and then drink it on international television. The courtroom was supposed to be extremely secure, with the same kind of inspections used in airports. There will be a thorough investigation.
This was the last day of a court case that's been ongoing for years, indicting 161 suspects and convicting 90 of them. The hearing was restarted long enough to read three more judgments upholding the sentences of other Croat commanders. Balkan Insight and AFP and Al Jazeera and Independent (London)
Slobodan Praljak was a Croat commander in the Croat–Bosniak War, which was a sub-war of the larger Bosnian war that took place in the Balkans throughout the early 1990s, following the breakup of Yugoslavia.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Yugoslavia was in a generational Crisis era during the early 1990s. Its previous crisis war had been World War I, and by 1929 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had been formed, consisting of multiple ethnic groups. World War II was an Awakening era war for Yugoslavia, but by the 1990s, the compromises that had been reached to settle World War I were long forgotten by the younger generations growing up after that war. These younger generations were willing to re-fight the bloody battles that had killed tens of millions of people 70 years earlier.
General Slobodan Praljak was commander of the army of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia (Herzeg-Bosna), which declared independence on November 18, 1991, though it was never recognized by any other country. The goal of the republic was to create an ethnically pure "Greater Croatia." The goal was never achieved, and Herzeg-Bosnia disappeared around April, 1994.
During that three year period, according to the indictment, Slobodan Praljak incited political, ethnic and religious hatred and had recourse to force, intimidation and terror, notably by mass arrests during which people were killed. He reportedly participated in the establishment and expansion of a system of concentration camps and other detention centers. He also was said to have inflicted cruel treatment on Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), by arranging for their expulsion and forced transfer and by submitting those imprisoned to forced labor. The activities included murders, rape, sexual assault, the destruction of property and the deportation of Bosniaks.
In 2013, The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found Praljak and five other Croatian commanders guilty of these war crimes, and sentenced them to a total of 111 years in jail. The sentences were appealed, and on Wednesday the sentences were reaffirmed.
Prior to the sentencing, Croatia's interior minister Davor Bozinovic said:
"I expect that [the six officials’ guilt] won’t be proven because the Republic of Croatia wasn’t a party in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and I hope for a verdict of acquittal."
The court found that this claim was clearly false.
Although the Bosnian war has officially ended, feeling among all the different ethnic groups in the Balkans are still extremely acrimonious. I discovered this earlier this year when I wrote a couple of articles on Macedonia and Albania, and received dozens of the most acrimonious and vitriolic comments that any of my articles have ever received. These comments came from all sides -- especially the Macedonians, the Greeks, the Albanians and the Bulgarians.
Many people believe that after two world wars in the 20th century, there will never be another European war. I can assure you that's far from the truth. This multi-year trial of Croat commanders that ended on Wednesday was supposed to help resolve old feelings and hatreds, those vitriolic hatreds still exist in full force throughout the Balkans, and will result in war when the time is right. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Balkan Insight (29-May-2013) and Trial International and Balkan Insight
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Nov-17 World View -- TV audience shocked watching dramatic suicide of Croat commander convicted of war crimes in Bosnian war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Nov-2017)
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North Korea ballistic missiles threaten 'everywhere in the world'
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
For several weeks, cities across Pakistan were paralyzed with major roads blocked by a mob of thousands of Islamists in a sit-in, escalating into clashes with thousands of police. The sit-in and riots were triggered by a phony blasphemy charge last month against a government minister, Zahid Hamid, for supposedly being responsible for modifying the wording of a government oath, omitting the name of Mohammed.
After weeks of chaos, on Tuesday, the government totally capitulated to the demands of the mob, which was led Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah of Pakistan (TLYR or TLYRAP), a small Islamist political party coming from the hardline, dangerous Barelvi sect.
The terms of the capitulation are as follows:
The agreement has been only partially successful in ending the sit-in. The sit-in has ended in the capital city Islamabad and the adjoining city Rawalpindi. However, a TLYRAP splinter group is demanding the resignation of other ministers, and is refusing to end the sit-in in the major city of Lahore, and so parts of that city remain paralyzed. Geo TV (Pakistan) and Pakistan Today and Geo TV (Pakistan) and Dunya News (India)
Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah of Pakistan (TLYR or TLYRAP) is a small political group of hardline Islamists. It was little known until it led the recent violent sit-in and forced the government to capitulate to its demands. Media sources do not suggest that they're a terrorist group linked to the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), but they do advocate an extreme and radical "Sharia law" takeover of Pakistan's government.
In particular, they advocate the complete elimination of the persecuted Ahmadi Muslim sects in Pakistan, and possibly the Sufis as well. The phony blasphemy charge was based on an accusation that the modification of the oath would favor the Ahmadis.
TLYRAP came out of nowhere as a political group, but as Muslims they come the Barelvi Sect, an offshoot of Sufism. They would probably still be almost unknown today, but they were handed a gift last year when Mumtaz Qadri, a Barelvi, was executed for murdering Salman Taseer in 2011.
Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan, was shot 28 times in broad daylight in an open marketplace on January 4, 2011. The killer was his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. The motive, as described by Qadri, was to punish Taseer for objecting to Pakistan's blasphemy laws, and for calling for the release of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was in jail facing execution for violating the blasphemy laws. Qadri was finally executed last year, but not before he became a national hero for killing Taseer over a phony blasphemy charge.
Qadri was not just a national hero, but he was a Barelvi hero, and it's that execution that led to the rise of TLYRAP. Since Qadri justified his murder of Taseer with a phony blasphemy charge, the TLYRAP political movement is based almost entirely on phony blasphemy charge. Any politician that TLYRAP targets can be found to have said or done some random thing that can be turned into a phony blasphemy charge, and that's how the recent sit-in came about.
Pakistan as a country is becoming increasingly radicalized by Barelvi extremism, and since some of the TLYRAP militants were armed with weapons such as stones and bats, they are now becoming militarized. Pakistan Today and Al Jazeera and Huffington Post(9-Jan) and La Voix Du Nord and Hudson Institute(19-Oct-2011)
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North Korea on Wednesday morning fired a ballistic missile from an area north of Pyongyang. The missile was launched almost vertically, so that it would reach a high altitude, but would not travel beyond the Sea of Japan. If used in an actual attack, it would be launched closer to a 45 degree angle, which could carry it as far any part of the United States mainland, according to several analysts.
According to physicist David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists Global Security Program:
"If these numbers are correct, then if flown on a standard trajectory rather than this lofted trajectory, this missile would have a range of more than 13,000 km (8,100 miles). Such a missile would have more than enough range to reach Washington, DC, and in fact any part of the continental United States."
Secretary of Defense James Mattis said:
"[The tests threaten] world peace, regional peace and certainly the United States."It went higher, frankly, than any previous shots they've taken. It's a research and development effort on their part to continue building ballistic missiles that can threaten everywhere in the world basically."
President Donald Trump made an apparent threat,
"We will take care of it.It is a situation that we will handle."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina said:
"If we have to go to war to stop this, we will. If there’s a war with North Korea, it’d be because North Korea brought it upon itself, and we’re headed toward a war if things don’t change."
There are some things about the ballistic test that we don't know:
There's another thing we don't know: We don't know what Trump meant when he said, "We will take care of it."
North Korea's objective for the past 25-30 years was to develop nuclear missile capability that could be used to attack the U.S. mainland, and use it as leverage to threaten South Korea and Japan, and he's now very close. Wired and Reuters and San Diego Union Tribune
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Nov-17 World View -- Pakistan government totally capitulates to hardline Islamist TLYRAP Barelvi sect mob thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Nov-2017)
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Ireland's government faces vote of no confidence on Wednesday
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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European Union Brexit negotiators are demanding that by December 4, the UK must provide written commitments in three areas, having to do with EU citizens working in the UK, money the UK must pay to the EU, and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Without those written commitments, the EU says that it won't allow negotiations on the trade UK-EU trade relationship after Brexit occurs to begin at a summit meeting on December 13-14.
Without the being able to start trade negotiations on December 13, the UK says that it may pull out of Brexit negotiations, and allow a "hard Brexit" to occur, where the UK will be a completely separate country, with no direct relationship at all with the EU except as specified by international organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Leo Varadkar, the prime minister of Ireland, has made the EU demand explicit:
"We’ve been given assurances that there will be no hard border in Ireland, that there won’t be any physical infrastructure, that we won’t go back to the borders of the past.We want that written down in practical terms in the conclusions of phase one [by December 14]."
Liam Fox, UK Secretary of State for International Trade, says that the UK will not be able to provide a committed solution to the Irish border problem in time to meet the EU and Irish demands. Fox says that the Irish border problem cannot be solved until trade negotiations are well under way. The EU says that trade negotiations cannot get under way until the Irish border problem is solved. Chicken and eggs for breakfast, anyone? (Paragraph corrected, 28-Nov)
Northern Ireland is a part of the UK. Southern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland or just Ireland, is a separation nation, and a member nation of the European Union. Today, both Northern Ireland and Ireland are part of the European Union, and there's no visible border between the two. Goods and people can travel freely between them.
If the UK leaves the EU, then Northern Ireland and Ireland will be in two different countries, and there would have to be border controls between them -- watchtowers, border posts, visa and passport checks at ports and airports, and tariffs on imported goods.
Leaders of all the parties -- the UK, the EU, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland -- all agree that the invisible border must remain invisible. The problem is that no one can figure out how to do that if Brexit is to occur.
The border issue goes beyond watchtowers and border posts, because of the decades of violence known as "The Troubles," where there were violent clashes between the indigenous ethnic Irish Gaelics (the Catholics) and the descendants of the English and Scottish invaders (the Protestants). These clashes were resolved only 20 years ago by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (the Belfast Agreement) that resolved many issues, and particularly eliminated the hard border, turning it into an "invisible border" that anyone can cross at any time. Many people are expressing concerns that a new hard border would bring about a return to The Troubles. BBC and Reuters and Irish Times and Guardian (London) and NY Review of Books
Leo Varadkar, the prime minister of Ireland, is facing a vote of no confidence on Wednesday that could lead to the collapse of his government and force new elections before Christmas, possibly further complicating the Brexit negotiations.
In 2015, Sergeant Maurice McCabe became a whistleblower and came forward to report several issues involving corruption in the Garda, Ireland's National Police Force. Officials in the Garda allegedly tried to undermine McCabe's testimony with a phony sexual abuse accusation.
A May, 2014, e-mail message to then-Minister of Justice Frances Fitzgerald has emerged, suggesting that she was aware of the phony charges, but did nothing about them. Fitzgerald says that she may have read the e-mail message, but forgot it because it recommended she take no further action.
Frances Fitzgerald is currently Ireland's deputy premier, and Varadkar's opposition is demanding that she resign.
Varadkar is now in intense negotiations with the opposition:
"We are trying to find a middle way that allows the Government to continue and continue with the important work we are doing, particularly with Brexit and ensuring that we have necessary legislation through. We are doing everything we can."
If no compromise is reached, then a motion of no confidence will be offered on Tuesday night. If the government collapses, then Varadkar will be a caretaker prime minister when he travels to Brussels for the December 13-14 Brexit summit. Belfast Telegraph and Bloomberg and Independent (Ireland) and Ireland Joe
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Nov-17 World View -- The issue of Ireland's border threatens to collapse EU-UK Brexit negotiations. thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Nov-2017)
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Syrian regime and Russia launch brutal attack on
rebel-held areas in East Ghouta
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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At least 127 people, including 30 children, have been killed in the last two weeks by shelling by the army of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian warplanes. 23 people, including 5 children, were killed on Sunday.
Drones have patrolled the sky since Sunday morning and warplanes had heavily bombarded the towns of Mesraba and Harasta. Heavy shelling also hit Eastern Ghouta and dozens had been injured. Ghouta residents are so short of food that they are eating trash, fainting from hunger and forcing their children to eat on alternate days, according to United Nations reports.
The region struck by Syrian artillery and Russian warplanes is listed as a "de-escalation" zone, by agreement between Russia, Iran and Turkey in a series of "peace talks" held in Astana, Kazakhstan. However, Bashar al-Assad never agreed to abide by the de-escalation zone agreement.
Opposition fighters in the area have been retaliating by sending artillery shells into Damascus. There are some 300,000 people in Eastern Ghouta, and al-Assad is apparently planning to do what he did in Aleppo: Target women and children in marketplaces, schools and marketplaces, and kill as many of the 300,000 people as he can. Al-Assad has used Sarin gas in Ghouta in the past to kill large groups, and he may do so again. Reuters and Daily Star (Lebanon) and Al Jazeera
The picture at the beginning of this article showing Russia's president Vladimir Putin and Syria's president Bashar al-Assad hugging during a meeting in Sochi last week was meant to send a message to the world that the war in Syria was over, and the two men had brought about the victory.
At the meeting, Putin said:
"I asked the Syrian president to stop by. I would like to introduce you to people [al-Assad] who played a key role in saving Syria.Regarding our joint operation to fight terrorists in Syria, this military operation is indeed coming to an end. I'm pleased to see your willingness to work with everyone who wants peace and settlement."
I've occasionally quoted Joshua Landis, an American analyst and expert on Syria, who is widely quoted in the media. When I quoted Landis two months ago, he was quite pessimistic about Syria, and thought that the violence was spiking almost uncontrollably.
Well, he was interviewed by the BBC again on Sunday, and this time he seems to agree with al-Assad and Putin that the war is over, and they had won it. He referred to plans for a Geneva peace conference to begin on Tuesday (my transcription):
"It is the end game for the rebels. The Syrian army has conquered big swaths of the country back. Most of the foreign supporters -- Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the US, Turkey -- have really become dispirited and feel like the civil war is over. They don't wanna continue giving them money. So it is the death knell for these rebel groups. ...The Syrian opposition that America has supported -- they just met in Saudi Arabia and named a new leader and they're going to be in Geneva. They have promised not to demand that Assad go, but they insist on a transitional government, and the question is, what role does Assad play in that? The Americans want there to be elections overseen by the UN, The opposition believes that this is a trap, that Assad will never allow free elections, that the West won't enforce free elections. And this will all become a lot of words and rhetoric towards Assad regaining literacy and rule.
This hug [between Putin and al-Assad] in Sochi was a victory hug in a sense, claiming that they had won against ISIS, and they had won in the face of the world, and that's what they were trying to convey. The sense is that if the world wants to move ahead in Syria, they have to recognize Assad has won, Russia has won. The United States is not really prepared to do that. The US has helped what they call the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), which are really Kurdish forces in the north of the country. [The SDF] destroyed a lot of ISIS territory, but 25% of Syria's territory is now dominated by these Kurdish forces, and there are 2,000 American special forces in the north of Syria, Almost 50% of Syria's oil is in that region. So that gives America a lot of leverage. The US authorities have said that they're gonna stay in Syria until they get traction with the Geneva process.
I don't think we're going to get a lot of mileage out of Geneva. Assad believes he's won. He is not going to make concessions, even if America stays in northern Syria. I think Assad will surround the Americans, he will talk with the Turks, and he will try to pressure the Kurds and the Americans, who are in a weak position there, and think, "I can sit them out, I'll wait until President Trump is out of there, the next president comes in."
[President Putin has come out of this domestically looking pretty good.] Russia is helping to establish a new security architecture in the northern Middle East, with Iran, where Iran and Russia will have a lot of sway, in countries stretching from Iran right through to Lebanon, where Hezbollah is the biggest, strongest power. And this really pushes the United States out of this region, and helps Russia regain a lot of the sphere of influence that it lost during the cold war. And even Turkey is now going to Russia much more often then it's going to Washington.
This has implications [for NATO and] for the entire region, and for American power, which used to be the dominant superpower. Today the world is looking a lot more like the 19th century Europe where there's spheres of influence, with lots of different great powers, all elbowing each other for leverage and sway."
Landis claims that al-Assad and Putin have won, and the opposition has lost, but he certainly doesn't make that case, except by repeating Putin's claims. And many things are omitted.
Let's start with Saudi Arabia, who Landis says is "dispirited" and resigned to an al-Assad victory. The new Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), in the last three months has taken numerous extremely aggressive and surprising steps to block what he sees is an existential threat from Iran. These steps included a land, sea and air blockade of Qatar, a land, sea and air blockade of Yemen, a house arrest of dozens of wealthy Saudis on charges of corruption, and bringing about the resignation of Lebanon's prime minister Saad al-Hariri. Does Landis or anyone think that MBS is going to stop there, and just let Iran gain control of parts of Syria? I certainly don't think so.
Next, Russia has announced that it will substantially reduce its forces in Syria by the end of the year. Two years ago, al-Assad was facing complete defeat, until Russia intervened with massive military forces, especially airstrikes. Russia's forces saved al-Assad, and in particular destruction of Aleppo was accomplished by Russia's warplanes. East Ghouta is larger than Aleppo, which indicates to me that Russia's military will have to stay engaged a lot longer than the end of the year.
Landis points out that the Kurds control 25% of Syria, including half of the country's oil, and that the Kurds are backed by US forces. This Kurdish control is intolerable to al-Assad. Landis says that al-Assad will simply wait until Donald Trump is replaced by another president. Huh? Is al-Assad really willing to wait and allow the Kurds to consolidate their control of the region until 2020 or 2024? And why is he so certain that the next president would allow the Kurds to be killed by al-Assad (and the Turks)?
Putin, al-Assad and Landis all have what I would call a "1990s mentality." At that time, most of the world was in a generational Unraveling era, meaning that survivors of World War II were still alive and running things, and were prepared to make sure that nothing spiraled into war.
Today, the world is in a generational Crisis era, with the WW II survivors gone, replaced in positions of power by younger generations with almost no clue what's going on in the world. In the 1990s, Saudi Arabia might have been content just to let the situation in Syria resolve itself. Today, Saudi leader MBS has already proven that he's not willing to let anything just resolve itself. People today who make plans based on a "1990s mentality" are going to be terribly wrong. The world is a very different place today than it was in the 1990s.
Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major regional war, pitting Sunnis versus Shias, Jews versus Arabs, and various ethnic groups against each other. Generational Dynamics predicts that in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, the "axis" of China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will be pitted against the "allies," the US, India, Russia and Iran. AP and Deutsche Welle and Arab News/AFP and Middle East Eye
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Nov-17 World View -- Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin hug and declare the end of war in Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Nov-2017)
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Pakistan releases Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of the
horrific 2008 Mumbai massacre
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Several of Pakistan's cities are paralyzed by major roads being blocked by thousands of Islamists sitting in, demanding that the government be dissolved. More than 100 people were injured on Saturday in clashes between police and the protesters, after 4,000 police officers were called out to disperse the protesters.
The government has called in the army to help end the protests, but it's unknown whether the army will obey, since many suspect that the army is on the side of the protesters.
By nightfall, the protests had spread to other cities, including Karachi, Lahore and Quetta, and hundreds had been injured.
Television footage showed a police vehicle on fire, heavy curtains of smoke and fires burning in the streets as officers in heavy riot gear advanced. Protesters, some wearing gas masks, fought back in scattered battles across empty highways and surrounding neighborhoods. The government has reacted by ordering private tv stations off the air, and by blocking social media.
The protests were triggered by a blasphemy charge last month against a government minister. Blasphemy charges in Pakistan are almost always phony, but phony blasphemy charges are used freely in Pakistan as justification for any kind of uncontrolled mob violence or any kind of unjustified murder or jailing.
The blasphemy charge is being leveled at the law minister Zahid Hamid, because of a modification to a political oath. The wording of the oath removed the declamation that Mohammed was the last prophet of Islam.
