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Mahathir promises to reduce Malaysia's debt and China's influence
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Malaysia and the world were shocked on May 8 when the party 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad won 113 out of a total of 222 seats in the parliament, making Mahathir the new prime minister.
Mahathir defeated the incumbent prime minister Najib Razak, and it's believed that his surprising victory had to do with money. Voters were sickened by a scandal having to do with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), where the government cannot account for how billions of dollars were spent, though Najib denies any wrongdoing. However, six countries, including the United States, are investigating transactions related to the project.
Voters were also increasingly anxious about the country's increasing indebtedness, especially to China. Malaysia's relationship with China dominated the election campaign, as it has in many election campaigns in the past. Malaysians like the money that China invests in infrastructure projects, but are anxious about indebtedness to China and to the growing communities of Chinese workers.
Mahathir was previously prime minister from 1981 to 2003. He was a typical authoritarian leader, jailing and torturing the opposition, shutting down anti-government media, scorning human rights, and sometimes languishing in open anti-Semitism.
According to one story, he was accused of being "an angry man and will burn the whole country with his anger," and he responded:
"Yes, I am a very angry man, you can see how angry I am. I will burn you, I am always burning things."
As we've seen in many other countries, being a bloody, brutal leader doesn't harm his popularity, and may improve it. South China Morning Post (10-May) and Reuters (27-April) and Bloomberg (7-May) and Reuters (23-May)
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In the past few years, Prime Minister Najib Razak vastly expanded the extent of Malaysia's economic engagement with China, particular as a result of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, the country is now $251 billion in debt, and the new prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, has committed to reducing the debt.
Mahathir is planning harsh cutbacks. At a press briefing just after he was elected, he announced that 17,000 contractual employees would be dismissed, and ministers' salaries would be reduced by 10%.
A particularly sensitive cutback will be to the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, in one of the world’s biggest aviation mysteries. Houston-based Ocean Infinity has been hired to search for the plane in the Indian Ocean, under the condition that they will be paid $70 million, but only if they succeed. Mahathir is reviewing that contract, along with many others, for possible cancellation.
Mahathir's first major canceled infrastructure project wasn't a Chinese investment at all. It's a planned high-speed rail link connecting Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur, with Singapore. The price tag is $17 billion. Mahathir told reporters that "It's not beneficial," but in Singapore there are concerns that the hostile relationship between Malaysia and Singapore in the previous Mahathir administration is now returning.
The biggest Chinese infrastructure project under scrutiny is the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL). This is an important part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The rail link will connect several eastern Malaysian ports on the South China Sea to Kuala Lumpur, and then to the Strait of Malacca on the west coast.
Objections to previous Chinese infrastructure investments in Malaysia have focused on the presence of thousands of Chinese workers, heavy dependence on Chinese materials, and limited opportunities for local companies. In order to respond to those objections, and to avoid a repeat of past problems, former prime minister Najib said the link would create 80,000 jobs and the Chinese project operator would be obliged to give at least 70 percent of these to local workers.
The Chinese construction firm is offering to provide a loan of 85% of the $14 billion project value, with a grace period of seven years. However, many Malaysians are familiar with the "debt trap" disaster that occurred in Sri Lanka, and many are calling the ECRL project "the next Sri Lanka." The reference is to the Port of Hambantota, a Chinese infrastructure project in Sri Lanka, funded with a loan from China, with almost all the labor performed by Chinese workers. Sri Lanka was unable to repay the loan, and the government was forced to give the Port to China. So now Sri Lanka has a port owned by China, and a large Chinese enclave, with no benefit to itself and to its own people.