The original wording of the oath has been restored, but that's not satisfactory to the protesters.
Hamid says that he had nothing to do with changing the wording of the oath. The government is trying to pressure him to resign, and offering to appoint him as ambassador to the country of his choice. He's rejected all such offers, and is quoted as saying, "For god’s sake do not make me another Salman Taseer and bring forth all the officials responsible for the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat fiasco." ("Khatm-e-Nabuwwat" is the name of the oath.)
Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan, was shot 28 times in broad daylight in an open marketplace on January 4, 2011. The killer was his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. The motive, as described by Qadri, was to punish Taseer for objecting to Pakistan's blasphemy laws, and for calling for the release of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was in jail facing execution for violating the blasphemy laws. Qadri was finally executed last year, but not before he became a national hero for killing Taseer over a phony blasphemy charge.
So Hamid does not want to be murdered like Taseer, and his residence has already been ransacked by crazed protesters, shattering windows and destroying furniture. But he's also threatening to reveal the people in government who were actually responsible for the wording change.
Pakistan's government, governed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), is close to collapse. The former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is still the head of the party, but he was forced out of office by the court in July because he had been accused of corruption and was face with a trial. Opposition parties are calling for early elections. The government is desperate to end this crisis, but if Hamid continues to refuse to resign, it may not survive. Dawn (Pakistan) and Reuters and Pakistan Today and Express Tribune (Pakistan)
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Hafiz Saeed, the head of the now outlawed Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorist group, has been freed from house arrest with no trial and all charges dropped.
India and Pakistan were at the brink of war following the November 2008 three-day '26/11' terror attack in Mumbai. That attack was perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). India threatened to invade Pakistani soil to go after Lashkar-e-Toiba, but Pakistan promised to prosecute LeT members itself. Now Hafiz Saeed, the head of LeT and the mastermind of the Mumbai attack, has been freed by a Pakistan court, greeted by chanting crowds and rose petals.
According to a statement from the White House:
"Saeed’s release, after Pakistan’s failure to prosecute or charge him, sends a deeply troubling message about Pakistan’s commitment to [combating] international terrorism and belies Pakistani claims that it will not provide sanctuary for terrorists on its soil.If Pakistan does not take action to lawfully detain Saeed and charge him for his crimes, its inaction will have repercussions for bilateral relations and for Pakistan’s global reputation."
The exact nature of the "repercussions" was not specified.
This story, and the previous story about the rise of extreme Islamist groups and their ability to shut down entire Pakistan cities, suggests that Pakistan is in the midst of a major political shift that could bring Islamist extremist political parties into power. This is of particular concern in Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons.
There are new Pakistan elections scheduled for 2018, and that may clarify the situation. At the least, talk of peace with India, particularly in Kashmir, is probably not in the cards. Dawn (Pakistan) and Reuters and The Diplomat
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Nov-17 World View -- Widespread riots in Pakistan triggered by phony blasphemy charges thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Nov-2017)
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Friday's attack is a major escalation in north Sinai terrorism
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
At least 235 people were killed on Friday when terrorists stormed the Al-Rawda mosque in Bir al-Abed in Egypt's Northern Sinai with explosives and gunfire with heavy weapons. This was the deadliest terror attack in Egypt's modern history, the previous record having been set by a terror attack on July 23, 2005, on Egypt's resort city Sharm el-Sheikh, killing 88 people. The 2015 downing of Metrojet Flight 9268 killed all 224 passengers onboard, but investigation has not yet revealed the cause of the crash.
Egypt's president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi promised revenge for these "vile and treacherous" attacks:
"The army and police will avenge our martyrs and return security and stability with force in the coming short period."
On Friday afternoon a military operation was launched, targeting suspects in North Sinai. According to Egyptian media:
"The response will be on the ground and will not stop until the elimination of everyone involved in the attack. We are taking our revenge now."
In 2014, al-Sisi declared a state of emergency in northern Sinai following a suicide bombing that killed 33 soldiers. He said at the time that "the war in Sinai will last for a long time, as there are a lot of terrorists hiding in the peninsula, but this new level of attacks has put us in a new level of planning too in order to combat the terrorism there."
Since then, Egypt's military has attacked in northern Sinai numerous targets suspected of being terrorists. Al-Sisi's critics have called the attacks a "scorched earth policy" that has embittered the Bedouin tribes in northern Sinai, and encouraged them to support the terrorist groups. Egyptian Streets and Al Ahram (Cairo) and Times of Israel and Al Jazeera
Related: Egypt in state of emergency after terrorist attack in Sinai (26-Oct-2014)
When the above-mentioned terror attack occurred in 2014, it was a few weeks after the end of summer war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and Egypt had mediated a truce that ended the war. One of the terms of the agreement is that the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would be reopened, allowing people and goods to pass back and forth between Gaza and Egypt. After the terror attack, Egypt closed the Rafah border crossing again, and it's been opened only sporadically since then.
On October 12 of this year, Egypt mediated a reconciliation and unity agreement between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank. The two Palestinian groups have been enemies since they were at war in 2008, and multiple attempts at reconciliation have failed.
The new agreement requires that the Rafah border crossing be opened permanently, with the crossing under control of Fatah rather than Hamas. The border crossing was opened for the first time last Saturday for three days.
It was scheduled to be opened again today (Saturday), but Egypt has reportedly said that the reopening will be delayed indefinitely. It's already been unclear that the Hamas-Fatah unity government would succeed, because of a disagreement over whether Hamas must give up its weapons, but this terror attack creates one more roadblock. AFP
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No one has yet claimed credit for Friday's attack on the Al-Rawda mosque, but it's believed that the perpetrators were the Bedouin-based Sinai terrorist group 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).
According to several analysts, this is a major escalation by ABM because it targets so many civilians, and because it exhibits a skill level not seen before. A detailed explanation was given on al-Jazeera by Omar Ashour from Arab Center For Research And Policy Studies in Doha (my transcription):
"[ABM is the] most powerful armed non-state actor in Egypt's modern history. Capable of operating in a conventional special forces like way, capable of using light artillery, capable of using guided anti-tank missiles, using guided anti-aircraft missiles, and fighting partly in a conventional way, partly in a guerrilla warfare way, but also using a long campaign of urban terrorism.So the tribal code here was violated: First time attack on a mosque, first time attack on Sufis.
Usually the indiscriminate attacks are targeting Copts [Coptic Christians], or targeting soldiers and officers from the army and the police, or sometimes targeting Israel.
But those other attacks are very very discriminatory, especially when it comes to informants. If there's somebody who's accused of being an informant, they target him. They try to avoid his family or his friends or the people around him.
The same thing applies to some of the militia tribesmen who fight along with the army. They target the specific groups of tribesmen, but they don't attack the whole tribe.
So this is new, in terms of its lethality, and in terms of its indiscriminately targeting a large section of the society."
Other analysts have pointed out that the particular mosque that was targeted by terrorists on Friday was owned by a Bedouin tribe that had been cooperating with Egypt's security forces. That would make Friday's attack consistent with previous assaults, which had mainly targeted security forces and Egypt's Christian minority. Gulf News and CNN
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Nov-17 World View -- Egypt's worst terrorist attack in modern history kills 235 people in Sufi mosque thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Nov-2017)
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China proposes farcical three-point solution to Rohingya crisis
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Ethnic cleansing "clearance operations" by Burma's (Myanmar's) army have driven some 620,000 ethnic Rohingyas from Rakhine State into Bangladesh, threatening to destabilize the entire region. Burma and Bangladesh have now reached an agreement to return the Rohingyas starting in three months, but only after all the appropriate forms have been filled out for each one.
Burma's Buddhist army has been conducting atrocities on Muslim ethnic Rohingyas in Rakhine State since 2012. In November of last year, the United Nations found that Burma's army was "killing men, shooting them, slaughtering children, raping women, burning and looting houses, forcing these people to cross the river" into Bangladesh. Satellite images showed that Burma's army was burning down entire villages where Rohingyas had lived for decades, in order to perform ethnic cleansing -- "cleanse" Rakhine State of all Rohingyas.
The attacks were led by Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu and his "969 movement," where 969 is a historic Buddhist sign, referring to the nine qualities of Buddha, the six qualities of Buddha's teaching, and nine qualities of the Buddhist community. 969 is supposed to promote peace and happiness, although Wirathu's 969 movement is a vehicle promoting violence. And now the Burma's army is apparently taking over the movement with ethnic cleansing.
After several years of these atrocities by Burma's army, Rohingya activists have formed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which attacked 8 Burmese police posts in October of last year. These attacks provoked a wave of deadly "clearance operations" by Burma's army, and forced tens of thousands of Rohingyas to flee the violence into Bangladesh.
On August 25 of this year, ARSA conducted coordinated attacks on 30 police outposts and an army base. This became a major violence trigger for the entire Burmese army. Whereas the "clearance operations" by Myanmar's army previously appeared to be reasonably disciplined, after August 25 they became extremely undisciplined and disorganized, to the point of mass bloody chaos, with the results that thousands fled across the border to Bangladesh each day. There are now around 620,000 Rohingya refugees in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Burma's "clearance operations" of Rohingyas is also creating a diplomatic problem for the Pope, who is scheduled to visit Myanmar on November 26 to December 2. The Pope is being cautioned not even to use the word "Rohingya," for fear that Burma's army will turn from murdering and cleansing Rohingyas to murdering and cleansing the Christian minority, particularly the 700,000 Roman Catholics.
On the other hand, if the Pope says nothing, then he risks his moral authority, in the same way that Pope Pius XII lost his moral authority for not criticizing the Nazi Holocaust. According to Father Thomas Reese, an analyst at Religion News Service:
"He risks either compromising his moral authority or putting in danger the Christians of that country.I have great admiration for the pope and his abilities, but someone should have talked him out of making this trip."
On Wednesday, for the first time, the US administration raised the threat of targeted sanctions against Burmese officials, when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson referred to the "horrendous atrocities" as "ethnic cleansing" of Rohingyas. This has raised fears of a backlash, with the result that the US embassy in Myanmar on Thursday suspended official travel to parts of Rakhine until 4 December and warned citizens against visiting the areas.
The agreement that Burma and Bangladesh have reached for the return of refugees looks to me like a joke. There are 620,000 refugees, and the number is still growing every day. Return of refugees won't begin for three months, and then only when forms have been filled out, submitted to the Burma military, and approved. This is clearly a stalling maneuver by Burma, and signing it is an act of desperation by Bangladesh, who are still overwhelmed by the waves of refugees. Reuters and News24 (Bangladesh) and Reuters and Sydney Morning Herald
Last week, China said that Myanmar and Bangladesh should shut out the international community from interfering in the Rohingya crisis, but then offered itself to interfere by mediating between the two countries. According to Chinese state media, China offered a three-phase solution to the "Rakhine issue," without mentioning the Rohingyas:
China's third phase is particularly farcical. There's poverty in every country in the world, but it doesn't result in hundreds of thousands of refugees. The "Rakhine issue" is not caused by poverty. It's caused by Buddhist monks, members of the so-called religion of peace (Buddhism), and Burma's Buddhist army committing war crimes, raping, torturing and killing innocent civilians, not because of poverty, but because the Burmese vitriolicly hate the Rohingyas and would like to exterminate them.
China should understand this, because it has conducted similar operations in the past, with its Han Chinese army committing atrocities against its hated Buddhist Tibetans in China.
Basically, China's three-point proposal is a farce. Global Times (Beijing) and China's Foreign Ministry and Reuters
In September, India's ministry of external affairs issued a statement saying:
"We stand by Myanmar in the hour of its crisis, we strongly condemn the terrorist attack on August 24-25 and condole the death of policemen and soldiers, we will back Myanmar in its fight against terrorism."
India's statement made no mention of the atrocities committed by Burma since 2012, nor the "clearance operations" that have forced 620,000 Rohingyas so far to flee the violence. As we wrote last month ( "7-Oct-17 World View -- Burma's Rohingya crisis merges with the Kashmir crisis, inflaming the entire region"), Pakistan is siding with the Muslim Rohingyas. ARSA is linking up with anti-Indian jihadist groups in India-controlled Kashmir, so India officials see the Rohingyas as an existential threat. India has also threatened to expel nearly 40,000 Rohingya migrants it says have illegally settled in the country.
So there's a historical irony here. The ethnic cleansing and war crimes by the Burmese have destabilized the region to the extent that India feels that it must support the army committing the ethnic cleansing and war crimes.
In September, Hong Liang, China's ambassador to Myanmar, made a similar supportive statement:
"The stance of China regarding the terrorist attacks in Rakhine is clear, it is just an internal affair; the counterattacks of Myanmar security forces against extremist terrorists and the government’s undertakings to provide assistance to the people are strongly welcomed.China’s help for the Rakhine crisis is just a social obligation. The president of the Chinese Entrepreneurs Association, the vice president of the oil and gas pipeline project and responsible personnel from the Kyauk Phyu Deep Sea Port Project were brought here together with him; the company wished to provide assistance to the displaced persons."
As with India, the Chinese never mentioned the atrocities committed by Burma since 2012, nor the "clearance operations" that have forced 620,000 Rohingyas so far to flee the violence.
However, the Chinese statement highlights why China supports Myanmar despite the massive ethnic cleansing and slaughter. There are large gas reserves off the coast of Rakhine State, and China brings gas from Kyauk Phyu on Rakhine's coast through the Myanmar-China Gas Pipeline. This gas meets the needs of China’s Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces as well as that of other counties and cities. The transportation of this gas is more important to China than the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas.
India also has huge infrastructure projects in Rakhine, including the India-funded Kaladan multi-modal project designed to provide a sea-river-land link to its remote northeast through Sittwe port.
Both India and China fear the threat of terrorism on the Rakhine infrastructure projects, as well as on Indian and Chinese soil. Indian intelligence expert Major General Gaganjit Singh asks:
"What if ARSA terrorists attack an Indian ship on the Kaladan river or try blowing up parts of the Yunnan-Kyauk Phyu oil-gas pipeline as the [separatist group United Liberation Front of Assam] used to do in [the Indian state of] Assam? Such scenarios cannot be discounted."
Readers may recall that in September there was a threat of war between India and China over a border conflict in Bhutan's Doklam Plateau. That dispute was suddenly and unexpected settled and analysts could only guess at the reasons. Part of the speculation was that a conflict would spill over into Kashmir or into the Indian Ocean. Now there's another possibility: the fear that a Doklam border conflict might spill over into the Rakhine infrastructure projects of both countries. South China Morning Post (18-Oct) and Jamestown and Global New Light Of Myanmar and CNBC
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Nov-17 World View -- India and China support Burma (Myanmar) on Rohingya ethnic cleansing for business reasons thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Nov-2017)
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Observers fear a new Zimbabwe dictatorship under Emmerson Mnangagwa
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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On Tuesday, Zimbabwe's parliament was in session listening to speaker after speaker tell why president Robert Mugabe should be impeached and removed from office. Observers were claiming that the impeachment process would be completed within two days.
In the middle of the legislative session, a messenger delivered a letter to the speaker, which he began to read aloud:
"The honorable Jacob Mudenda, notice of resignation as President of the Republic of Zimbabwe in terms of the provisions of Section 96 (1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment Number 20), 2013. Following my verbal communication with the Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda at 13:53 hours, 21st November, 2017 intimating my intention to resign as the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, I Robert Gabriel Mugabe in terms of section 96 (1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe hereby formally tender my resignation as the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe with immediate effect.My decision to resign is voluntary from my heart and arises for my concern for the people of Zimbabwe and my desire for the smooth, peaceful and non-violent transfer of power that underpins national security, peace and stability. Kindly give public notice of my resignation as soon as possible as required by section 96 (1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe."
When he read the word "notice of resignation," there was wild cheering, the thumping of tables, dancing and singing. Mugabe had been Zimbabwe's dictator for 37 years, but now the age of Robert Mugabe was finally over.
The euphoric celebrations quickly spread into the streets of the capital city Harare, when thousands of Zimbabweans flooding the streets, dancing and singing.
There are a number of unanswered questions about Robert Mugabe's resignation. Did Mugabe really switch speeches at the last minute on Sunday just before his nationalized televised speech, double-crossing the army? Then, why did he suddenly resign on Tuesday?
Where is Robert Mugabe now? Where is his young wife Grace Mugabe? Will either of them be charged with treason? BBC and Zimbabwe Herald and BBC
Related: Robert Mugabe stuns Zimbabwe by refusing to step down (20-Nov-2017)
Tuesday's euphoria over Mugabe's resignation was renewed on Wednesday with a speech by 75-year-old Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa to a very enthusiastic crowd. He said:
"The people have spoken. The voice of the people is the voice of God. Today we are witnessing the beginning of a new and unfolding democracy. ...I have also communicated with the South African and Namibian Presidents as well as Former Tanzanian President Mr Jakaya Kikwete and they have applauded Zimbabweans for the peaceful manner and conduct during the operation.
People want food, security and jobs. We need to work together to ensure we deliver. I dedicate myself to be your servant."
Many Zimbabweans, as well as many observers, were thrilled to hear this skilled politician of many decades make promises of food, security, jobs and a new democracy, but others were skeptical.
Although Mugabe recently fired Mnangagwa as vice-president, triggering the current crisis that led to Mugabe's downfall, the two men nonetheless worked closely together since independence in 1981.
They're both in the Shona tribe, and they both are responsible for Operation Gukurahundi, the genocidal war crime that brought in North Korean soldiers to help exterminate tens of thousands of civilians in the hated Ndebele tribe.
They've both cooperated in turning Zimbabwe into a police state, where anyone who speaks against the government is likely to be arrested, tortured and killed. This is particularly true of the members of the Ndebele tribe that managed to survive Operation Gukurahundi.
They both worked together on Mugabe's "indigenization" program, which threw out farm and business owners who knew how to run a farm or a business, and replaced them with thugs and cronies from Mugabe's and Mnangagwa's Shona tribe who didn't know how to run a farm or business. Over three decades, Mugabe and Mnangagwa turned Rhodesia, which was a wealthy country and the breadbasket of southern Africa, into today's Zimbabwe, which is an economic basket case.
This transformation from breadbasket to basket case is very apparent to the people of Zimbabwe, and along with the sudden appearance of political freed is why the people are euphoric that Mugabe is gone.
However, others point out that Mnangagwa is no different than Mugabe, and will purse the same brutal policies.
This was already signaled on Wednesday when Mnangagwa gave his speech. He could have given it at a neutral venue, so that all segments of Zimbabwe society could attend.
Instead, he gave it from Zanu-pf headquarters, which is the political party of the Shona tribe. And although he gave the speech in English, for the benefit of the international audience, he gave the last part of the speech in his native Shona language, for the benefit of his supporters, to the exclusion of others:
"Dogs can keep on barking and barking, while the train that is Zanu-pf continues to rule."
This is the kind of language that Robert Mugabe used regularly, and Zimbabweans in the Ndebele tribe see this statement as a signal that Mnangagwa is going to be as violent towards the Ndebeles as ever.
Mnangagwa is scheduled to be sworn in as president on Friday. After that, we'll see if anything has really changed. Zimbabwe Herald and BBC and Guardian (London) and Globe and Mail (Canada) and New Zimbabwe Vision (Blog)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Nov-17 World View -- Thanksgiving euphoria in Zimbabwe as Emmerson Mnangagwa replaces Robert Mugabe thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Nov-2017)
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Italy defends its role in Libya's slave trade
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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While Americans have been riveted to the sexual harassment scandal, Europeans and Africans have been riveted to a CNN video that reveals a thriving slave trade in Libya.
Reporters carried concealed cameras to a slave auction just outside Tripoli, the capital city of Libya. They witnessed a dozen men auctioned off in the space of six or seven minutes.
That auctioneer says, "Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big strong man, he'll dig. What am I bid, what am I bid?"
The bidding goes on, and the man is auctioned off for $400-1000. Within minutes, the man is handed over to his new "master."
The men are migrants who had come from countries like Niger, Chad, Mali and Algeria, and paid sometimes thousands of dollars to human traffickers to take them to Libya. Once in Libya, they would have to pay another human trafficker to put them onto a dangerously overcrowded boat, where they hope to reach Italy. But if they run out of money in Libya, then they can be imprisoned in detention camps, or sold as slaves.
The CNN video and revelations about the slave trade in Libya resulted in sometimes violent protests in Paris, when over a thousand protestors demonstrated outside Libya's embassy in Paris, carrying banners saying, "No to slavery in Libya." The protestors threw stones at the police tried to break into the embassy, and the police fired tear gas.
The demonstration was called by the Collectif contre l’esclavage et les camps de concentration en Libye (CECCL – the Collective against Slavery and Concentration Camps in Libya), set up in Paris after the CNN video was broadcast.
On Tuesday, the UN Security Council approved a resolution urging tougher action to crack down on human trafficking and modern slavery worldwide. CNN (14-Nov) and Reuters and Libya Herald and Africa News and AP
More than 600,000 people from Africa, Asia and the Middle East have arrived in Italy since 2014, and a record 180,000 refugees crossed the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy in 2016, but instead of setting a new record in 2017, the number of refugees has fallen substantially, thanks to deals that Italy's government made with Libya's tribes, warlords, and coast guard.
Under the deals, Italy pays money to tribal militias and officials to prevent refugees from entering Libya or, once there, to detain them and prevent them from proceeding further on their trip to Europe.
These deals have been heavily condemned by human rights organizations as inhumane, because it leaves the refugees vulnerable to abuse, and the slave auctions are being pointed to as evidence not only of abuse, but of a return to a slave trade that was supposedly a remnant of the past.
However, the fact still remains that the policy, however cruel and inhumane, has led to a sharp drop in migrants reaching Italy, which is the outcome that Italian officials were seeking, especially after other EU countries refused to accept any of the refugees themselves.
"The suffering of migrants detained in Libya is an outrage to the conscience of humanity," according to the UN. However, Italy's interior minister Marco Minniti defended the policy:
"The alternative cannot be to resign ourselves to the impossibility of managing migratory flows and hand human traffickers the keys to European democracies.[The human rights issue] is, was and will be a question we will not relinquish, but we know that condemning (abuses) is not enough, we must act."
Minniti didn't specify any details, but he may be referring to a "revolutionary" proposal put forth by Italy's foreign minister Angelino Alfano two months ago. Under the plan, refugees in Libya would be evaluated, and 50,000 of the most vulnerable would be resettled to other countries. This plan sounds like wishful thinking, since a quote plan adopted by the European Union in 2014 has been a complete failure, because many EU countries refused to accept refugees for resettlement. AFP (15-Nov) and AFP (29-Sep)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Nov-17 World View -- Italy is blamed for shocking increase in slave trade in Libya thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Nov-2017)
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Speculation grows of North Korea's Kim Jong-un illness as his weight soars
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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A year ago, reports indicated that concerns were growing among North Korea officials about the health of child dictator Kim Jong-un, who had been gaining weight rapidly from consuming high-quality cheeses, Big Macs, vodka, steak, and sushi, and who had been apparently drinking heavily and smoking heavily, with the result that he was suffering from gout, diabetes, high blood pressure, high uric acid, and high cholesterol. Earlier this year, state media showed him limping.
Now the speculation about his health has been growing again. Recent pictures show he has ballooned in weight again and appeared to be struggling. On a cosmetic factory visit, he was uneasy on his feet and needed a folding chair, while on another trip to a shoe factory his face was dripping in sweat.
The child dictator has also been quiet for two months in provocative actions. The last ballistic missile launch was on 15 September, while the last nuclear test was on 3 September. Some analysts are attributing this long pause to American president Donald Trump's threat to unleash "fire and fury" on North Korea, and later adding that the military options are "locked and loaded," later referring to Kim as "Rocket Man."
But other analysts speculate that this delay in nuclear and ballistic missile testing is another sign that he is unwell. Either way, nobody seriously believes that North Korea has ended its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile testing, and new tests can occur at any time. News Corp Australia and Deccan Chronicle (India) and Daily Star (London)
A special envoy sent personally by China's president Xi Jinping to North Korea has returned to China amid signs that he apparently failed in his mission.
The envoy, Song Tao, met with several North Korean party officials. But as a special envoy sent personally by Xi Jinping, Song Tao should also have had at least a brief meeting with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, but several sources confirm that no meeting took place, something that is being interpreted as a snub directed at Xi Jinping himself.
Even more important, there is no sign that any agreement was reached on the nuclear crisis, which many international observers had been hoping. When the envoy was first announced, even Donald Trump tweeted that it was a big move, and "we'll see what happens."
Well, there was no sign of a breakthrough on the nuclear crisis, and the snub that Kim delivered to the envoy suggests that whatever proposal Song Tao brought with him from Kim Jong-un was not only rejected, but was rejected in as offensive a way as possible.
Actually, proposal that China most likely advanced has already rejected by the US, referring to it as "insulting." At the United Nations in September, China stated its "freeze for freeze" proposal:
"The situation on the peninsula is deteriorating constantly as we speak, falling into a vicious circle. The peninsula issue must be resolved peacefully. ...The proposal by China and Russia of a two-track approach, which promotes the denuclearization of the peninsula, and the establishment of a peace mechanism in parallel the suspension initiative which calls for the DPRK to suspend its nuclear missile activities and for the United States and the Republic of Korea to suspend their large scale military exercises and the step by step conception from Russia are the basis on which both countries currently propose a roadmap to resolve the peninsula issue."
Under this proposal, the United States and South Korea would end their annual joint military exercises, while North Korea would supposedly freeze its nuclear weapons development. This freeze for freeze proposal is something of a joke, since the West has made numerous concessions in the past in return for a North Korean promise to end nuclear weapons development, but they simply go underground with development, and later repudiate their promise whenever they want.
At the same United Nations Security Council meeting, US ambassador Nikki Haley responded to the proposal statement by calling it "insulting":
"The idea that some have suggested the so-called "freeze for freeze" is insulting. When a rogue regime has a nuclear weapon, and an ICBM is pointed at you, you do not take steps to lower your guard. no one would do that, and we certainly won't."
So, we don't know whether the same "freeze for freeze" concept was proposed by Song Tao to the North Koreans, but many believe that it was, and that it was rejected as firmly and offensively as possible. Xinhua and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and Nikkei and The Diplomat
President Donald Trump has announced that the US will designate North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, referring to it as a "murderous regime."
Iran, Sudan and Syria are currently the only countries on the list. North Korea used to be on the list, but it was removed by President George Bush in 2008 in the hope that it would convince the North Koreans to end their development nuclear weapons.
However, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged, there are already so many international sanctions on North Korea that designating it as a state sponsor of terrorism will have little effect except symbolically. AP and Daily Mail (London)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Nov-17 World View -- China's envoy to North Korea fails to end nuclear crisis thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Nov-2017)
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Plans go ahead to impeach Mugabe
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The people of Zimbabwe, as well as the international media reporters, were uniformly stunned (or gobsmacked, as one BBC reporter said) by Sunday's events, that were incredible even by the standards of Zimbabwe.
First, as expected, the governing party of president Robert Mugabe's governing Zanu-pf party voted to expel him from the party, and to demand his resignation. According to the resolutions of the Zanu-pf Central Committee:
"The Central Committee congratulated the masses of Zimbabwe for their participation in the historic solidarity march yesterday in support of the Zimbabwe War Veterans’ Association. ...That Cde R.G. Mugabe be and he is hereby recalled from the position of President and First Secretary of Zanu-PF forthwith. Further, the resolutions that Cde R.G. Mugabe should resign forthwith from his position as President and Head of State and Government of the Republic of Zimbabwe and if the resignation has not tendered by midday tomorrow 20 November 2017 (Monday), the Zanu-PF Chief Whip (Cde Lovemore Matuke) is ordered to institute proceedings for the recall of the President in terms of Section 97 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. ...
That Cde E. D. Mnangagwa be the party’s nominee to be appointed to fill the vacancy of State President in terms of Part 4, paragraph 14 sub paragraph 5 of the Sixth Schedule of Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Number 20. That the Extraordinary Congress scheduled for 12th to the 17th of December 2017 should proceed for purposes of ratifying the decisions we have taken this afternoon, in particular ratifying the appointment of Cde ED Mnangagwa as the First Secretary and President of Zanu-PF. The Extraordinary Congress should also ratify the decision we have taken today to recall Cde R.G. Mugabe as President and First Secretary of Zanu-PF. ...
That Cde Phelekezela Mphoko be and is hereby recalled from the position of Vice President and Second Secretary of Zanu-PF for being divisive, a member of the cabal, protecting criminals, preaching hate speech and behaving in a manner inconsistent with the Office and decorum of the Office."
According to numerous reports, Mugabe and the army had reached agreement that Mugabe would announce that he would step down in a speech televised nationally (and, in fact, globally, since a lot of people around the world, including myself, were watching it live).
So as the world watched, Mugabe came into a conference room with a dozen army generals, shook their hands, and sat down at the table to read his speech.
Now what happened next is open to speculation. According to some social media, one could see Mugabe switch speeches just before he sat down, though this has not been confirmed.
At any rate, there's little doubt at the shock and surprise on the faces of the army generals as Mugabe read his speech. Instead of resigning, he said that he would be presiding over the December 12-17 Extraordinary Congress mentioned in the above Zanu-pf statement, and then he went on to forgive the army:
"We cannot be guided by bitterness or revengefulness which would not makes us any better Zimbabweans. ...The congress is due in a few weeks from now. I will preside over its processes, which must not be prepossessed by any acts calculated to undermine it or to compromise it the outcomes in the eyes of the public. The way forward thus cannot be based on swapping by tricks that ride roughshod over party rules and procedures. ...
Whatever the pros and cons of the way they [the army] went about registering those concerns, I as the president of Zimbabwe, as their commander in chief, do acknowledge the issues they have drawn my attention to, and do believe that these were raised in the spirit of honesty and out of deep and patriotic concern for the stability of our nation and for the welfare of our people. ...
We must learn to forgive and resolve contradictions real or perceived in a comradely Zimbabwean spirit.
I’m happy that throughout the short period the pillars of state remained functional."
He gave the speech in a halting manner, with several pauses, and seemed at times to be confused. At the end of the speech, he said goodnight, and then he apologized for having said some things out of order, and hoped that they could be corrected.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was dumbstruck. "I am baffled. It’s not just me, it’s the whole nation. He’s playing a game. He is trying to manipulate everyone. He has let the whole nation down."
Some people expressed sadness that 93 year old Mugabe had skipped his chance to leave office with dignity, and instead would be humiliated by the events to come. Reuters and Zimbabwe Herald and Zimbabwe Herald
The Zimbabwean War Veterans Association, otherwise known as the "old guard," is the organization of veterans that won the war against Ian Smith, the white supremacist leader of Rhodesia, leading to independence of Zimbabwe in 1980.
Chris Mutsvangwa, the leader of the Zimbabwean War Veterans Association, said that Mugabe has a Monday noon deadline to resign, and then plans to impeach Mugabe would begin on Tuesday, as scheduled. Furthermore, he said that people would take to the streets on Wednesday, hoping to replicate the events of Saturday, when hundreds of thousands of people were in the streets demanding that Mugabe step down.
However, some analysts are saying that the plans to impeach Mugabe are fraught with complications.
One problem is that there may not be sufficiently severe charges to justify impeachment in the eyes of some members of the parliament.
Even if an impeachment is successful, then who would become president? In the Zanu-pf statement quoted above, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa should become president. But Mugabe recently fired Mnangagwa as vice president, with the objective of replacing him with his own wife Grace Mugabe, who would then succeed him. So Mnangagwa could not become vice-president unless Mugabe could be convinced to reinstate him prior to being impeached and convicted.
Otherwise, the next candidate to become president would be the second vice president -- Phelekezela Mphoko.
However, if you look again at the Zanu-pf statement quoted above, Mphoko is accused of "being divisive, a member of the cabal, protecting criminals, preaching hate speech and behaving in a manner inconsistent with the Office and decorum of the Office."
So if the strict rules of Zimbabwe's constitution are followed, then the entire impeachment process is potentially blocked by many severe complications.
Mugabe was undoubtedly aware of all this when he refused to resign. According to some commentators, he may be trying to provoke the army into deposing him by force, which could theoretically trigger an intervention by the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) bloc of nations. Australian Broadcasting and Guardian (London) and The Nation (Kenya)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Nov-17 World View -- Robert Mugabe stuns Zimbabwe by refusing to step down thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Nov-2017)
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The events in Zimbabwe show how history unfolds and disasters occur
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Up until a few days ago, anyone in Zimbabwe who criticized the 93 year old genocidal dictator Robert Mugabe risked being jailed and tortured. Mugabe's wife, 52 year old Grace Ntombizodwa Mugabe, said earlier this year that Mugabe would continue governing from the grave:
"One day when God decides that Mugabe dies, we will have his corpse appear as a candidate on the ballot paper,You will see people voting for Mugabe as a corpse. I am seriously telling you — just to show people how people love their president."
That's why everyone, including foreign reporters, were shocked and thrilled to see tens of thousands of people cheering ecstaticly on Saturday and marching in the capital city Harare, carrying banners that read "Mugabe must go!" and "Leadership is not sexually transmitted" -- the latter an allusion to the attempt by Grace Mugabe to succeed her husband as president. Another sign read, "Mugabe must rest now!", alluding to the fact that Mugabe falls asleep during meetings.
On Wednesday, Zimbabwe's army took control of the government after arresting the president Robert Mugabe and confining him to his home. In addition, the army arrested a number of other ministers who are supporting Mugabe.
However, the army is insisting that this is not a "coup." The reason is that the African Union is compelled by its constitution to intervene if a coup takes place.
Alpha Conde, who is Guinea's president and is also president of the African Union said on Thursday:
"We demand respect for the constitution, a return to the constitutional order and we will never accept the military coup d'état.We know there are internal problems. They need to be resolved politically by the Zanu-PF party and not with an intervention by the army."
The Southern Africa Democratic Development Community (SADC) would also have to take action in case of a coup, and so is insisting that it's an internal government matter.
Thus, it's essential to the army that Mugabe be replaced by means of a constitutional transition of power. This requires that Mugabe step down voluntarily. However, Mugabe is not playing along. He says that he plans to remain in office, and die in office. So the army is resorting to a kind of "plan B" to convince Mugabe step down. The first step was to encourage people to come to Harare on Saturday with anti-Mugabe protests and demand that he step down, although with the streets flooded with singing and dancing people on Saturday, it's clear that they didn't need much encouragement.
For the next step in the plan, on Sunday, Mugabe will be fired as leader of the government party, Zanu-Pf, though he'll still be president of the country. In addition, his wife Grace will be fired as head of the Zanu-Pf Women's League. At this point, the plan is that Mugabe will no longer have any friends, allies or supporters, and the hope is that he'll accept a dignified exit. In that case Emmerson Mnangagwa, who used to be Robert Mugabe's vice president, will be elevated to be president. However, I heard one official say that if Mugabe still insists on staying in office, then things will "get ugly."
By the way, neither Emmerson Mnangagwa nor Grace Mugabe have been heard from since Wednesday.
Meanwhile, watching the street interviews with the people singing and dancing in Harare on Saturday, it's obvious that most of the people were in their own state of denial. Under Mugabe, they've suffered one economic disaster after another, as Mugabe's "indigenization" program threw out farm and business owners who knew how to run a farm or a business, and replaced them with thugs and cronies from Mugabe's Shona tribe who didn't know how to run a farm or business.
The gleeful people on the streets of Harare interviewed on Saturday were saying things like "Mugabe fought our first war of independence, and now when he's out it will be our second independence," with the implication that things will get better. But things aren't going to change at all. Mnangagwa is the same kind of genocidal psychopath that Mugabe is. The same "old guard" will be in charge, though with different players, and the same Shona thugs and cronies will be running the farms and businesses.
And in the next few weeks and months as people realize that nothing is going to change, there are going to be plenty of new crises. Reuters and Zimbabwe Herald and Times Live (South Africa) and CNN
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the events in Zimbabwe the last few days are really quite remarkable. Seemingly the entire popular of Zimbabwe suddenly underwent a huge, massive change in behavior and attitude. Two weeks ago, everybody loved Mugabe. On Saturday, everybody hated Mugabe and wanted to get rid of him.
And we know what triggered this change: Mugabe's announcement that he would fire his vice president so that his own wife could replace him as president. The resulting change was so fast and so massive that reporters keep saying that they can't believe it even happened.
This kind of massive change in public opinion and behavior is the stuff of history and major historical events, including major historical disasters. In other circumstances, that kind of massive lightning change in public opinion and behavior can cause a panic that leads to a war, as happened for example when Israel panicked and attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. The attack was triggered when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers along the border, and the attack came four hours later, with no plan and no objective.
That same kind of lighting change of public opinion and behavior can also cause a major financial panic and crash, and sometimes we don't even know what the trigger is. I often like to point out that, even today, 88 years later, we still don't know what triggered the stock market panic on August 28, 1929, and why it didn't occur six months earlier or six months later.
Today there's a huge stock market bubble, with the S&P 500 price/earnings ratio almost 25, far above its historic value of 14. China, the world's second largest economy, is running on a huge debt bubble and a huge real estate bubble.
Of special note is the Bitcoin bubble. When I wrote about it a month ago, Bitcoin was just above $5000. Today it's close to $8000, having been at just $728 a year ago. Bitcoin investments have nothing backing them except hot air and promises, and the explosive growth of Bitcoins is one of the most dramatic bubbles since the Tulipomania bubble of the 1600s. When the Tulipomania bubble burst after a panic in 1637, people cursed tulips for decades. When a panic occurs and the Bitcoin bubble implodes, the cursing will be far worse.
The thing we should learn from the last two weeks in Zimbabwe is that a panic can occur with lightning speed. Events that are provably impossible today become not only possible but completely real tomorrow. And unless you've anticipated those events and prepared for them, then you'll suffer the consequences.
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Nov-17 World View -- Ecstatic throngs in Harare Zimbabwe demand that Robert Mugabe step down thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Nov-2017)
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The flaws in the climate change story
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The latest annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP23, ended on Friday accomplishing nothing bug a new collection of news stories about politicians from countries around the world taking credit for climate change leadership, and expressing outrage that Donald Trump announced that he was leaving the previous climate change agreement, and thereby allowing the world to slide into planetary climate disaster.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel in particular has been a world leader in feigned environmental concern. Years ago, she promised to close Germany's nuclear power plants, saying that they were too dangerous. She has repeatedly lambasted Trump for pulling out of the Paris climate change agreement.
But it now turns out that Germany is not anywhere close to meeting its CO2 emission commitments, and in fact is going backwards. Germany's carbon emissions haven't declined for nearly a decade, and in fact have been increasing for the last three years.