Mahathir would like to cancel the ECRL contract, but is discovering that it's not possible. According to the contract signed with China by the Najib government, Malaysia will have to pay billions of dollars of the loan plus interest, within three months of default. Mahathir hopes at least that costs can be reduced by eliminating some parts of the ECRL infrastructure. Malaysia Insight and CNN and CNBC and Reuters and Bloomberg and The Diplomat
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-May-18 World View -- Malaysia shocked when 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad becomes prime minister thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(31-May-2018)
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China raises 'combat readiness' as US-China relations
become increasingly hostile
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Ever since taking office, Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has sided with China, refusing to take a position opposing China's illegal activities in the South China Sea. This is particularly ironic for the president of the Philippines, since it was the Philippines that brought the lawsuit in the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, which ruled that all of China's activities in the South China Sea are illegal and in violation of international law.
As recently as two weeks ago, Duterte was defending his refusal to challenge China's activities in the South China Sea. Duterte said that the court ruling came before he took office, but he had no choice but to support China anyway:
"It did not come during my term. But then again, if I were the President at that time, what could I have done? I can send my Marines there. I can send every policeman there. But what will happen? They will all be massacred."
Duterte's decision was never particularly popular with the Philippines people. Polls show that China's favorable rating is around 54%, while America's approval rating is around 92%. Basically, the people of China and the people of the Philippines hate each other for historical reasons.
But now apparently Duterte has been stung by recent reports that China is basing bombers and cruise missiles on the illegal artificial islands. Furthermore, the Philippines is within range of these bombers and missiles. This has apparently infuriated a lot of people in the Philippines.
So Duterte's Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano on Tuesday announced that Duterte is setting some "red lines" which, if crossed by China, would lead to war:
"What is our red line? Our red line is that they cannot build on Scarborough [Shoal].Another red line is: Nobody can get natural resources there on their own.
That's what the president said. If anyone gets the natural resources in the West Philippine Sea-South China Sea, he will go to war. He said: 'Bahala na.' He will go to war. So those were our red lines."
According to the internet, "Bahala Na!" is a Tagalog expression that perfectly encapsulates the typical Filipino attitude towards life. The oft-used phrase Bahala Na can be translated into English as: Come what may. What happens will happen. Scholars tend to label it as a form of fatalism. Inquirer (Philippines, 21-May) and Philippines Star and Tagalog Language
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Two U.S. Navy warships conducted a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) on Sunday in the South China Sea, near islands occupied by China in the Paracel Islands. This is the location where, as we reported several days ago, China is building barracks capable of housing thousands of soldiers.
According to China's foreign ministry:
"The US Warships' unauthorized entry into China's territorial waters off the [Paracel] Islands again has violated the Chinese law and relevant international law, severely undermined China's sovereignty and put in jeopardy the peace, security and sound order in relevant waters. China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the relevant act of the US, and strongly urges it to immediately stop such provocation that infringes upon China's sovereignty and threatens China's security. China will continue to take every necessary measure to safeguard its sovereignty and security."
It's laughable for China to reference "international law," when China itself does not recognize international law. As for Chinese law, who care? If China won't recognize international law, then why should we recognize Chinese law?
The "relevant international law" is the Tribunal ruling that all of China's activities in the South China Sea are illegal, which means that Chinese officials are international criminals.
Relations between the US and China in the South China Sea are becoming increasingly hostile. China is building hundreds of buildings on its illegal islands, as we recently reported, allowing thousands of troops to be stationed there.
Shortly before that, China announced that it has begun landing bombers on the artificial islands it created in the South China sea, in preparation for the Battle of the South China Sea. And that announcement came just two weeks after China deployed offensive cruise and surface-to-air missiles in South China Sea.
The US responded by withdrawing an invitation for China to take part in the 2018 Rim of the Pacific Drill, because China's activities in the South China Sea "raise tensions and destabilize the region." This was followed by Sunday's FONOP, which was different from previous FONOPs because it used two warships instead of just one.
China's foreign ministry threat, was followed by reports that the U.S. Navy considers that the actions of Chinese warships on Sunday was "safe but unprofessional," because the Chinese ships maneuvered erratically.
In the last two days, there have been additional reports about China's militarization of its illegal islands.