Germany did reduce carbon emissions in the 1990s, but even that accomplishment is dodgy. In 1991, Communist East Germany merged with West Germany to form today's Germany. East German factories were still the same ones that the Soviets had built in the 1950s when they annexed East Germany, and by 1991 those old, creaky factories were spewing huge amounts of environment poisons, including CO2. During the 1990s, the West Germans spent huge amounts of money to modernize the East German factories, and in doing so they reduced carbon emissions.
But those were the easy days. The commitment to close all nuclear power plants by 2022 means that Germany's huge economy is going to depend on coal for energy, and today 40% of German energy supply is coal-based. So Merkel is going to have to do a U-turn on either nuclear-generated energy or coal-generated energy, and either way, there is no chance at all that Germany will meet its climate change commitments.
Norway is another environmental superstar that is having similar problems. Norway, with its cold, clean, crisp Nordic climate, has always appeared to be an environmental model, if you didn't count the fact that it's a major producer of oil and gas, which are its most important exports.
In 2015, Norway awarded oil licenses to Statoil, Chevron and other companies, allowing them to drill for oil in Norwegian waters in the Barents Sea.
Well, Greenpeace and other environmental groups are suing Norway, saying that the awards are unconstitutional because "Under article 112 of the constitution ... the Norwegian state has a duty to not hurt the climate." According to Greenpeace:
"Our goal is that the court agrees with us that licenses awarded in the Barents Sea are invalid and should be withdrawn because it violates future generations’ right to a healthy environment."
The attorney representing Norway evoked laughter in the courtroom by saying:
"This is a type of constitutional activism we have not seen before and that is different from our legal tradition in Norway.This is an American-style use of our judicial system. ...
It would stop all future oil licenses awarded off Norway and would imperil hundreds of thousands of jobs."
What the examples of Germany and Norway show is that the whole climate change program is a fantasy put forth by politicians for domestic purposes. Ironically, Donald Trump is the only politician willing to tell the truth. Council on Foreign Relations and Reuters
African leaders were furious at last year's climate change conference because Donald Trump had unexpectedly won the US presidential election and said that he would pull out of the climate change agreement. Even so, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged a rapid scale-up in funding for climate change programs, especially to support developing countries. "Finance and investment hold the key to achieving low-emissions and resilient societies," he said.
So now it's a year later, and there's another climate change conference, and African leaders are furious again, because there were plenty of promises made this week, but no commitments.
Africans claim that they're entitled to money because they're the victims of climate change. That is, the West has caused the climate change, and the Africans are suffering because of it. Augustine Njamshi from the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) says:
"In general, Africa has not gotten what it wanted at this Cop23. Because the discussions that matter to us, things that matter to us have been relegated to the background and all that we're hearing is what the developed countries want, and that is not in the interest of Africa. ...Africa has not contributed to this [climate change] problem, yet it's bearing the consequences in a great way, in a massive way and we don't have the luxury to adapt to the climate change consequences, as well as we don't even have the means to do any mitigation."
Actually, Africa has benefited enormously from carbon emissions. At the beginning of this article, there is a picture of Kinshasa, the capital city of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). You can see the skyscrapers, apartment buildings, roads, cars, and other infrastructure made possible by research and manufacturing performed by the West. If it hadn't been for the West's CO2 emissions, the people of Kinshasa would still be living in thatch huts and driving around in carts pulled by donkeys and camels. Africa is as responsible as anyone else is for carbon emissions because of the enormous benefits they get.
And what would happen if a huge pot of money were given to Joseph Kabila, the president of DRC, to mitigate climate change? Where would that money go? Anyone who knows anything about what's going on in Africa knows the answer. Kabila would use the money to provide support and weapons to government militias slaughtering, raping and mutilating thousands of people in Kasai province, where 3.9 million people have already been forced to flee their homes.
I've been writing about climate change conferences for years, and it's always been clear that they have nothing to do with mitigating any climate problems. They have only one objective: To force the United States and other western countries to pay billions of dollars to leaders of "underdeveloped" countries, so that those leaders can use the money to pay their cronies, pad their bank accounts, and buy weapons to kill their enemies. I'm not aware of any proposal coming out of a climate change conference that would actually reduce carbon emissions. And the examples of Germany and Norway described above illustrate this.
However, the conference did produce some good news for African leaders. According to Chinese state media:
"[Xie Zhenhua] said, through donating energy conserving or renewable-energy facilities as well as climate change surveillance instruments, and promoting climate-friendly techniques, China has offered funds, technologies and capacity building to the least developed countries, small-island countries and African countries.Since 2011, Chinese government has channeled 580 million yuan (about 85 million U.S. dollars) to help other developing countries to cope with climate change, through various initiatives ranging from low-carbon and adaptation projects to capacity building activities.
China has signed 32 MOUs with 28 developing countries on the donation of materials needed in battling climate change, including over 1.2 million energy-saving or solar-energy lamps, some 13,000 solar photo-voltaic power generating facilities, and over 10,000 clean stoves, among other donations. China also donated satellite monitoring facilities to help these countries with early warning of extreme weather.
Moreover, China helped train thousands of climate officials as well as technicians from more than 120 countries on five continents, according to Xie."
The 1.2 million energy-saving or solar energy lamps donated by China should be particularly helpful to the people of Africa in mitigating the effects of climate change. At least they won't be used to kill people. Deutsche Welle and Radio France International and Xinhua
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As I've written in the past, you can accept all the claims by the climate change scientists that climate change is occurring, and that it's caused by human behavior. Even under all those assumptions, climate change predictions are still wrong, and have been consistently wrong for about 30 years since climate change scientists have begun making them.
The reason that climate predictions are consistently wrong is that climate scientists simply ignore very important issues. I've tried raising these issues with client scientists, but they simply blow me off since these issues don't fit their narrative.
Here are two very important issues that client scientists ignore:
As regular readers are aware, Generational Dynamics predicts that the world is headed for a world war that will kill billions of people through nuclear weapons, ground war, disease and famine. Climate scientists claim that climate change is caused by human activity, and so, the large reduction in population will completely remove whatever threat the climate scientists are predicting.
With regard to technology, Generational Dynamics predicts that the Singularity -- the point in time when computers will be more intelligent, more able, and more creative than humans -- will occur around 2030. Each year we're increasingly able to see some of the components that will bring that about. Artificial intelligence is under development in every research lab in the world, and is advancing rapidly. In particular, every military in the world is doing research on robots, vehicles and aircraft that can kill enemies without human intervention. Combine all that with 3D printing, and you can imagine a world where computer entities are more intelligent than humans, can duplicate themselves, and can fight against humans.
Even if you don't believe in that scenario, there's no doubt that a great deal of new technology is being developed that can mitigate the climate change problem. Think about how much technology has been developed in the last 50 years, and think about how technology development is growing exponentially faster. With or without the Singularity, climate scientists have absolutely no clue what the temperature will be at the end of the century, because they have absolutely no clue what technology will be developed to mitigate it.
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Nov-17 World View -- African leaders once again furious that they won't get a climate change bonanza thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Nov-2017)
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Comparing Awakening Eras in Cambodia, Syria, Zimbabwe and other countries
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Cambodia's Supreme Court, believed to be completely controlled by prime minister Hun Sen, ruled on Thursday that Hun Sen's opposition party should be dissolved, and that its members should be prohibited from political activities:
"The supreme court has decided to dissolve the Cambodia National Rescue party [CNRP] and ban 118 individuals ... from doing political activities for five years starting from the day of this verdict announcement."
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Cambodia is in a generational Awakening era. The Buddhist society of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in 1975-79, led by Pol Pot, perpetrated one of the top mass genocides of the 20th century. The genocide killed something like 1.7 to well over 2 million people, out of a population of 8 million. So around 20% of Cambodia's population were killed, making it possibly the worst genocide, on a percentage basis, of the 20th century.
This is exactly the same story that I've been writing about many times recently. A country has a generational crisis civil war where ethnic or tribal groups commit thousands of atrocities, tortures, mutilations, rapes, and killings of each other. All the survivors are traumatized for life, and when one side or the other takes power after the war ends, they continue using some of the same techniques to stay in power indefinitely. We've written about this in Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere.
Hun Sen and his Cambodian People's Party (CPP) have controlled the government since the end of the war, and Hun Sen himself has been the country's leader since 1985. The crackdown began in 2013, when Hun Sen was declared the winner of a close election whose results were disputed by the opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).
The CNRP has been gaining in popularity since 2013, and many people thought that Hun Sen might be defeated in the 2018 elections, something that he and his supporters would have to prevented at all costs, by any means possible.
So Hun Sen began targeting CNRP leaders, arresting many of them. The CNRP was particularly shocked on September 4 when 100 police showed up at the home of the CNRP leader Kem Sokha and arrested him for treason.
Following the arrest, Hun Sen said:
"The treason of colluding with foreigners to betray the nation requires [us] to make an immediate arrest.The third hand [the United States] used to use Lon Nol to conduct a coup [in 1970], now the same problem happened.
The Americans used to do it, this problem, with Lon Nol and now the American does this problem with Kem Sokha."
It's always fun to see how the United States get blamed for every problem in the world. This charge of treason was based on a 2013 video in which Kem Sokha spoke of getting US assistance to plan his political career. Hun Sen accused Sokha, his family, journalists, foreign NGOs, the CIA, and the “extremist” ruling party of Taiwan of orchestrating regime change in Cambodia.
If this sounds vaguely familiar to you, it's because it sounds the same as the delusional statement by Zimbabwe's Commander Chiwenga that we reported yesterday following the Zimbabwe coup, that "our revolution [is] being hijacked by agents of our erstwhile enemies who are now at the brink of returning our country to foreign domination against which so many of our people perished."
So Hun Sen has been arresting leaders in the opposition CNRP political party, and now has arranged to have the entire party dissolved by the court, so that he can win an election next year. Phnom Penh Post and Guardian (London) and ABS-CBN (Manila) and Phnom Penh Post (5-Sep)
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Possibly the most significant finding from the development of Generational Dynamics these last 15 years was the discovery of the destructive role that generational Awakening eras play in country after country. We've seen this destructive role in today's article on Cambodia, and in previous articles on countries from Syria to Burundi to Zimbabwe.
In any country, an Awakening era occurs after the Recovery Era that follows a generational crisis war. A generational crisis war is the worst kind of war, because the value of a human life goes to zero at the war's climax, and the only thing that matters is survival of the country or society and its way of life.
Western nations are not immune from the atrocities of a crisis war. In World War II, American troops were sent onto the beaches of Normandy, even though it was known that tens of thousands of them would be slaughtered. Later, the reverse happened as the Allies firebombed Dresden and Tokyo, and then nuked Japanese cities. These events fit the definitions of "war crime" because they targeted large numbers of innocent civilians, and would be described as such if it weren't for the fact that Western nations won the war.
All nations and societies perform these atrocities during a generational crisis war, especially as the climax of the war approaches. But there are two distinctly different kinds of generational crisis wars, and it's important to treat them separately, because their behaviors during the following Awakening eras are completely different.
In an external war, one nation's army invades another nation, with the intent to capture territory or resources. There may be atrocities, including torture, rape, and mass slaughter, but in the typical case, when the war ends, the invading army leaves the country that it invaded, and future relations between the two countries can be negotiated through international diplomacy, such as in the United Nations. The two sides do not have to "live with" one another.
But that's very different from an internal civil war, where one tribe or ethnic group fights another within the same country. Typically, the two tribes live in the same cities, neighborhoods and streets, work in the same businesses, intermarry and allow their children to play with one another.
So for example in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, the Hutus and Tutsis had lived together for decades, had intermarried, had their kids play games with each other and so forth. Then one day, a Hutu leader announced over the radio, "Cut down the tall trees." The radio announcement, which was heard all over the country, was some sort of visceral signal. On cue, each Hutu did something like the following: Picked up a machete, went to the Tutsi home next door, or down the street, murdered and dismembered the man and children, raped the wife and then murdered and dismembered her.
So when the war ends, the situation is quite different than in the external war, since these two tribes or ethnic groups still have to live with one another, in the same cities, streets and neighborhoods. There are always calls for reconciliation and little feel-good news stories, but the horrific atrocities are never forgotten. Even worse, each tribe remembers the atrocities that the other side committed, but develops amnesia about the atrocities that its own side committed. And those partial memories are passed down to the children, who come of age during the generational Awakening era.
Generational Dynamics is based on the foundational work on generational theory developed by Strauss and Howe and published in their book The Fourth Turning. That book was brilliant at the time that it was published, but the research is now 25 years old, is badly out of date, and has been shown to contain a number of serious errors.
The core error is the assumption that all generational timelines of all nations are synchronized with each other, and in particular are synchronized with "Anglo-American timeline" of Britain and North America since the 1400s. The book doesn't even recognize the concept of Awakening eras in other countries, since they are a time of spiritual awakening and new ideas that are only possible in the atmosphere of freedom that occurred in Britain and America. If they exist at all in other countries, then they're synchronized with Britain and America, which doesn't even make sense since there's no reason why a tribe in mid-Africa should be following the timeline of medieval England.
This core assumption is discarded in Generational Dynamics in favor of the "Principle of Localization," which says that each society and nation has a separate and distinct generational timeline throughout history, although timelines of two countries can merge at times of massive invasions and genocide.
So now returning to the distinction between external and internal wars, the Awakening eras of different countries are quite different. The spiritual awakening described by the Fourth Turning may occur in America and Britain, but it certainly does not occur in the other countries we've been discussing, the ones that fought tribal or ethnic internal civil wars. In those countries, an Awakening era is a time of government oppression, jailings and torture, in order to suppress the other tribe or ethnic group.
There is some commonality between the two kinds of Awakening eras. In both cases, they begin 15-20 years after the climax of the preceding crisis war, when the new generation growing up after the war comes of age and can make its voice heard -- and does so in riots and youth demonstrations protesting government policies.
In the case of an Awakening era following an external war, these anti-government protests do have a flavor of spiritual awakening, as they did in America in the 1960s. But in countries where the Awakening era follows a tribal or ethnic civil war, these protests are seen by the government leaders as a threat being posed by the tribe or ethnic group on the other side in the war. For that reason, the government leaders suppress them, often violently.
This was true in all the countries that we've been discussing recently and comparing with one another -- Cambodia, Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, DRC, and so forth. All of these countries are currently in generational Awakening eras following a tribal or ethnic crisis civil war in the 1960s-80s, and they're on completely different timelines than America and Britain. And yet, they're all very similar in that the leaders are doing everything possible to stay in power for decades.
One question that I'm asked frequently is why this analysis doesn't apply to the American Civil War of the 1860s.
The American civil war was not a war between two tribes or ethnic groups, as the black slaves generally supported the South. The fault line was geographical (North vs South), and so it had the characteristics of an external war. The tribal and ethnic civil wars that I've been talking about occur when two ethnic groups live together, often in the same villages and neighborhoods, and people start raping, torturing and slaughtering their next door neighbors. This is a highly personal kind of war, very different from an external war, where one country raises an army and invades another country, and then the army withdraws when the war ends. The American North and South were like two separate countries, with very different economies and lifestyles, not like Hutus and Tutsis living next door to each other. That's why that kind of personal civil war could not have occurred, and the two were really more like two separate countries. If the black slaves had risen up and fought against the southern whites, then the Awakening era would have been far bloodier.
There are many events and actions in history that seem completely inexplicable. How could anyone have been so delusional and so stupid as to do X? The Generational Dynamics discovery of the significance of generational Awakening eras in countries after a tribal or ethnic civil war provides answers to many questions that have puzzled historians for decades or even centuries.
Related: Mainstream media frets over Steve Bannon, the Fourth Turning, and Donald Trump (09-Feb-2017)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Nov-17 World View -- Cambodia dissolves the opposition political party so that Hun Sen can be reelected unopposed thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Nov-2017)
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More on the evacuation of ISIS militants from Raqqa, Syria
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
A couple of analysts that I heard on Wednesday provided additional information about the evacuation of militants from the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) from Raqqa that I described yesterday. The coalition permitted hundreds of ISIS militants, along with tons of weapons and ammunition, to be transported by bus into Deir az-Zour, where they were free to fight again.
According to these analysts, the ISIS evacuation into Deir az-Zour was actually a strategic move by the US coalition. The militants were transported into a region of Deir az-Zour that was already controlled by ISIS, and there are Syrian and Iranian armies and Hezbollah and Russian warplanes trying to recapture that region from ISIS. Thus, the evacuation of ISIS fighters from Raqqa to Deir az-Zour actually has the purpose of supporting the enemies of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.
The Youtube video for the full BBC report on the ISIS evacuation from Raqqa can be found here: Youtube
Related: BBC reports hoax by US-led coalition about ISIS evacuation from Raqqa Syria (15-Nov-2017)
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Insisting that there was "no military takeover" of Zimbabwe, General Constantino Guvheya Nyikadzino Chiwenga, Commander of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces (ZDF) on Wednesday led a military takeover of the Zimbabwe. A statement by the ZDF spokesman said:
"To both our people and the world beyond our borders, we wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not a military takeover of Government. What the Zimbabwe Defense Forces is doing is to pacify a degenerating political, social and economic situation in our country which if not addressed may result in violent conflict. ...We wish to assure the nation that His Excellency, The President, of the Republic of Zimbabwe, and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Cde R.G. Mugabe and his family are safe and sound and their security is guaranteed.
We are only targeting criminals around him who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice. As soon as we have accomplished our mission we expect that the situation will return to normalcy."
Zimbabwe's 93-year-old president Robert Mugabe has not been heard from. South Africa's president Jacob Zuma said that he has spoken to Mugabe, who told him that he's ok, but he's confined to his home under house arrest.
Zimbabwe's 52-year-old first lady, Grace Ntombizodwa Mugabe, the wife of the president, has not been heard from either. The rumor is that she's fled the country. The logical country for her to flee to is South Africa, but she can't go there because she's wanted for violent assault. In August, she went to South Africa and went to the Johannesburg hotel room of her two sons, where she found her sons' friend, a 20-year-old model named Gabriella Engels. Mugabe beat the crap out of Engels with the heavy plug at the end of an extension cord, leaving her with numerous gashes and scars, and putting her entire career at risk. So it's still not known what country she's fled to, but there are reports that on Wednesday she was seeking asylum in Namibia.
The military coup was apparently triggered when Robert Mugabe sacked vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa so that his wife Grace can succeed him and be the next president, thus forming a kind of Mugabe dynasty.
Mnangagwa is part of the "old guard" that fought alongside Mugabe in the violent "war of liberation" and victory over Ian Smith, the white supremacist leader of Rhodesia. After the war ended, Mugabe's Shona tribe turned against their co-victors, the Ndebele tribe. Mnangagwa developed a reputation for ordering the unbridled slaughter, rape, torture and murder of Ndebele tribesmen and women, leading to Operation Gukurahundi, one of the greatest holocausts of the last century.
So Mugabe and Mnangagwa have always been great friends, sharing their psychopathic atrocities targeting the Ndebele, but they've been feuding recently, and Mugabe decided that the next president should be his wife Grace Ntombizodwa Mugabe. This choice was also supported by the Youth Wing of Mugabe's Zanu-pf party.
But this choice infuriated the old guard of war veterans who had fought alongside Mugabe, hence the coup. Reuters (15-Aug) and Zimbabwe Herald
Mugabe's old guard war veterans are steeped in the erotic excitement of the memories of their youths, when they fought against the white supremacist Ian Smith and won.
On Wednesday, Commander Chiwenga of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces referred to this liberation struggle to explain the purpose and objective of the coup:
"Zimbabwe’s history is hinged on the ideals of the revolution dating back to the First Chimurenga [civil war] where thousands of people perished. Zanu-PF is the political Party that waged the Second Chimurenga for our independence; the struggle that caused the loss of over 50 000 lives of our people; the struggle in which many Zimbabweans, in one way or the other, sacrificed and contributed immensely for our liberation. Many of these gallant fighters still live on with the spirited hope of seeing a prosperous Zimbabwe, but also the hope of leaving behind inheritance and legacy for posterity. ...Our peace loving people who have stood by their Government and endured some of the most trying social and economic conditions ever experienced are extremely disturbed by what is happening within the ranks of the national revolutionary Party. What is obtaining in the revolutionary Party is a direct result of the machinations of counter revolutionaries who have infiltrated the Party and whose agenda is to destroy it from within.
It is saddening to see our revolution being hijacked by agents of our erstwhile enemies who are now at the brink of returning our country to foreign domination against which so many of our people perished. The famous slogan espoused by His Excellency, The President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces, Cde R. G. Mugabe; “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again” is being seriously challenged by counter revolutionary infiltrators who are now effectively influencing the direction of the Party.
It is our strong and deeply considered position that if drastic action is not taken immediately, our beloved country Zimbabwe is definitely headed to becoming a neo-colony again."
This statement is completely delusional. There is no possible scenario where Zimbabwe would become a colony again.
The "erstwhile enemies" that Chiwenga is referring to are Grace Mugabe and her supporters. Chiwenga is seeing hallucinations. He think's Mugabe's wife is going to make "our beloved country Zimbabwe" into a "neo-colony." This guy's a total nutjob. And young people in Zimbabwe listening to this statement are going to know immediately that it's crazy.
This is a neurological problem that seems to strike many leaders who come to power after winning a particularly gruesome tribal or civil war. Ordering and participating in thousands of atrocities, tortures, mutilations, rapes, and killings is only possible for a certain kind of sociopathic man, and the after effect leaves them traumatized for life. Syria's Bashar al-Assad and Iran's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei are also complete nutjobs, just like Mugabe and Chiwenga.
When I first heard about the Zimbabwe coup attempt yesterday, I immediately thought that it would be an Awakening era climax -- an event that resolves the generational conflict between the generations of survivors of the previous generational crisis war versus the generations growing up after the war. The survivors of the war are traumatized for their entire lives, and so they have quite different personalities and behaviors than those growing up after the war, who have no such traumas.
However, that clearly hasn't happened. The generational conflict has not been resolved. The "old guard" is still in control; only the names of the players have changed.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is an extremely dangerous situation, as can be seen from the example of Syria. Bashar al-Assad is completely delusional, and has unleashed his psychopathic fury on his political enemies, as I've been describing since the war began in 2011. Al-Assad has created millions of refugees flooding into neighboring countries and Europe, and has created jihadist militias ISIS and al-Nusra. This has destabilized the entire Mideast.
The old guard in Zimbabwe appears to be equally delusional, and so the current crisis is far from ended. Zimbabwe's neighbors are particularly worried about a flood of refugees from Zimbabwe. There are already a million Zimbabweans working in South Africa, for example, and a flood of refugees similar to what happened in Syria would destabilize southern Africa. Zimbabwe Herald
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Nov-17 World View -- Zimbabwe coup splits ruling Zanu-pf party along generational lines thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Nov-2017)
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Apparent coup is in progress in Zimbabwe against 93-year-old Robert Mugabe
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Calling it "the dirty Raqqa deal that no one wants to talk about," the BBC has found that the US-led coalition military issued extremely misleading statements last month, when the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) was evacuated from Raqqa, the capital of their self-styled caliphate.
It was in November of last year that the coalition made a surprise announcement that an operation would begin to recapture Raqqa from ISIS. The announcement was controversial because the principal fighters would be from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), comprising a majority of Kurdish fighters and a minority of Arab fighters, backed by American warplanes. Turkey was particularly opposed to the participation of the Syrian Kurds, whom the Turkish government considers to be all terrorists. However, the Kurds were chosen because the US considers them to be the best and most effective fighting force in Syria versus ISIS.
By September of this year, there was widespread reporting that the SDF had almost entirely recaptured Raqqa from ISIS, and that total victory was only a few days away. However, in mid-October there was another surprise announcement: Instead of killing or capturing all the ISIS fighters in Raqqa, they would be permitted to leave and go to live elsewhere.
I wrote briefly about this evacuation deal last month when it was announced. I went back to my news article archive to reread the articles that I had used as sources at the time. According to these articles:
This sanguine description has been contradicted in several ways by the BBC report. The reporter, Quentin Sommerville, visited Raqqa and followed the path that the bus convoy took last month into Deir az-Zour. He interviewed dozens of people who were either on the convoy, including bus drivers, or observed it, and to the men who negotiated the deal.
Sommerville reported the following, based on interviews with witnesses and bus drivers and on amateur video:
According to Sommerville, interviews with human smugglers working on the Syria-Turkey border have revealed a surge in people trying to cross the border into Turkey. It's feared that some wish to return to their home countries in Europe and Russia to continue the jihadist fight.
The BBC says that once the Raqqa investigation was completed and the facts were presented to the coalition military, they confirmed them. Al Araby (UK, 15-Oct) and BBC and Daily Sabah (Turkey) and Daily Mail (London)
Update: The Youtube video for the full BBC report on the ISIS evacuation from Raqqa can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4KLrQKJn3c
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It was a year ago that the army of Syria's psychopathic president Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia's air force, was determined to slaughter as many of the 275,000 residents of Aleppo to be killed, even though only all but a few thousand were innocent civilians. Syrian and Russian warplanes bombed hospitals, schools and civilian neighborhoods even in cities where al-Nusra was never present. ( "7-Oct-16 World View -- UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura predicts total destruction of Aleppo by Christmas")
The violence against Aleppo and other western cities was to have ended as a result of the "de-escalation zone" agreement reached by Russia, Iran and Turkey, meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan. However, the agreement never really had a chance, because al-Assad opposed it.
So it's not surprising that al-Assad is repeating this genocidal attacks on the Sunni Muslims that he hates, this time in East Ghouta.
Ghouta has always been particularly hated by al-Assad. In 2013, he ordered what a United Nations investigation found to be large scale' use of Sarin gas on the people of Ghouta, including women and children.
According to Jan Egeland, the UN Special Envoy for Syria:
"I feel as if we are now returning to some of the bleakest days of this conflict again. ...Nowhere is it as bad as in eastern Ghouta, which is the area just next to the capital Damascus city, it is in rural Damascus, east of the capital. This epicenter of suffering has 400,000 civilians, men, women, and children, in a dozen besieged towns, and villages. ...
Winter is coming, winter in Syria is as hard as it is in Europe, the difference between in Europe and in Syria is that people are now sitting after a 7-year war, longer than the second World War, they have little, if no, reserves, they have no heat in the house, they live in a ruin, it will be a horrific winter. In eastern Ghouta the price of a food basket is ten times that of the average in the country, so people cannot afford food and that will be their situation as the harsh winter is coming."
We can assume that we're going to see a repeat in Ghouta that we saw last year in Aleppo. As I've written many times, al-Assad is the worst genocidal leader so far in the 21st century, and the war in Syria will continue as long as he's in power.
There is an interesting contrast between the two stories presented in this article.
In Aleppo, and probably in Ghouta, al-Assad and Russia are using the 'Grozny Model' to pursue mass slaughter, as Russia used against Grozny in its 1990s war against Chechnya.
But in Raqqa, rather than commit mass slaughter against civilians, the SDF and the coalition allowed the ISIS fighters to escape, and even provided transportation for them.
So we have two similar situations, but two different military strategies. Perhaps one day historians will look back at this time to decide which strategy was the best. United Nations and Syria Direct and Al Araby (UK)
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As this article is being written on Tuesday evening ET, there is an apparent military coup in progress, as soldiers have reportedly taken over the headquarters of Zimbabwe's national broadcaster, ZBC, in the capital city Harare. Heavy gunfire and artillery have also been heard, as well as loud explosions.
The coup attempt was apparently triggered when Robert Mugabe, the 93 year old president, sacked the VP so that his wife can succeed him.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Zimbabwe is in a generational Awakening era. This means that if the coup is successful, it would be an Awakening era climax, something that signals a victory of the younger post-war generation over the generations of war survivors. This is similar to the forced resignation of President Richard Nixon in America in 1974, which was also an Awakening era climax, signaling the victory of the young post-war Boomer generation over their parents, the World War II survivors. When a successful coup is part of an Awakening era climax, then it's sometimes also called a "velvet coup," since there's usually little violence involved. BBC
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Nov-17 World View -- BBC reports hoax by US-led coalition about ISIS evacuation from Raqqa Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Nov-2017)
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Tensions rise between Kenya and Tanzania over chicks and cattle
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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A severe drought in Kenya has in the last year resulted in increasing violence between three groups -- (1) farmers and ranchers who own about a million acres of land, versus (2) herders (also called pastoralists) whose cattle herds have been dying of starvation and who invade ranches to find grazing land, versus (3) the police whose job it is to prevent violence between the other two groups.
Pro-herder groups are accusing the police of being pro-farmer and of purposely shooting and killing about 300 cattle in the province of Laikipia on November 1. The police say that they were ambushed by about 1,000 herders who used the cattle as shields and then fired at the police, who returned fire blindly, unable to see the herders through the herd. The police also say that only 75 cattle were killed.
(As an aside, this is the second time recently that I've heard this story. The four American soldiers who were killed in Niger were ambushed when jihadists sent a herd of cattle towards them, blinding them, and then attacked, using heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles.)
Although farmers and herders have generally gotten along with each other for years, the population of herders has been growing along with their herds, and the drought has led to a crisis where many herders' families are facing starvation. The herders say that because of the drought crisis, herders should have some controlled access to the ranches of farmers and ranchers.
This has all become linked to tribal politics in Kenya, especially with the chaos surrounding recent presidential elections. Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta won reelection in the August 8 election, but Kenya's Supreme Court agreed with the opposition that the election was "invalid, null and void" because of electoral committee irregularities and illegalities.
A new election was held October 26, but the opposition boycotted it, with the result that Kenyatta won that election by over 90%. The opposition is also challenging that election.
President Uhuru Kenyatta is from the market-dominant Kikuyu tribe, which is the tribe of wealthy landowners, farmers and ranchers.
His opponent, Raila Odinga, is from the Luo tribe, an offshoot of the Kalenjins, who are the tribe of marginalized herders and pastoralists. Odinga says that the government should compensate the pastoralists whose livestock were killed by the police, adding:
"Pastoralists should have controlled access to ranches during moments of drought. Criminalization of pastoralists should stop since they contribute to the nation’s economy."
The Supreme Court is now considering motions by Odinga and the opposition to nullify the October 26 election as well. Lawyers representing the electoral commission are asking the court to throw out the motions submitted by Odinga, and are also accusing Odinga of promoting election day violence.
In 2007, there was a presidential election where Odinga from the Luo tribe was defeated for president by another member of the Kikuyu tribe.
After the December 2007 president elections, there was a period of extremely bloody inter-tribal violence in the Rift Valley in Kenya, beginning early in 2008. The worst atrocity occurred when 30 people were lured into a church to escape violence, and a young gang locked the doors and set the church on fire, burning everyone alive. All in all, more than 1,200 people were killed in the tribal violence between the Kalenjins, who are mostly herders, and the Kikuyus, who are mostly farmers.
In 2017, there are fears that there will be renewed violence related to the election chaos, combined with the violence between herders and farmers. IRIN - United Nations and The Nation (Kenya) and Standard Media (Kenya) and The Nation (Kenya) and The Economist
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Kenya has launched a formal protest against the neighboring country Tanzania for auctioning off 1,300 Kenyan cattle and burning alive 6,500 Kenyan chicks.
Two weeks ago, Tanzania seized and burned alive 6,500 chicks that had been brought from Kenya into Tanzania by traders, claiming that the chicks had been imported illegally.
Then last week, Tanzania seized and auctioned off 1,300 cattle that had crossed the border from Kenya in search of grazing land.
A Kenyan official said that the act had violated historical relations between the two countries:
"Kenya-Tanzania relations are longstanding, rich and complex and should not be jeopardized by a hardening of positions over minor issues that can be easily resolved through candid and open dialogue."
Statements issued by Tanzania's president John Magufuli said:
"Those who sneak with their livestock into this country will not be spared. ... Let them (Kenyans) also take similar action if cows from Tanzania are arrested in their country."
According to another Kenyan official, "This man [Magufuli] is a disgrace to East Africans. He continues to sabotage good neighborliness with his government officers harassing Kenyans over flimsy grounds." The National (Kenya) and Capital FM (Kenya) and The Nation
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Nov-17 World View -- Severe drought in Kenya increases violence among herders, farmers and police thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Nov-2017)
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Recalling President Trump's July 6 speech in Warsaw Poland
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Tens of thousands of people marched in Warsaw on Saturday at the 99th anniversary celebration of Poland's Independence Day. Poland became an independent nation on November 11, 1918, the day that World War I ended.
Many of the marchers carried right-wing "White Nationalist" banners, including "Clean Blood," "Pray for an Islamic Holocaust," and "White Europe, Europe must be white." Some wore masks and waved red and white Polish flags, chanting "Death to enemies of the homeland," and "Catholic Poland, not secular."
However, it's not known how many in the crowd sympathized with these views, as many people told reporters that they were not part of the radical-nationalist groups, but were simply attending in celebration of Independence Day.
The march was not an official government event, but had three main right-wing sponsors -- All Poland Youth, National Movement and National Radical Camp, which is known by its acronym ONR. All Poland Youth has been organizing these demonstrations since 2010. They started out small, but have growing in size until this year, when the overshadowed the other Independence Day events.
This is not surprising, as xenophobia and nationalism have been occurring in countries around the world, and have been growing as we go deeper and deeper into a generational Crisis era, and the survivors of World War II die off.
Poland's Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszcza was pleased that there was no violence:
"Independence Day... was safe. We could see wide and red in the streets of Warsaw, it was a beautiful sight. We are proud that so many Poles decided to take part in events."
The Independence Day march turned violent in 2014, when some of the members of far-right groups broke away from the main rally and started to throw stones and flares at the police.
This year, there were 8,600 police in Warsaw to keep the far-right groups and the anti-fascist protesters apart, and so violence was almost completely absent.
According to official figures, more than 65,000 people took part in 308 events nationwide, and 60,000 took part in an Independence March in Warsaw. The News (Warsaw) and CNN and Politico (EU) and BBC (11-Nov-2014)
As regular readers know, I've been writing about the worldwide rise of nationalism and xenophobia for years. In America, we've seen xenophobia on the right directed against Muslims and Mexicans, who are mostly Christians, and we've seen xenophobia on the left directed against Tea Partiers and Midwesterners who (I believe) are mostly Protestants. We've also seen calls for violence from left-wing groups including Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
In Europe, there's been widely publicized xenophobia directed against Muslims and Roma, but that's far from the only case.
An interesting example is the UK and its Brexit vote, which was largely directed at immigration issues related to the EU rules about "freedom of movement." However, "freedom of movement" in this context has nothing to do with Syrian and African immigrants. It refers to EU citizens being able to move freely from EU country to EU country, and although immigration of Syrian refugees was a part of the Brexit motivation, the main issue was actually Christians from eastern European Union countries like Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.
So, if we want to speculate, it could be that part of the opposition to the EU by far-right groups in Poland is a reaction to the xenophobia of the British directed at Poland.
The phrase "European Project" refers to the efforts, begun in the 1950s, to take steps to prevent another massive war in Europe, following the devastation of two world wars that destroyed Europe. The war survivors fully understood that the massive destruction of Europe had been caused by nationalism and xenophobia. This lead to the Treaty of Rome in 1957, and eventually to the formation of the European Union.
The European Project worked well, in that there's been no major European war since then. However, the World War II survivors that signed the Treaty of Rome and created the European Union are now almost all gone. The younger generations have no clue how destructive nationalism and xenophobia can be, and how they can lead to the massive destruction of a new world war.
As the saying goes, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."
Each time that a World War II survivor dies or retires, and is replaced by a younger person, then there is one more person who has no clue about the destructiveness of xenophobia and nationalism.
In Japan, the xenophobia is directed at China. In China, the xenophobia is directed at Japan and the United States. In India, it's directed at Muslims in Pakistan. In Pakistan, it's directed at Hindus in India. So nationalism and xenophobia are not narrow attitudes directed at just one group, but are an organic part of every population during a generational Crisis era, and may be directed at any religious or ethnic group, depending on the country. Guardian (London) and Jewish Chronicle
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On July 6, President Trump gave a speech to a euphoric crowd in Warsaw Poland linking today's world to the 1930s, and compared the dangers that Poland faced then to the dangers that Europe faces today from terrorism:
"Under a double occupation the Polish people endured evils beyond description: the Katyn forest massacre, the occupations, the Holocaust, the Warsaw Ghetto and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the destruction of this beautiful capital city, and the deaths of nearly one in five Polish people. A vibrant Jewish population -- the largest in Europe -- was reduced to almost nothing after the Nazis systematically murdered millions of Poland's Jewish citizens, along with countless others, during that brutal occupation.In the summer of 1944, the Nazi and Soviet armies were preparing for a terrible and bloody battle right here in Warsaw. Amid that hell on earth, the citizens of Poland rose up to defend their homeland. I am deeply honored to be joined on stage today by veterans and heroes of the Warsaw Uprising. ...
This continent no longer confronts the specter of communism. But today we're in the West, and we have to say there are dire threats to our security and to our way of life. You see what's happening out there. They are threats. We will confront them. We will win. But they are threats.
We are confronted by another oppressive ideology -- one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all around the globe. America and Europe have suffered one terror attack after another. We're going to get it to stop.
During a historic gathering in Saudi Arabia, I called on the leaders of more than 50 Muslim nations to join together to drive out this menace which threatens all of humanity. We must stand united against these shared enemies to strip them of their territory and their funding, and their networks, and any form of ideological support that they may have. While we will always welcome new citizens who share our values and love our people, our borders will always be closed to terrorism and extremism of any kind.
We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism, and we will prevail. We cannot accept those who reject our values and who use hatred to justify violence against the innocent."
As I wrote at the time, Trump's speech is consistent with the principles and analysis provided by Generational Dynamics. That analysis was provided to Trump by his chief advisor at the time, Steve Bannon, who is an expert on Generational Dynamics, as well as on military and world history.
However, in July, Trump had an additional message for the people of Poland:
"We have to remember that our defense is not just a commitment of money, it is a commitment of will. Because as the Polish experience reminds us, the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail and be successful and get what you have to have. The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?"
Unfortunately, the right-wing groups in Warsaw are not listening to President Trump's message about defending our values. Marchers carrying signs that say "Clean Blood," "Pray for an Islamic Holocaust," and "White Europe, Europe must be white" may think that they're defending their borders, but they are not. Instead, these right-wing groups are writing a prescription for a new world war, and, once again, total destruction of Europe, this time with nuclear weapons.
Unfortunately, there's no way to stop this. As the WW II survivors continue to die off, xenophobia and nationalism will continue to increase on all sides, until some event triggers a small conflict that spirals into full-scale war and a world war. Those who are lucky (or unlucky) enough to survive will have plenty of time to contemplate what they did wrong.
Related: Donald Trump's speech in Warsaw Poland evokes the Clash of Civilizations (07-Jul-2017)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Nov-17 World View -- Poland's Independence Day march hijacked by right-wing 'White Nationalists' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Nov-2017)
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Cameroon's 84-year-old president Paul Biya exhibits same violence
as other African leaders
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Violence in the Southern Cameroons, the Anglophone (English-speaking) region of mostly Francophone (French-speaking) country, has been taking an increasingly violent turn in recent days, as pro-separatist activists start to retaliate for the government violence that began in November of last year.