China announced that it has set up an "intelligent microgrid" that will supply electricity to weapons systems on all of China's artificial islands. According to Chinese media:
"The microgrid also aids military personnel and weaponry, analysts said.Stable electricity underwrites military stations and daily military operations in the South China Sea. Surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles, for example, need not depend solely on electric vehicles, said Song Zhongping, a military expert and TV commentator.
The service life of weaponry can be extended by reducing their reliance on self-contained chargers, Song told the Global Times on Monday.
Stable electricity was also critical at armories and arms depots for handling the high temperatures, humidity and salinity of the islands, Song noted."
According another report in Chinese media, China is aggressively developing its next generation of nuclear weapons:
"China is aggressively developing its next generation of nuclear weapons, conducting an average of five tests a month to simulate nuclear blasts, according to a major Chinese weapons research institute.Its number of simulated tests has in recent years outpaced that of the United States, which conducts them less than once a month on average. ...
Over the past three years, Chinese nuclear scientists have performed more such tests than their American counterparts have in 15 years.
In tunnels deep under mountains in Mianyang, southwestern Sichuan province, where China’s main nuclear design facilities are based, loud blasts from these experiments can be heard more than once a week.
In comparison, between 2003 and 2017, the US fired a total of 150 simulated shots at its Joint Actinide Shock Physics Experimental Research (Jasper) facility at the Nevada National Security Site."
These new military developments seem to be coming more and more quickly, as if China is rushing to meet a target date to launch a war. I've seen one estimate that the target date is 2020, but it could just as easily be 2019 or 2021. Foreign Ministry of China and AP and Global Times (Beijing) and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and Sputnik News (Moscow)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-May-18 World View -- Philippine President Duterte reverses position, says he would go to war with China over South China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-May-2018)
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Italy's president Mattarella selects a 'technocrat' as prime minister
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Last week, we reported on the formation of a 'populist' coalition between the left-wing Five Star Movement (M5S), led by Luigi Di Maio, and the right-wing La Lega (The (Northern) League), led by Matteo Salvini.
Although the two parties differ on many issues, and distrust each other greatly, they decided to form a coalition based on their shared anti-euro, anti-EU and anti-immigrant policies, and particularly on the fact that they have no fiscal discipline whatsoever.
Di Maio and Salvini chose Giuseppe Conte, an obscure law professor with no political experience, to serve as prime minister, to be confirmed by the parliament.
But they also chose Paolo Savona to be finance minister, someone who at one time in the past raised objections to Italy joining the eurozone. Following constitutional procedure, Conte submitted Savona's name to Italy's president, Sergio Mattarella. Mattarella, who is staunchly pro-Europe, vetoed the choice of Savona, based on his previous statements about the eurozone, even though he says that he no longer believes them. Conte resigned, and the entire proposed government collapsed.
This infuriated Di Maio and Salvini, who claimed that Mattarella was catering to the demands of Brussels and Berlin, rather than to the will of the people of Italy. Di Maio called for the impeachment of Mattarella, something unlikely to be successful under Italy's constitutional system.
Salvini demanded new elections, believing that his Northern League would gain addition seats in parliament. "In a democracy, if we are still in democracy, there's only one thing to do, let the Italians have their say," he said. Deutsche Welle and CNBC and Handelsblatt (Berlin)
President Mattarella said he vetoed Savona's appointment as that would have "alarmed markets and investors, Italians and foreigners." He pointed out that the threat of leaving the eurozone was causing investors to increase the bond spread. (This means that investors are losing faith in Italy's ability to repay its debt, and so investors are forcing Italy to pay higher interest rates when it borrows money.)
Indeed, Italy's economy is at crisis levels. Today, Italian debt stands at around €2.17 trillion, or 133% of gross domestic product (GDP). That's worse than Greece's situation when it was being bailed out in 2010. At that time, Greece's debt as "only" 127% of GDP.
The Di Maio-Salvini plan was to simply ignore Italy's crushing debt, and spend a lot more money, give away a lot of free stuff such as a guaranteed income, and reduce taxes.