In the past few days, Anglophone activists have ambushed and killed four Francophone security personnel, in retaliation for government violence that killed dozens people since October.
Peaceful protests began late last year when Anglophone lawyers protested that the legal and court systems are biased toward Francophones, with many laws passed without even being translated into English. They joined by teachers protesting that all courses in the schools had to be taught in French, and that any use of English was forbidden. The Francophone police responded by severely beating several protesters, and shooting two of them dead.
During the past year, the Francophone government has used increasingly harsh methods to end the peaceful protests. This included shutting down the internet in the Southern Cameroons for several months, causing businesses to close and making it impossible for individuals to bank or make purchases online, in the hope that shutting down the internet would convince the separatists that Cameroon is too nice a place to separate from.
On September 22, the violence took a dangerous turn, with small explosions targeting local security forces. Starting on October 1, when the Liberation Movement of Southern Cameroons issued a symbolic declaration of independence for the state of "Ambazonia," an increasingly violent Francophone government crackdown began. Hundreds of people were arrested, and helicopter gunships were used to fire on innocent civilians and kill them. At least 5,000 people have fled across the border to neighboring Nigeria to escape the violence. Reuters and Cameroon Concord and Guardian (Nigeria) and Today (Nigeria)
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I keep writing the same story over and over about leaders using violence to stay in power forever, whether it's Pierre Nkurunziza in Burundi, Paul Kagame in Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Joseph Kabila in DRC, or, outside of Africa, Bashar al-Assad in Syria. What these leaders all have in common is that their countries had an ethnic or tribal generational crisis civil war 30 or 40 years ago, and each leader and his cronies and thugs from the same tribe have stayed in power all 30-40 years after the war ended, It's now a generational Awakening or Unraveling era, and these leaders are using slaughter, rapes, jailings and atrocities against the other tribe to stay in power.
At the end of World War II, there was a British colony, the Anglophone "British Cameroons," and there was a French colony, 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."
Paul Biya was born in 1933, and became president in 1982. He consolidated his power by orchestrating a fake coup, giving him an opportunity to eliminate all his rivals, and making him, in effect, a dictator.
Biya's government has done some really stupid things in the past year, apparently in the belief that by directing increasing violence at the peaceful protesters, they'll stop peacefully protesting. Unfortunately that's partially true, but not in the way Biya wants, since some of them turn into violent protesters.
According to Carlson Anyangwe, a retired law professor from Anglophone Southern Cameroons:
"We don’t know why but when they shoot you, the body is taken away. Whether you’re dead or not, we don’t know. I’m sure if our people had arms, you would’ve heard of skirmishes between our people and the military. But because they don’t have guns or anything, they’re just protesting with their bare hands and taking the risk of being shot at and being killed."
Many people fear a full-scale civil war between the Anglophones and Francophones, but that's almost impossible right now in a generational Unraveling era, where there are still plenty of survivors of the bloody "UPC Revolt" still alive, but as these survivors die off, the level of violence is only going to increase. Mail and Guardian (South Africa) and Cameroon Concord
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Nov-17 World View -- Deadly violence increases in English-speaking regions of Cameroon thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Nov-2017)
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Can the Brexit decision be reversed? The author of the rule says it can.
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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It was always pretty obvious to anyone who was awake that the surprise passage of the Brexit referendum on June 23 of last year was a disaster in the making, and now, 17 months later, nobody has a clue how it's supposed to work, any more than anyone did when the referendum first passed.
There are four major issues (or groups of issues) that have to be resolved, and almost no progress has been made on reaching an agreement on any of them.
First, there's the trade issue, so that businesses in both the UK and the EU can make plans for conducting business in the future. Will there be trade tariffs? Will there be product quotas? How many new layers of bureaucracy will have to be created for a business in the UK to sell something in the EU, or vice-versa? Britain's prime minister Theresa May wants to start the trade negotiations right away. But the EU is refusing to even begin talking about trade, until the other three issues have been resolved.
So then May hoped that trade negotiations would begin by October, but they had to be postponed. So now May is hoping to begin trade negotiations at a UK-EU summit scheduled for December 14-15 in Brussels, but that depends on the other three.
So zero progress has been made on the first issue, the trade issue, in the last 17 months, and no date to start negotiations has been agreed.
Second, there's the so-called "divorce bill." This is the amount of money that the UK must pay to the EU to honor their existing commitments. This includes such things as pension payments to British nationals working for EU employers, and spending commitments for EU projects and social programs that Britain committed to and was contributing to before the Brexit referendum passed.
A lot of money is involved here. At first, the UK refused to pay anything. In recent months, Theresa May has said that she would "honor its financial obligations," but she has not committed to any figure. Leaks from the UK side began to mention figures around €20 billion. However, many EU officials are demanding €60-70 billion.
On Friday, Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, issued an ultimatum: The UK must "clarify" what it means by saying that it will "honor its financial commitments," and must do so within two weeks, or there will be no trade negotiations in December. Barnier is not demanding that the UK name a specific euro amount, but it must specify the algorithm by which a specific euro amount will be computed.
Barnier says that the amount of the divorce bill must be "clarified" within two weeks, because the EU-27 (the 27 non-UK members of the EU) will need time to agree to the amount, before trade negotiations can proceed.
It seems pretty clear that if May specifies either a euro amount or an algorithm, then some member states will say it's not enough. So if trade negotiations are to begin at the December 14 summit, then some way must be found to compromise on this issue, but in this generational Crisis era, the mood is for confrontation, not compromise.
So zero progress has been made on the second issue, the divorce bill, in the last 17 months, to the current date.
The third issue is citizens' rights -- what happens to EU nationals working in Britain, and to British nationals working in the EU? Issues like medical benefits, pensions, and freedom of travel will have to be resolved. The EU negotiator Michel Barnier has said that the UK has offered some "useful clarifications," and some progress has been made.
However, there is one citizens' rights issue that is far from being settled: the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Brussels in enforcing the rights of EU citizens living and working in the UK. Barnier is saying that the ECJ is essential in guaranteeing consistent application of case law in the UK and in the EU. But the people in the UK who favored Brexit in the first place HATE the ECJ and the European Parliament, and demand that Britain have control of its own laws. So the ECJ remains a major issue.
So SOME progress has been made on the third issue, citizens' rights, in the last 17 months, but with respect to the biggest part of it, the role of the ECJ, zero progress has been made. Sky News and Reuters and Guardian (London)
The fourth issue is the border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland (Ireland), which is part of the EU but not of the UK.
In times past, there was a "hard border" between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Those were the times of "The Troubles," and violent clashes between the indigenous ethnic Irish Gaelics (the Catholics) and the descendants of the English and Scottish invaders (the Protestants). These clashes were resolved by the Good Friday Agreement (the Belfast Agreement) that resolved many issues, and particularly eliminated the hard border, turning it into an "invisible border" that anyone can cross at any time. That makes a lot of sense today, when Ireland and Northern Ireland are both part of the EU, and hence of the single market shared by the EU and the UK.
Everyone seems to agree that a way must be found to avoid reinstating the hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. But the problem is that if there is no hard border, then any tariffs and customs duties between the EU and UK can be avoided simply by shipping products across the invisible border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
If there's going to be no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, then there has to be a hard border within the UK itself, between Northern Ireland and England.
So the EU is demanding, in effect, that there has to be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the island of England, Wales and Scotland. This proposal is infuriating many officials in Northern Ireland, and is rejected by David Davis, the UK's Brexit negotiator. Nobody has any idea how this will be resolved.
So zero progress has been made on the fourth issue, the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Irish Times and BBC
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It's been 17 months since the Brexit referendum, and so we are now halfway to March 29, 2019, when Britain will leave the EU, according to the rules specified in Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which Theresa May invoked on March 29 of this year. And almost nothing has been resolved on any of the major issues.
Perhaps the logjam can be broken by the time of the Brussels summit on December 14-15. This would surprise everyone.
It's more likely that none of the major issues will be resolved until total panic sets in late in 2018.
It's possible that no agreement on the issues will be met, and the "no deal" option will occur in March 2019. In that case, the UK and the EU like any two stranger nations, and will follow the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules for trade that every nation follows. In this case, at the very least, there will be a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
As more and more people realize that this entire Brexit process is insane, a third option is suddenly being discussed: The possibility of canceling the entire Brexit project and remaining in the EU.
John Kerr, one of the authors of Article 50, was British ambassador to the EU from 1990-95. He is accusing Theresa May of misleading the British people by telling them that the Brexit decision is irrevocable, and that it can be revoked if Britain decides to unilaterally scrap divorce talks.
In a speech on Friday, Kerr said:
"While the divorce talks proceed, the parties are still married. Reconciliation is still possibleWe still have all the rights of a member-state, including the right to change our minds. The British people have the right to know this – they should not be misled.
A political decision has been made, in this country, to maintain that there can be no going back. Actually, the country still has a free choice about whether to proceed."
In an interview, Kerr added:
"The Brexiters create the impression that is because of the way article 50 is written that having sent in a letter on 29 March 2017 we must leave automatically on 29 March 2019 at the latest. That is not true. It is misleading to suggest that a decision that we are taking autonomously in this country about the timing of our departure, we are required to take by a provision of EU treaty law."
According to an analyst I heard on RFI, if the UK tries to use this as a bargaining ploy, then it will be rejected by the EU-27. But if the UK sincerely wants to remain in the EU, then it will be approved. Reuters and Guardian (London) and Bloomberg
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Nov-17 World View -- European Union Brexit negotiator gives Britain a two-week ultimatum thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(11-Nov-2017)
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All Saudis ordered to leave Lebanon, as Hariri's fate is unknown
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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While there aren't concerns that Saudi warplanes will be flying over Lebanon tomorrow, the people of Lebanon are becoming increasingly anxious over what Saudi Arabia is planning, in view of the actions already taken.
On Thursday, Saudi Arabia ordered all Saudis in Lebanon to leave immediately. Kuwait and United Arab Emirates (UAE) followed suit immediately. Bahrain had made a similar statement earlier.
This followed last week's completely unexpected resignation of Lebanon's prime minister, Saad al-Hariri, a resignation made all the more shocking by the fact that al-Hariri flew to Saudi Arabia and issued the resignation announcement over television from the Saudi capital city Riyadh.
In his resignation speech, al-Hariri denounced Iran and Iran's puppet organization Hezbollah for sowing strife in countries around the region. He also said that he feared that they were planning to assassinate him, as they had assassinated his father with a bomb in 2005.
It's widely suspected among the people of Lebanon that al-Hariri is being held in Saudi Arabia against his will. In Lebanon's capital city Beirut, politicians of all parties, including al-Hariri's own party, are demanding that Saudi Arabia release him and allow him to return to Lebanon and explain why he resigned. Government officials are saying that they will not accept al-Hariri's resignation until he returns and reaffirms it.
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir on Thursday explained in an interview what was going on from the Saudi point of view. He blamed the situation on Iran and Hezbollah, and on Hezbollah's increasing control of the government of Lebanon:
"Hezbollah put roadblocks in front of every initiative that Prime Minister Hariri tried to implement. Hezbollah has pretty much hijacked the Lebanese system. It has been the instrument that Iran used to dominate Lebanon, the instrument that Iran used to interfere with Syria, with Hamas, and with the Houthis. We see Hezbollah’s mischief all over the region. Hezbollah has been responsible for smuggling weapons into Bahrain. Hezbollah is involved in criminal activity, such as drug dealing and money laundering.We are saying that the world has to make sure that we designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. There can be no difference between a political wing and a militant wing. The world needs to take action in terms of curtailing Hezbollah's activities, and the world needs to push back against Hezbollah wherever they operate. We cannot allow Lebanon to be a platform from which harm comes to Saudi Arabia.
The Lebanese people have been dominated by Hezbollah and we need to find a way to help the Lebanese people come out from under the thumb of Hezbollah. We cannot allow Lebanon to be a base from which attacks against Saudi Arabia can take place and we are urging the Lebanese government in particular to take firm and resolute action against Hezbollah."
Lebanese government officials, speaking anonymously, reject Al-Jubeir's claim:
"Keeping Hariri with restricted freedom in Riyadh is an attack on Lebanese sovereignty. Our dignity is his dignity. We will work with (foreign) states to return him to Beirut."
Lebanon will ask foreign governments to pressure Saudi Arabia to release al-Hariri.
What the people of Lebanon fear most is that their country will now join Syria as the site of a proxy war between Shias, led by Iran, versus Sunnis, led by Saudi Arabia. Arab News and Newsweek and Reuters
Saudi Arabia imposed land, sea and air blockades on Yemen, preventing aid organizations from delivering food and medicines.
Yemen has been engulfed in a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthi rebels since 2014. The war has already killed more than 10,000 and displaced millions, with around 500,000 cholera cases reported in the country since the worst outbreak in decades started in April. Saudi Arabia has been bogged down in the war, making little progress, and has already been accused of creating a humanitarian disaster.
On Saturday last week, the Houthis launched a ballistic missile that reached the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, about 800 km from the Yemen border. The Saudis were able to intercept it with with a surface-to-air Patriot missile, but called it a 'dangerous escalation' in the war. The missile attack has been considered a game-changer in the war because it was clearly an Iranian ballistic missile, and because of the distance it traveled and its accuracy.
On Monday, Saudi Arabia responded by blockading all air, land and sea routes into and out of Yemen, in order to prevent Iran from sending weapons into Iran.
Yemen, which already was facing mass starvation and cholera cases, imports 90% of all its food, and 100% of all its medicines. Humanitarian organizations that have been supplying food and medicines are now blocked from deliveries into Yemen.
On Wednesday, UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said that the blockade would cause the worst famine since World War II:
"It will not be like the famine that we saw in South Sudan earlier in the year, where tens of thousands of people were affected. It will not be like the famine which cost 250,000 people their lives in Somalia in 2011. It will be the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims."
Saudi Arabia's young crown prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud has been taking one extreme measure after another. He engineered the air, sea and land blockade of Qatar in July, he engineered the isolation of Lebanon, in the last week he arranged for hundreds of high-level government and financial officials to be arrested, and possibly have their assets confiscated, and he's engineered the air, sea and land blockade of Yemen, putting millions of people at risk of starvation.
Saudi Arabia is in a generational Crisis era and apparently is in a state of complete desperation in fighting Iran, and we can really see that in its actions, which are at the most extreme levels of atrocities. We've also already seen this in Syria, where the country's sociopathic Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad has used Sarin gas on innocent Sunni civilians, and with the help of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, has committed genocide against innocent Sunni women and children in Syria.
And now it seems likely that Lebanon, which has always been a fragile country anyway, will be pulled into the same Sunni-Shia proxy battles as the other countries. In this generational Crisis era, the Mideast civilization seems to be collapsing, plummeting into the same pit of atrocities, slaughter and famine that has plagued it for centuries, possibly for millennia.
Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major regional war, pitting Sunnis versus Shias, Jews versus Arabs, and various ethnic groups against each other. Generational Dynamics predicts that in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, the "axis" of China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will be pitted against the "allies," the US, India, Russia and Iran. BBC and CNN and Washington Post
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Nov-17 World View -- Saudi Arabia blockades Yemen, threatening millions to die in famine thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Nov-2017)
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Trump's speech targeted at China
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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President Donald Trump, speaking to South Korea’s National Assembly on Wednesday, issued a stern warning to North Korea's president Kim Jong-un that his continued development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles did not protect his regime, but instead the regime into extreme peril:
"All the while, the regime has pursued nuclear weapons with the deluded hope that it could blackmail its way to the ultimate objective. And that objective we are not going to let it have. We are not going to let it have. All of Korea is under that spell, divided in half. South Korea will never allow what's going on in North Korea to continue to happen. ...To this day, it continues to launch missiles over the sovereign territory of Japan and all other neighbors, test nuclear devices, and develop ICBMs to threaten the United States itself. The regime has interpreted America’s past restraint as weakness. This would be a fatal miscalculation. This is a very different administration than the United States has had in the past. ...
Today, I hope I speak not only for our countries, but for all civilized nations, when I say to the North: Do not underestimate us, and do not try us. We will defend our common security, our shared prosperity, and our sacred liberty. ...
America’s men and women in uniform have given their lives in the fight against Nazism, imperialism, Communism and terrorism.
America does not seek conflict or confrontation, but we will never run from it. History is filled with discarded regimes that have foolishly tested America’s resolve.
Anyone who doubts the strength or determination of the United States should look to our past, and you will doubt it no longer. We will not permit America or our allies to be blackmailed or attacked. We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. We will not be intimidated. And we will not let the worst atrocities in history be repeated here, on this ground, we fought and died so hard to secure."
In addition, did everything possible to make his warning as personally insulting as possible to Kim himself:
"North Korea is a country ruled as a cult. At the center of this military cult is a deranged belief in the leader’s destiny to rule as parent-protector over a conquered Korean Peninsula and an enslaved Korean people. ...I also have come here to this peninsula to deliver a message directly to the leader of the North Korean dictatorship: The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer. They are putting your regime in grave danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face."
Mainstream media reaction to the speech as usual was incoherent, with comments festooned with the usual snarky remarks about Trump himself. Nobody writing about the speech seemed to understand what Trump's strategic purpose was, and many articles concluded that it was a wasted speech because it won't stop North Korea from continuing its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles -- which it certainly won't. White House and Washington Post and CNN and The Atlantic
There's a paragraph quoted above that's worth repeating:
"America’s men and women in uniform have given their lives in the fight against Nazism, imperialism, Communism and terrorism.America does not seek conflict or confrontation, but we will never run from it. History is filled with discarded regimes that have foolishly tested America’s resolve."
Everybody knows that it North Korea attacks the U.S., then the regime will be destroyed. So Trump was making this statement not for North Korea's benefit, but for China's benefit. Trump is reminding China that Japan made a disastrous mistake attacking the United States in 1941, and that the US defeated Japan and also saved China.
The reason that most reporters are completely confused about Trump's strategy is because they don't understand Generational Dynamics. As regular readers know, I've worked with Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon off and on for almost ten years, and Bannon is an expert on world and military history, and he's also an expert on Generational Dynamics. Some news reports say that Bannon still talks regularly with Trump, so it's not surprising that Trump's foreign policy this year has almost completely consistent with the Generational Dynamics analysis. If you want to understand Trump's strategy, then you have to understand Generational Dynamics.
Trump and Bannon are well aware of the following:
China has previously said that if the US preemptively attacks North Korea, then China will defend it, but won't defend it if North Korea attacks first.
Testing nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles and flying them over Japan, is already an act of war, and exploding one over the Pacific, as has been threatened, could threaten any aircraft or sea vessels in the area, and the radiation could be carried by the winds to any country bordering the Pacific. Any of these tests could be interpreted as a nuclear attack by North Korea requiring a military response, and if China keeps its promise, won't retaliate. However, this situation would certainly threaten the security of China.
Chinese media have been discussing China's "Plan 2025" to overtake the United States and have worldwide hegemony by 2025. In a recent interview, Steve Bannon described China as "an enemy of incalculable power, not a strategic partner and we have to understand that." He summarized Plan 2025 as having several objectives:
Trump's speech was a warning to China that its plan for world hegemony is going to be a lot more difficult than they expect. Trump may even hope to persuade China to choose a different path, but that can't happen. Generational Dynamics predicts that the world is headed for a Clash of Civilizations World War III, pitting the US, India, Russia, Iran and the West versus China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries. Breitbart and South China Morning Post
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Nov-17 World View -- Donald Trump in Seoul issues stern warning to North Korea -- and to China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Nov-2017)
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US and Niger dispute the facts about the four soldiers' deaths
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Following the deaths on October 4 of four American soldiers in Niger on the border with Mali, the U.S. is planning an expansion of the American military presence in Africa's Sahel region (the strip of Africa just below the Sahara desert, separating the Arab north from Black Africa to the south), as part of its counter-terrorism strategy in Africa.
The planned military expansions had been discussed earlier, but the events of October 4 gave them increased visibility and impetus.
The Trump administration said last week that it would contribute an initial $60 million to the newly constituted "G5 Sahel" counter-terrorism force, led by France and containing 5,000 troops from five Sahel nations -- Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania. However, the administration is demanding that other countries also contribute money to the effort, which is considerably short of its budget of about half a billion dollars.
The second development is that the US has convinced the government of Niger to permit the US to operate armed drones over Niger airspace. Niger had refused permission in the past, but acquiesced after it was argued that an armed drone could have saved the lives of the American soldiers on October 4.
The US had already committed $100 million as the initial construction costs, including fuel and equipment, of an American drone base in Agadez, in central Niger. According to an American military spokesman in September:
"At the request of, and in close coordination with, the Government of Niger, United States Africa Command is establishing a temporary, expeditionary cooperative security location in Agadez, Niger.Agadez is an ideal, central location to enable ISR collection (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) to face the security threat across the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin region."
Niger's government had approved the drone base only for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, using unarmed drones. But last week's announcement permits the use of armed drones, allowing the drones to protect American forces in operations such as those on October 4.
The United States already has 800 troops in Niger, in a base near the capital city Niamey in western Niger. Eventually, these forces will be relocated to the new base in Agadez. Washington Post and Reuters and Reuters (30-Sep)
As more details come out about the deaths of the four US soldiers and five Nigerien soldiers on October 4, it appears that they were the targets of a very well-planned ambush, apparently motivated by a desire for revenge.
Note: "Nigerien" refers to Niger, while "Nigerian" refers to Nigeria.
A team of 12 American and 30 Nigerien troops were on a supposedly low-risk reconnaissance mission, where chances of contact with militants were considered unlikely. They were leaving the border village of Tongo Tongo, when the village chief asked their help in getting medicine to treat sick children. There was a 40 minute delay, time that was used by the militants to set up the ambush.
About 100 yards outside the village, they heard gunshots, and the militants sent a herd of cattle toward them, generating large clouds of dust, allowing the militants to see them, while they were blinded by the dust. There were about 50 militants, using heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles.
However, there is a dispute between the American and Nigerien militaries about the nature of the mission. The American military insists that it was purely a reconnaissance mission of a type that had been performed many times before without incident.
But Niger’s Defense Minister Kalla Moutari described the operation as "a reconnaissance mission, but also to neutralize the enemy." Specifically, the mission aimed to detain and question Doundou Chefou, an actively sought jihadist considered to be particularly dangerous.
According to a senior US intelligence official, "They were up there so long on a mission that morphed, they were spotted, surveilled and ultimately hit." Washington Post and France 24
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Nov-17 World View -- US expands military counter terrorism efforts in Africa after death of soldiers in Niger thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Nov-2017)
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Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe sacks the VP so that his wife can succeed him
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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On Sunday, the electoral commission of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced that a presidential election will be held on December 23, 2018. Unfortunately it's hard to see this announcement as anything but a joke, although the same kind of joke seems to occur in one African country after another.
DRC president Joseph Kabila was supposed to step down on December 19 of last year, but he pulled a stunt worthy of any African leader: He did everything possible to prevent new elections from taking place, and then refused to step down because there hadn't been any elections. There was a threat of civil war in DRC, but the Catholic Church intervened and brokered an agreement: Elections would be held in December of 2017 to choose Kabila's successor, and this time Kabila would really step down.
It was always obvious that the agreement was a farce, and that Kabila would ignore the agreement. That has in fact happened, because once again Kabila did all he could to prevent new elections from taking place, and now with December 2017 upon us, there will be no elections.
So now Kabila's election commission has announced that the election will take place in December 2018. So are we going to see another year where Kabila prevents a new election, and then makes some new agreement for an election in December 2019?
The norm for the leaders of many African countries is to refuse to step down, to misappropriate huge amounts of money from the treasury and from foreign aid to pay money to his political cronies and thugs to buy their loyalty, to pay money to buy weapons to be used against the political opposition, and then to target his political enemies with mass slaughter, mass atrocities, mass rapes and mass torture, in order to stay in power.
That's certainly what's happening in DRC. As we reported in July, in the 16 years he's been in office, he and his family and cronies have taken control of dozens of business, and more than 71,000 hectares (175,444 acres) of farmland, own diamond mines, a part of the country's largest mobile phone network, companies that mine mineral deposits, gold and limestone, a luxury hotel, stakes in an airline, a share of the country's banks, and a fast-food franchise.
If he allowed an election to take place and the opposition won, then he would undoubtedly begin to lose control of that vast wealth, and might be thrown in jail for corruption. So we can be pretty certain that Kabila will not allow an election in December 2018, or ever -- or at least not a rigged election. However, the Trump administration has told Kabila that an election must be held by December 2018, or international aid will be cut off.
The opposition stronghold is the central province of Kasai, where more than 3,000 people have been killed in escalating violence blamed on a government-sponsored militia. The UN has identified more than 80 mass graves and said it had found toddlers with limbs chopped off and pregnant women with their bellies sliced open, their unborn babies mutilated.
The violence has resulted in 3.9 million people forced to flee their homes to escape the violence. Hundreds of thousands have fled to Zambia, Angola and other neighboring countries as refugees, creating a humanitarian disaster in those countries, and threatening to destabilize the entire region. Deutsche Welle and The Citizen (South Africa) and UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR)
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What Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe is doing is just a variation of what Joseph Kabila is doing in DRC, but the intended outcome is roughly the same.
Mugabe is 93 years old, and has used violence, rape and torture to stay in power for 37 years, but even he knows that he can't be president forever. Mugabe's wife, 52 year old Grace Ntombizodwa Mugabe, said earlier this year that Mugabe would continue governing from the grave:
"One day when God decides that Mugabe dies, we will have his corpse appear as a candidate on the ballot paper,You will see people voting for Mugabe as a corpse. I am seriously telling you — just to show people how people love their president."
However, Grace now has another solution -- she will replace Mugabe as president.
Grace Mugabe and the vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa have been feuding, and recently he accused her of poisoning him. On Saturday, Grace Mugabe called Mnangagwa the “root cause of factionalism," and she accused the vice-president’s supporters of booing her while she gave a speech. She said, "What if I get in [as vice-president]? What’s wrong with that? Am I not in the party? If people know that I work hard and they want to work with me, what is wrong with that?"
So on Sunday, Mugabe fired vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa, clearing the way for his wife Grace to become vice president, and then succeed him as president.
Mugabe is from the Shona tribe, and in the early 1980s, he launched a massive genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign against his traditional tribal enemies, the Ndebele tribe. During that campaign, known as Operation Gukurahundi, accomplished with the help of training by North Koreans, tens of thousands of people, mostly from the Ndebele tribe, were raped, tortured and slaughtered.
In 1999, Mugabe adopted his "indigenization" program. At that time, Zimbabwe was considered the breadbasket of Africa, second only to Kenya in food production. Mugabe threw all the white farm owners out of the country, and turned the farms over to his incompetent cronies and thugs in the Shona tribe. By 2003, Zimbabwe was starving, and the number of Zimbabweans dying of starvation continued to grow. By 2008, the official rate of inflation was 231 million percent. ( "24-Feb-2014 World View -- Mass murderer Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has 90th birthday")
So Kabila and Mugabe are cut from the same cloth -- destroying the economy with massive corruption and using massive slaughter, rape and torture to stay in power. But whereas Kabila used the trick of preventing elections in order to stay in power, Mugabe is using the trick of getting his wife to replace him, and effectively rule the country from his grave. Once again, it's hard to see this as anything but a joke.
Unfortunately, we've seen the same sort of thing in one form or another in other African countries, including South Sudan, Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, Cameroon, and Eritrea, as well as in non-African countries, including Syria and Thailand. The methods vary, and the levels of violence vary, but the outcomes are always the same -- to keep the élites in power by any means possible. Reuters and Guardian (London) and The Herald (Zimbabwe) and AFP (18-Feb-2017)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Nov-17 World View -- Democratic Republic of Congo issues farcical call for elections in December 2018 thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Nov-2017)
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Yemen's Houthi missile attack on Riyadh called a 'dangerous escalation'
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Following the shocking resignation on Saturday of Lebanon's prime minister Saad Hariri, fears are growing of instability and street protests. Hariri played a crucial role in the government as a Sunni Muslim, balancing a Syriac Maronite Catholic president and a Shia Muslim speaker of parliament, both of whom were closely allied with Hezbollah's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The fears that that at best the government will simply be unable to make any decisions at all, as had happened in recent years, and at worst that street protesters will riot and blame Nasrallah for the country's severe economic problems.
Some people fear that Nasrallah will deflect attention from himself by starting a war with Israel.
Nasrallah is calling for calm, and for avoiding street protests:
"This created a state of anxiety in Lebanon and especially with the rumors that accompanied it. We call for avoiding a return to the previous tensions or to any street protests. ... All of us must remain calm within legal frameworks ... and I don't think that there is any party to clan in Lebanon whose interests are in Lebanon returning to chaotic conditions of the past."
However, the Foreign Ministry of Bahrain issued a statement calling on its citizens to leave Lebanon:
"Due to the current circumstances and developments in the Republic of Lebanon, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requests all citizens of the Kingdom of Bahrain, currently present in the Republic of Lebanon, to leave immediately and with utmost care and caution.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also stresses that all citizens should not travel to the Republic of Lebanon at all, for the sake of their safety, in order to avoid encountering any risks as a result of these developments."
Nasrallah said that the reasons for the resignation were not understood in Lebanon, and that anyway they weren't Lebanese reasons. He offered as proof the fact that Hariri traveled to Saudi Arabia to resign. "The shape of the resignation proves that Hariri was forced to do so and that the resignation was a Saudi decision." Arab News and Al Manar (Lebanon, Hezbollah) and Bahrain Foreign Ministry
Saudi Arabia is calling a ballistic missile attack by Houthi militias in Yemen a "dangerous escalation" of the war in Yemen, in which a Saudi-led coalition is fighting against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia blames Iran for the missile attack.
On Saturday, the Houthis launched a ballistic missile that reached the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, about 800 km from the Yemen border. The Houthis have been regularly launching missiles into Saudi territory, but Saturday's missile attack is considered a game-changer because of the distance it traveled and its accuracy. The Saudis intercepted the ballistic missile with a surface-to-air Patriot missile, which caused it to shatter into fragments near the airport, before it could reach its target. There were no casualties.
The Saudi-led coalition responded to the "dangerous escalation" with a major escalation of its own. The Saudis have shut down all of Yemen's land, sea and air ports, and have launched airstrikes, supposedly the largest barrage since the beginning of the war, on Houthi targets in Yemen's capital city Sanaa.
Yemen has been engulfed in war since September 2014, when Houthi fighters attacked the government in Sanaa and overthrew the internationally recognized government. The war has already killed more than 10,000 and displaced millions, with around 500,000 cholera cases reported in the country since the worst outbreak in decades started in April. Saudi Arabia has been accused of creating a humanitarian disaster. Reuters and Al Jazeera
The 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by far the youngest ruler that Saudi Arabia has had in decades. He is bringing about vast changes, very quickly, but opening up the country to instability.
This weekend, there have been a series of crises in rapid succession. First, Saad Hariri resigned as Lebanon's prime minister while in Riyadh. Hours later, the Houthi missile attack on Riyadh occurred, called a "dangerous escalation" by the Saudis, who responded with their own escalation in the form of port closings and a barrage of airstrikes.
Next, Saudi Arabia announced a major purge of political and business élites, involving the arrest of 11 princes, four ministers, and dozens of former ministers accused of corruption. Just as the resignation of Hariri has raised questions about the stability of Lebanon's government, the size of the purge has raised questions about the stability and predictability of the Saudi government.
Saudi officials were still reeling from those three events, when there was news that Saudi Prince Mansour bin Muqrin was killed in a helicopter crash, when traveling near the Yemen border. There were immediate concerns that the helicopter was shot down by a Houthi missile, but no explanation has been given, and the Houthis themselves haven't claimed credit, suggesting that the crash was not related to the Yemen war. Several other Saudi officials were killed in the same crash.
If this were the 1990s, or even the early 2000s, when the Mideast was relatively stable, even these four events could be handled as a matter of course. But ever since the "Arab Spring" of 2011, the Mideast has become increasingly unstable almost continuously.
Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major regional war, pitting Sunnis versus Shias, Jews versus Arabs, and various ethnic groups against each other. Generational Dynamics predicts that in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, the "axis" of China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will be pitted against the "allies," the US, India, Russia and Iran. Jordan Times and CNN and Al Jazeera
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Nov-17 World View -- Saudi Arabia and Lebanon face increasing instability as crises multiply thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Nov-2017)
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Lebanon enters the Sunni/Shia front line between Iran and Saudi Arabia
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Saad Hariri, the prime minister of Lebanon, shocked the country and the region on Saturday by announcing his resignation as prime minister of Lebanon from a television studio in Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia.
The main points of his announcement were:
Hariri's exact words are as follows:
"You are the people of a great Lebanon, with its traditions, values and bright history. You were the beacon of science, knowledge and democracy until you became governed by groups that did not care for your wellbeing. They were supported by forces outside the borders, which implanted among the people those who wished to cause strife, and formed a government inside a government. This ended with these forces controlling branches of government and obtaining the final say in the affairs of Lebanon and the [lives of the] Lebanese.I refer, frankly and unequivocally, to Iran, which plants sedition, devastation and ruin, which is attested to by its interference in the internal affairs of the Arab nation, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen – driven by a deep hatred of the Arab nation and an overwhelming desire to destroy and control it. Unfortunately, I found the sons who put their hand in [Iran’s] hand, and openly declare their loyalty to them and seek to kidnap Lebanon from its Arab and international environment, with its values and ideals. I mean Hezbollah, which is the arm of Iran not only in Lebanon but also in other Arab countries.
To the great Lebanese people: over the past decades, Hezbollah has unfortunately managed to impose a fait accompli in Lebanon using the force of its weapons, which are alleged to be solely for the resistance [to Israel]. ...
We live in an atmosphere similar to the atmosphere that prevailed before the assassination of martyr Rafiq Hariri, and I have sensed that someone has been targeting me.
Based on the principles I inherited from the late martyr Rafiq Hariri and the principles of the Great Cedar Revolution, and because I do not want to let the Lebanese down or accept any deviations from these principles, I declare my resignation as Lebanese prime minister. I am convinced that the will of the Lebanese is stronger and their resolve is stronger. They are able to overcome these forces from inside or outside. I hope that Lebanon will be the strongest free independent country, with no authority over it except for its great people, governed by law and protected by one army and one weapon."
Reuters and Daily Star (Lebanon) and Naharnet (Lebanon)
Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in 2005 because of his opposition to control of Lebanon's government by Syria's leader Bashar al-Assad. Public and international pressure forced Syria to withdraw completely from Lebanon, but this only strengthened Hezbollah, which was and is the puppet of Iran and Syria.
Saad Hariri clearly does not have the charisma and leadership qualities of his father, and is still in the shadow of the explosive death of his father 12 years ago. He shares his father's belief that Lebanon should be run by Lebanon's people, not by Iran and Syria. So with Hezbollah continually gaining strength in Lebanon's government, Hariri became the most vocal opponent of Hezbollah. That could explain why he felt that his life would be in danger if he made the announcement in Beirut, and felt it was necessary to announce his resignation in a foreign country - Saudi Arabia.
However, his political opponents are saying that the decision to resign on television in Riyadh is inexplicable except as a plot by Saudi Arabia. Iran's officials are saying that the resignation was engineered by US president Donald Trump and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. It seems unlikely that Trump was involved, but it's quite possible that the Saudis strongly urged Hariri to step down.
Lebanon's constitution requires that the three main offices be occupied by specific sectarian groups.
Hariri became prime minister in 2016, under a deal where Michel Aoun, a Maronite Catholic and close ally of Hezbollah, because president. When Hariri took office, he promised quite optimistically to end sectarian divisions.
That was never possible anyway, but the war in Syria only made things worse. As Iran's puppet militia, Hezbollah became Iran's major fighting force in Syria, and also took control Lebanon's national army.
After Hariri's resignation on Saturday, it falls to the Beirut government to find a new Sunni Muslim prime minister. If, as many believe, Hariri resigned because of pressure from Saudi Arabia, then the Saudis won't stop there, and will pressure other prominent Sunnis in Lebanon not to take the job. What many people fear is that Lebanon's government faces years of chaos, just as it did following the explosive death of Rafiq Hariri in 2005.
However, it's worth pointing out that after 2005, many people thought that Lebanon was close to a new civil war. During the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, which took place on Lebanon's soil, I quoted Lebanon's President Émile Geamil Lahoud as saying:
"Believe me, what we get from [Israeli bombers] is nothing compared to [what would happen] if there is an internal conflict [a new civil war] in Lebanon. So our thanks comes when we are united, and we are really united, and the national army is doing its work according to the government, and the resistance [Hezbollah] is respected in the whole Arab world from the population point of view. And very highly respected in Lebanon as well."
This was Lahoud expressing the fear shared by all survivors of the last war that its horrors would be repeated. As I pointed out at the time, Lebanon was in a generational Awakening era, with the survivors of the last crisis civil war still alive, so there was no chance of a new civil war.
Over ten years have passed since then, and most of those survivors are still alive, and so there's still no chance of a new civil war (unless the politicians force one to occur, as Bashar al-Assad has done in Syria).
The larger picture is that Saturday's resignation puts Lebanon squarely in between Saudi Arabia and Iran and their battles for regional hegemony. Saudi Arabia is fighting Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, with no end in sight. Saudi Arabia has led this year's land, sea and air blockade of Qatar, giving Qatar's relationship with Iran as one of the reasons. And the Saudis are very anxious about Iran on the cusp of a major victory in the war in Syria by establishing control of a swath of land all along the "Shia Crescent," from Iran, through Iraq, through Syria, and then on to Lebanon in one direction, and the Mediterranean Sea in another direction.
In Syria, the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) is losing territory rapidly, and it appears that its total defeat is only weeks away. The defeat of ISIS will free up Iran and Hezbollah to focus on its other enemies -- Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Ever since the ironically named Arab Spring began in 2011, we've seen chaos and war spring up in one Arab country after another -- Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Now Lebanon may join the list, as the end of ISIS and the resignation of Hariri completely change the political landscape across the region.
We've pointed out in the past that all the various armies and militias fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria now have nothing better to do than start fighting each other. In defeating ISIS, the Turks, the Iranians, the Kurds, the Shia militias, Hezbollah and the Syrian rebel militias have all achieved a famous victory, and now they're going to celebrate by killing each other.
As I'm writing this article on Saturday evening ET, there's late news that the Houthis in Yemen have launched a ballistic missile that reached the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, about 800 km from the Yemen border. The fact that the Houthis now have these medium-range ballistic missiles, probably supplied by Iran, that can reach as far as Riyadh is a game-changed in the Yemen war, and could lead to a further escalation in the region.