Even more ominous was a hare-brained plan to issue a new kind of government bond, called a mini-Bot. (Bots are Buoni Ordinari del Tesoro, a common Italian Treasury bill or short-term credit note.) The mini-Bots would be backed by expected tax receipts in the future, meaning that the government would be spending future income before they even had it. Furthermore, the mini-Bots could be used to pay for taxes or other payments to the government, giving the feeling that mini-Bots were a new Italian currency. There would be nothing to prevent stores from accepting mini-Bots as payment, or to prevent brokers from establishing a black market exchange rate between the mini-Bot and the euro.
The mini-Bot proposal means that the Di Maio-Salvini government could, at some time in the future, repudiate its euro-based debt, leave the eurozone, and use the mini-Bots as currency.
This was all apparently too much for president Mattarella, and he vetoed the selection of Paolo Savona as finance minister, causing the entire government to collapse.
In order to stabilize the markets, Mattarella decided to make Carlo Cottarelli the new prime minister. Cottarelli will be a "technocrat," meaning that he won't be implementing any political policies, but will only do the bare minimum to keep the government running, until there can be new elections at the beginning of next year.
Carlo Cottarelli is a former official from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and he is known as "Mr. Scissors" because of his cost-cutting policies. So investors' concerns should be soothed, provided Cottarelli is able to govern. But it's not clear that he can govern. He will receive no support from Di Maio or Salvini, and little or no support in parliament from MPs for the Five-Star Movement or The League. That means that Cottarelli will be unable to get the parliament to pass his proposed budget, and that will cause Cottarelli's government to collapse just as quickly as Conte's government collapsed.
In that case, there will be an emergency election in August or September. If Matteo Salvini is right, then the furious voters will elect even more MPs from the two populist parties, to get revenge for what they see as foreign interference from Brussels or Berlin. The next election will be seen as a referendum on whether Italy should stay in the eurozone, so president Mattarella's move to force the Di Maio-Salvini government to collapse may be what causes Italy to leave the eurozone after all. Sputnik News and Guardian (London) and The Street
Related Articles
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-May-18 World View -- Italy's 'populist' government collapses, threatening eurozone exit thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-May-2018)
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US Ambassador Peter Barlerin accuses Cameroon government of 'targeted killings'
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Twenty-two people were killed on Friday in the Anglophone (English-speaking) region of Cameroon by army and security forces from the Francophone (French-speaking) government of 85-year-old president Paul Biya, who has been in power for more than 35 years.
This is the latest violence in a growing civil war in the Southern Cameroons, the Anglophone region of Cameroon.
The violence started in November 2016, when peaceful protests began with claims by Anglophone lawyers that the legal and court systems are biased toward Francophones, with many laws passed without even being translated into English. Anglophone teachers joined in, 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 committing atrocities.
The atrocities by Francophone security forces grew during 2017, and took a particularly dangerous turn on September 22. What always happens in these situations, as I've described in Syria, Cambodia, Burundi, and a number of other countries, is that government officials feel threated by peaceful protests by the opposition, and respond to the peaceful protests with violence and atrocities. This kind of extreme overreaction leaves everyone stunned and shocked at first, but it doesn't have the intended effect of ending the peaceful protests. Instead, more people from the opposition join the peaceful protests, and this leads to more violence and atrocities by the government. Finally, the activists within the peaceful protesters begin to commit their own acts of violence. Once that happens, the government is free to call all the peaceful protesters "terrorists," and then they can use unbridled violence against all of them, including rape, jailings, and torture.
In Cameroon, the violence and atrocities by Biya's government continued throughout 2017, in various forms. Finally, activists formed a secessionist group called the Liberation Movement of Southern Cameroons. On October 1 of last year, and declared independence for the Southern Cameroons, calling it Ambazonia.
The name Ambazonia comes from the Ambas Bay. The bay which is located in southwestern Cameroon is considered as the boundary between Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon. In 1858, British missionary Alfred Saker founded a settlement for freed slaves at the bay which was later renamed Victoria. Britain established the Ambas Bay Protectorate in 1884 with Victoria as its capital.