As regular readers know, Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major regional war, pitting Sunnis versus Shias, Jews versus Arabs, and various ethnic groups against each other. Generational Dynamics predicts that in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, the "axis" of China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will be pitted against the "allies," the US, India, Russia and Iran. Daily Star (Lebanon) and CNN and Debka and Al Jazeera
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Nov-17 World View -- Saad Hariri shocks Lebanon by resigning as PM while in Saudi Arabia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Nov-2017)
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Socialist Venezuela may have reached the end of its economic road
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In a nationally televised speech on Thursday, Venezuela's Socialist president Nicolás Maduro Moros announced that Venezuela would be "refinancing and restructuring" and "reformatting" its debt:
"I decree a refinancing and restructuring of external debt and all Venezuelan payments. We’re going to a complete reformatting. To find an equilibrium, and to cover the necessities of the country, the investments of the country. ...We have to pay the amount of US$1.121 billion from the Pdvsa 2017 bonus and we have the money to fulfill this obligation," the head of state announced, adding that the government also has resources to continue providing necessities to Venezuelans.
We have the money for this payment, and we also have the money for raw materials, medicines and food. ...
I am naming a special presidential commission led by Vice President Tareck El Aissami to begin refinancing and restructuring all of Venezuela’s external debt and (begin) the fight against the financial persecution of our country."
As various articles have pointed out, this announcement by Maduro didn't make sense, and was contradictory. Refinancing and restructuring are two different things. Refinancing implies an orderly market transaction, while restructuring implies a default and bankruptcy. Nobody knows what "reformatting" is.
Some analysts are suggesting that Maduro is in so far over his head that he doesn't know what he's talking about.
The "special presidential commission" will be led by Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who is under sanctions by the US Treasury Department for protecting drug lords and overseeing a network exporting thousands of kilograms of cocaine. El Aissami announced that his government will hold a bondholders meeting on November 13 to reaffirm Venezuela's commitment to paying off its debts.
Maduro says that Venezuela would make a $1.1 billion payment that's due now. That payment was made, and if it hadn't been, then Venezuela would be in default, but it still makes no sense to make a payment just before refinancing or restructuring.
Finally, Maduro says that even with this payment, the country has the money for raw materials, medicines and food. Actually it doesn't. Maduro has been starving the people and the hospitals for years, and that isn't going to change.
Venezuela got into this situation by faithfully following Socialist principles. When oil prices were high, Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chávez used the overflowing treasury and even borrowed more money to buy votes with enormously expensive social programs. When oil prices crashed in 2014, Maduro paid off debts by incurring huge new debts. Telesur Tv and Reuters and Bloomberg and Washington Post and DealBreaker
All told, there’s $143 billion in foreign debt owed by the government and state entities. Maduro would like to borrow more money, to incur even larger debts to make payments on current debts, but is unable to do so since August 28, when US president Donald Trump imposed sanctions that prevent further borrowing.
The International Monetary Fund said last month it expects inflation in Venezuela to reach 2,350% in 2018, up from about 500% in 2017. This has made Venezuela's currency, the bolivar, almost completely worthless.
Because Venezuela's bonds have been high risk for some time, they've been paying very high yields (interest rates) - almost 10 times as higher than those of neighboring Colombia. Investors have purchased these bonds hoping for big returns. Big institutional investors in the United States include T Rowe Price, Ashmore Investment Management, BlackRock Investment Management, and Goldman Sachs.
Because of US sanctions, Maduro can't borrow any more money from Western companies "Today, if Venezuela wants to go out to the world to refinance one of these bonds we have to pay, it can’t. It’s prohibited by the global financial dictatorship of the North American empire."
Maduro could borrow more from China and Russia, which are not covered by US sanctions. However, Venezuela already owes $37.2 billion to both countries, and both countries are said to be demanding economic reforms.
Venezuela is sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world, but oil production under the Socialist government has fallen almost 3% this year. The disastrous Socialist economy is in disarray, and its refineries run at less than 50% of the available capacity, because the oil companies are being run by Maduro's Socialist cronies, not by people who actually know how to run an oil company. In the past, Venezuela has borrowed money from Russia and China via an oil-for-loan agreement, but oil production has been falling because of the incompetence of Maduro's Socialist cronies.
In the 1980s, the Soviet Union took on the task of supplying money to Socialist Cuba. Now Russia has to decide whether to take on the task of supplying money to Socialist Venezuela, which has three times the population, at a time when Russia's own economy is in despair.
So Maduro has three choices.
First, he can convince Russia to bail him out again, and continue bailing him out forever into the future.
Second, he can simply stop paying, and go into default. In this case, his creditors will go after the country's foreign assets, including Citgo and tankers that dock at foreign ports.
And third, he can try to convince Western investors, along with the IMF, to bail him out. They would only agree to this if Maduro agreed to massive economic reforms, and probably Maduro himself would have to step down.
Recent history tells us that Russia will bail him out at least one more time, but even Russia may be losing patience. With Tareck El Aissami's meeting with bondholders scheduled for November 13, we may have an answer soon. Reuters and Bloomberg and Economist
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Nov-17 World View -- Socialist Venezuela may or may not have declared bankruptcy on Thursday thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Nov-2017)
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Oklahoma! - The farmer and the cowboy should be friends
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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I've written many times that many ethnic wars are based on fundamental clashes between farmer tribes and herder tribes. in country after country, there a classic and recurring battle between herders and farmers, I've described in Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, and even America in the 1800s. The farmers accuse the herders of letting the cattle eat their crops, while the herders accuse the farmers of planting on land that's meant for grazing. If the farmers put up fences, then the herders knock them down.
In Nigeria, it's estimated that 2,500 people were killed and move than 62,000 people lost their homes in 2016 in just four provinces, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa and Benue states. The federal government lost $13.7 billion in revenue as a result of these conflicts. According to former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar: "There is a breakdown of communal trust, conflict resolution mechanisms and these conflicts have become deadly," and "the current situation is threatening the fragile peace in the nation."
A report last month from the International Crisis Group describes how the clashes have been getting more widespread and violent, and are becoming sectarian, as the herders are mostly Faluni Muslims from northern Nigeria, and the farmers are most Christians from southern Nigeria:
"Violent conflicts between nomadic herders from northern Nigeria and sedentary agrarian communities in the central and southern zones have escalated in recent years and are spreading southward, threatening the country’s security and stability. With an estimated death toll of approximately 2,500 people in 2016, these clashes are becoming as potentially dangerous as the Boko Haram insurgency in the north east. ...Familiar problems – relating to land and water use, obstruction of traditional migration routes, livestock theft and crop damage – tend to trigger these disputes. But their roots run deeper. Drought and desertification have degraded pastures, dried up many natural water sources across Nigeria’s far-northern Sahelian belt and forced large numbers of herders to migrate south in search of grassland and water for their herds. Insecurity in many northern states (a consequence of the Boko Haram insurgency in the north east and of less-well-reported rural banditry and cattle rustling in the north-west and north-central zones) also prompts increasing numbers of herdsmen to migrate south. The growth of human settlements, expansion of public infrastructure and acquisition of land by large-scale farmers and other private commercial interests, have deprived herders of grazing reserves designated by the post-independence government of the former Northern region (now split into nineteen states). ...
The spread of conflict into southern states is aggravating already fragile relations among the country’s major regional, ethnic and religious groups. The south’s majority Christian communities resent the influx of predominantly Muslim herders, portrayed in some narratives as an “Islamisation force”. Herders are mostly Fulani, lending an ethnic dimension to strife. Insofar as the Fulani spread across many West and Central African countries, any major confrontation between them and other Nigerian groups could have regional repercussions, drawing in fighters from neighboring countries."
The Fulani herders are now sometimes equated to terror groups like Boko Haram as a consequence of their attacks on farmers. The Fulani herders are also playing a big part in the generational crisis civil war in Central African Republic, as we've described in the past.
Nigeria's president, Muhammadu Buhari, is a Fulani and owns large herds of cattle. He has been accused of complicity about the Fulani attacks on farmers.
In order to protect farmers, Benue State, which is in Nigeria's middle belt separating the north from the south, passed an "Anti-Grazing Law. The law was passed in May, but only came into effect on Wednesday. The law prohibits open grazing of cattle, and requires herders to maintain their herds of cattle on ranches. The law is being accompanied by a training program to teach herders modern methods of ranching.
However, the new law is somewhat laughable, as there's no way that it will stop Fulani herder attacks on farmers. On Thursday, an attack by suspected Fulani herdsmen on a village in Benue State resulted in one death and many others missing. Daily Trust (Abuja) and International Crisis Group and Vanguard (Nigeria) and The Nation (Nigeria) and Daily Post (Nigeria)
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Violent clashes between farmers and herders are not unique to Africa. They occur in any country that has a growing population and has both farmers and herders. In particular, there were many bloody battles between farmers and herders in 1800s and early 1900s America.
In 1941, those battles were still fresh in the lives of many alive at that time, and they were a sub-plot of the great Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical Oklahoma!.
One of the most festive song and dance production numbers in the show was "The farmer and the cowboy should be friends."
The number is instructive to today's audience's because it provides hints of just how bitter the fight was between farmers and cowboys. The play takes place around 1900, just as Oklahoma was becoming a state. The lyrics begin:
"Oh, the farmer and the cowboy should be friends,
Oh, the farmer and the cowboy should be friends.
One man likes to push a plough,
The other likes to chase a cow,
But that's no reason why they cain't be friends.
Territory folks should stick together,
Territory folks should all be pals.
Cowboys dance with farmer's daughters,
Farmers dance with the ranchers' gals."
However, as the music and dancing continue, the farmers and cowboys start sniping at each other:
"Eller:
The farmer should be sociable with the cowboy
If he rides by and ask for food and water
Don't treat him like a louse
Make him welcome in your house
Ike:
But be sure that you locked up your wife and daughters"
The ensuing mass brawl is fully choreographed, as farmers and cowboys take swings at each other in time to the music.
If you'd like to enjoy five minutes of music and fun, then check out the Youtube video of the number from the 1955 film. YouTube
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Nov-17 World View -- Violence in Nigeria grows over clashes between herders and farmers thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Nov-2017)
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Saudi Arabian minister calls for 'toppling Hezbollah'
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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With the rise of hopes, delusional or not, that the war in Syria will settle down within a few months, all the players are now looking ahead to the wars to follow.
Hezbollah, Iran's puppet Shia militia organization in Lebanon, was originally formed in 1985 to launch war with Israel, and still has no other objective other than war with Israel. War with Israel is its only reason for existing.
Israel and Hezbollah last had a war in 2006. That war was a disaster for both sides, and also a disaster for Lebanon, much of whose infrastructure was destroyed. Since then, Hezbollah has made it known that it's preparing for a much more effective war with Israel, although this plan has been delayed by the war in Syria.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke on nationwide television in Lebanon October 1, to mark Ashura, the holiest day in the Shia Muslim calendar, and used the occasion to once again threaten to destroy Israel, and to warn that Israel would be devastated by war:
"I call on anyone who came to occupied Palestine to leave it and return to the lands you came from, so you will not be the fuel for any war waged by your foolish government.[Israel's prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his government do not know how the war will end if they start one, and they do not have an accurate picture of what to expect should they embark on the folly of war."
Israeli defense officials believe that Hezbollah has an of between 100,000 and 150,000 missiles and a fighting force of 50,000 soldiers, 10,000 of which are already positioned in southern Syria, ready for war with Israel.
An extensive report released last month by the High Level Military Group, a think tank made up of retired generals and defense officials from the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Colombia, India, and Australia, agrees with the Israeli military assessment of Hezbollah, and also agrees with Nasrallah of the effect of war on Israelis:
"Policymakers expressed concerns about how prepared the Israeli public is for the level of devastation that would be wrought in a major military clash with Hezbollah.Younger Israelis are less familiar with the threat of direct attack than older generations, and Israel’s success in neutralizing less sophisticated rockets fired from Gaza may have led to inflated expectations of its capacity to intercept the volume of rockets likely to be fired by Hezbollah."
In a war, Hezbollah would be launching about 1,000 missiles per day at Israeli targets, although without guidance systems the missiles could only be launched in the direction of the desired target.
But in the last few months, reports have emerged that Iran is constructing manufacturing facilities in Lebanon for volume manufacturing of precision-guided missiles. These missiles could be launched from anywhere in Lebanon, and could be programmed to strike any target in Israel with accuracy. In the past, Iran tried to transport convoys of these missiles overland from Iran to Lebanon, but Israel has been very successful with airstrikes in Syria or Iraq to destroy the convoys before they could reach Lebanon.
The manufacture of these precision-guided missiles within Lebanon is thought be "crossing a red line" for Israel. Israel would probably launch a preemptive strike on the production facilities in Lebanon, which would be a significant escalation on the relation between Lebanon and Israel since the end of the 2006 war. Hezbollah could then launch a retaliatory strike on Israel, risking tit-for-tat escalation that would lead to full-scale war.
Some analysts are advising Israel to strike right away, before Hezbollah has a chance to fully arm. That option is certainly being debated, but whether it will be adopted remains to be seen. Times of Israel (26-Oct) and National Interest and Times of Israel (1-Oct) and High Level Military Group (PDF) and Israel Hayom (1-Sep)
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Saudi Arabia's Minister of Gulf Affairs, Thamer Al-Sabhan, said on Monday that Hezbollah should be toppled:
"[Saudi Arabia] is determined to stand resolute against Hezbollah, the satanic militia working to recruit and train outlaws in the party’s strongholds in Lebanon.Hezbollah is declaring war on Saudi Arabia with the Iranian weapons. ... Those who believe that my tweets are a personal stance are delusional and they will see what will happen in the coming days
I addressed my tweet to the government because the Party of Satan [Hezbollah] is represented in it and it is a terrorist party. The issue is not about toppling the government but rather that Hezbollah should be toppled.
The coming developments will definitely be astonishing."
Saudi Arabia has accused Hezbollah of supplying rockets and other weapons to the Houthis, Saudi Arabia's enemy in the war in Yemen.
However, one pro-Hezbollah report mocked al-Sabhan by saying, "Al-Sabhan obsessively tweets about Hezbollah and continues to make promises about destroying the Lebanese group." Arab News and Naharnet (Lebanon) and Al Masdar News (Damascus)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Nov-17 World View -- Israel and Saudi Arabia prepare for war with Hezbollah, as Syria war winds down thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Nov-2017)
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China and South Korea reach an agreement on THAAD missile defense system
by John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In a surprise announcement, China agreed to remove the harsh economic sanctions that it had imposed on South Korea in anger over South Korea's deployment of America's advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system.
In July of last year, South Korea's President Park Geun-hye announced her decision to deploy the THAAD system on South Korean soil. This was specifically a reaction to ballistic missile and nuclear threats from North Korea, but it infuriated China because THAAD's powerful radar could also give early warning to the United States of a pre-emptive missile attack by China on the United States.
Early this year, news broke that the Lotte Group, a South Korean multinational conglomerate, had agreed to a land swap that would allow THAAD to be deployed on a piece of land previously owned by the company. The enraged Chinese imposed harsh economic sanctions, particularly targeting Lotte Department Stores in China and South Korea with a boycott.
The economic sanctions have been devastating for South Korea's economy, banning South Korean goods for sale in China, banning South Korean pop stars and entertainers, and banning travel agencies from selling packaged tours to South Korea.
Despite the sanctions, the first THAAD deployments began in March, with two launchers.
South Korea's new president Moon Jae-in took office in May, after an election campaign promising to end THAAD deployment, and to develop closer ties with North Korea. But North Korea repudiated Moon's overture, conducting a new series of ballistic missile tests. As a result, Moon abruptly reversed policy and approved the deployment of four more THAAD launchers.
So it was unexpected that South Korea and China issued a statement on Tuesday that "The two sides attach great importance to the Korea-China relationship," and that they would establish normal relations as quickly as possible.
According to China's Foreign Ministry at a press conference on Tuesday:
"China's position on the THAAD issue has been clear and consistent, which remains unchanged. We have noted that the ROK stated publicly that the ROK [Republic of Korea - South Korea] will not join the US anti-missile system, develop the ROK-US-Japan security cooperation into a tripartite military alliance or make additional deployment of the THAAD system, and the current THAAD deployment in the ROK will not undermine China's strategic security interests. We hope that the ROK will match word to deed and follow through on these remarks to properly handle the relevant issue.Properly handing the THAAD issue and removing the obstacles to China-ROK relations are the shared aspiration of the two countries and conform to the common interests of the two sides, we hope the two sides can jointly work to bring the bilateral relations back to the track of normal development."
I find this to be a very strange statement, because the wording implies low expectations that the détente between the two countries will succeed. The statement does not explicitly say that China is lifting its economic sanctions, and it only expresses hope that South Korea will not develop a closer military alliance with the United States -- in particular that no more THAAD launchers will be deployed.
There was one more Q&A at the press conference that I found strange:
"Q: China said several times that the people-to-people and cultural exchange calls for public support. As the ROK and China reached agreement, what change does China expect to see in public opinion?A: As we all can see, for some time, the feelings and relations between the Chinese and ROK people have been affected by the THAAD issue. We hope that the two sides can properly handle the THAAD issue and bring the normal exchange and cooperation in various fields back to the track of normal development. We believe this is of positive significance to the change of public opinion in the two countries."
The answer implies that bad feelings and relations between the peoples of China and South Korea were caused by the THAAD issue. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the most likely explanation is that bad feelings and relations between the Chinese and South Koreans have been growing for some time, and that the THAAD was just a trigger for open hostility. This view is supported by e-mail exchanges that I've had with readers in the past indicating that there is extreme hostility between Chinese and South Koreans. It seems unlikely that Tuesday's agreement to improve relations is going to do much to change these bad feelings and relations in the future. Business Insider and China's Foreign Ministry and The Hankyoreh (Seoul) and Global Times (Beijing)
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There have been reports that 200 North Korean workers were killed in a series of tunnel collapses on October 10 at the main North Korean nuclear testing site at Mount Mantap. These reports come from a single unverified North Korean report, and are doubted by some analysts.
However, what is apparently certain is that senior Chinese nuclear scientists and geologists are saying that any further nuclear bomb tests could risk a huge nuclear disaster that would affect both North Korea and China.
The problem is that Mount Mantap, where North Korea has conducted five underground nuclear tests, is now in danger of collapsing completely, releasing huge amounts of radiation and nuclear debris that would affect large parts of northeastern China.
The warnings have been delivered directly to North Korean scientists by nuclear scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geology and Geophysics. They warned North Korea that further nuclear tests could blow the top off Mount Mantap and spark a potential catastrophic collapse at the nuclear testing site, resulting in radiation releases and other forms of contamination. The warnings were summarized by an unnamed researcher at Peking University:
"China cannot sit and wait until the site implodes. Our instruments can detect nuclear fallout when it arrives, but it will be too late by then. There will be public panic and anger at the government for not taking action.Maybe the North Koreans themselves have realized that the site cannot take another blow. If they still want to do it, they have to do it somewhere else."
The Chinese geologists delivered the warnings to the North Koreans on September 20. Two days later, on September 22, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho at the United Nations said:
"It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific. We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong-un."
This would, of course, be equally disastrous, as the explosion could affect any aircraft or sea vessels in the area, and the radiation could be carried by the winds to any country bordering the Pacific. News Corp Australia and South China Morning Post and Chosun (Seoul)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Nov-17 World View -- Chinese geologists warn of looming nuclear disaster from North Korean tests thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Nov-2017)
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