Biya's Francophone government responded with massive violence, arresting hundreds of people, and using helicopter gunships to fire on innocent civilians and kill them. Hundreds of people have been killed, and hundreds more are missing. This triggered a mass flight of refugees across the border into neighboring Nigeria.
In an apparent attempt at ethnic cleansing, the Francophone army has burned down dozens of Anglophone villages, and burned down houses with people inside. In response, the separatists have been burning down state buildings and institutions, including schools.
So now there's violence on both sides. The atrocities and violence by the Francophone government targeting the peaceful Anglophone protesters radicalized some Anglophone activists into violence and declaring an independent state of Ambazonia. Now the Anglophone government can claim that tens of thousands of "terrorists" have been killed, jailed, tortured, disappeared, or forced to flee into Nigeria. VOA (27-May) and The Citizen (Tanzania) and VOA (23-May)
Peter Henry Barlerin, the US ambassador to Cameroon, said last week:
"April has proven the bloodiest so things are not getting better.On the side of the government, there have been targeted killings, detentions without access to legal support, family, or the Red Cross, and burning and looting of villages. On the side of the separatists, there have been murders of gendarmes, kidnapping of government officials, and burning of schools. People on both sides of the conflict have engaged in speech that dehumanizes the opposite side."
Barlerin also "suggested to President Biya that he should reflect on his legacy and how he wants to be remembered in the history books."
However Issa Tchiroma Bakary, spokesman for Cameroon's Francophone government, said:
"We do not accept the infantilization of the Cameroonian nation. It is with full knowledge of the facts that they (Cameroonians) put their ballot in the ballot box.[The Cameroonian people] are sovereign, and not likely to accept any diktat from whatever power."
The minister described Biya as "a man of honor."
There have been some reports that ambassador Barlerin has returned to Washington, but those reports are unconfirmed. Deutsche Welle (18-May) and Journal du Cameroun and Africa News (20-May) and Journal du Cameroun (24-May)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-May-18 World View -- Dozens killed in English-speaking Cameroon region by French-speaking government police thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-May-2018)
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Syria passes new 'Law #10' to block refugees from returning home after the war
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The U.S. State Department is warning the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad that the U.S. will take "firm and appropriate measures," if al-Assad violates a ceasefire deal in the southern province of Deraa.
The U.S. warning was triggered when Syrian aircraft dropped leaflets on Deraa, threatening a military offensive. One of the leaflets includes a picture showing lined up bodies, saying, "This is the inevitable fate of anyone who insists on carrying arms."
By means of massive bombing campaigns by Syrian and Russian warplanes, especially targeting women and children in hospitals, schools and markets, including the use of barrel bombs containing chlorine and sometimes Sarin gas, the al-Assad regime has almost completed taking control of the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus. The dropping of leaflets indicates that al-Assad plans next to turn his attention to Deraa.
Deraa is a critical region because it's on the border with Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, so action by Syria and its allies Iran and Hezbollah could spiral into a escalating military clash with Israel. Deraa is a mostly Sunni Arab province under the control of almost a dozen anti-Assad rebel groups, varying in ideology from moderate to jihadist. Some reports indicate that Israel has provided support for rebels and civilians in Deraa, treating them in their hospitals and providing weapons and other aid. The National (Abu Dhabi) and Sputnik (Moscow) and Al Jazeera (Doha)
On Friday evening, State Department spokesman Heather Nauert issued a statement warning of "firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations" in Deraa:
"The United States is concerned by reports of an impending Assad regime operation in southwest Syria within the boundaries of the de-escalation zone negotiated between the United States, Jordan, and the Russian Federation last year and reaffirmed between Presidents Trump and Putin in Da Nang, Vietnam in November. The United States remains committed to maintaining the stability of the southwest de-escalation zone and to the ceasefire underpinning it. We also caution the Syrian regime against any actions that risk broadening the conflict or jeopardize the ceasefire. As a guarantor of this de-escalation area with Russia and Jordan, the United States will take firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations.The Presidents of the United States and Russia agreed in Da Nang to de-escalate the conflict. This agreement must be enforced and respected. Russia has declared to the world and to the UNSC that it will “guarantee” ceasefires in its self-declared de-escalation zones. Unfortunately, the Assad regime, with the support of Russia and Iran, has repeatedly violated these de-escalation zones, most recently in its brutal assault on East Ghouta. The Assad regime and its allies continue to prolong the conflict by ignoring their own de-escalation agreements and stonewalling the Geneva process.
Russia is duly responsible as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to use its diplomatic and military advantage over the Assad regime to stop attacks and compel the Assad regime to cease further military offensives. Russia has blocked UN Security Council actions that would have held Assad accountable for the use of chemical weapons and possibly saved innocent lives in Syria 11 times so far in this conflict. Six of those vetoes related to the use of chemical weapons, and others were providing humanitarian access and aid, and ceasing attacks against civilians. Russia should live up to its self-professed commitments in accordance with UNSCR 2254 and the southwest ceasefire, embodied in the Da Nang Statement issued by Presidents Trump and Putin."
This would not be the first time that Syrian-backed attacks on a "US-enforced de-escalation zone" in Syria. On February 7, Syrian-backed forces tried to cross the Euphrates River to attack US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Deir az-Zour in eastern Syria. The result was a disaster for the Syrian forces, as several hundred were killed, and the rest were forced to flee in retreat.
I referred to this incident in yesterday's World View article, since it's emerged that the Syrian-backed forces were actually mercenaries working for the Russian military contractor Wagner Private Military Company (Wagner PMC). Wagner is sometimes called "Vladimir Putin's personal army," referring to the president of Russia, and is often asked to perform Putin's "dirty work," allowing him deniability.
Bashar al-Assad has stated that his objective is to regain control of all of Syria. But anti-Assad rebels still control large contiguous areas of territory in the northwest and southwest. Kurdish and allied Arab militia in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), back by the US hold the quarter of Syria east of the Euphrates. RTE (Dublin) and US State Dept. and Debka (Israel) and The National (Abu Dhabi)
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On April 2, the Syrian government of the Bashar al-Assad regime passed "Law #10," a complex new property law that requires property holders in Syria to produce documentation to formally prove ownership of their private property within a period of 30 days, or face confiscation.
There are six million internally displaced refugees in Syria, and five million that have fled to other countries, with 3.5 million in Turkey, almost one million in Lebanon, another million in Iraq and Jordan, and over a million in Europe.
The intention has always been that these refugees would return home when the war ended, al-Assad's clear intention is to make that impossible, since their homes will be confiscated unless they can return quickly with the proper documentation, which is obviously impossible for the vast majority.
Even worse, any property owner wishing to register his lands must first obtain approval from state security officials, which means that anyone identified as having had anti-Assad sympathies can be arrested.
Every time I think that this psychopathic monster Bashar al-Assad can't get any worse, he fools me by coming up with something new and horrific beyond belief. Al-Assad has been conducting genocide and ethnic cleansing against Arab Sunnis in Syria, and now he's taking steps to make sure that anyone who fled his violence can't even return home. Al-Assad is the worst genocidal monster and war criminal so far this century, comparable to Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot in the last century.
Lebanon is a country of four million people, and has had its resources enormously strained by a million refugees that officials had hoped would one day go home. Lebanon's prime minister Saad Hariri lambasted the legislation, saying, "This total invention of Decree 10 has no purpose but to prevent these displaced from going back to their country." Daily Star (Lebanon) and AFP and Syria Direct (17-Apr) and Needa (Syria, 5-Apr) and SANA (Damascus, 2-Apr) (Trans)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-May-18 World View -- U.S. threatens 'firm measures' against al-Assad's military action in Deraa, Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-May-2018)
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The rise of Russia's military contractor Wagner Private Military Company (Wagner PMC)
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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On October 9, 2017, president Faustin-Archange Touadera of the Central African Republic (CAR) flew to Sochi, Russia, and met privately with Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. The readout from the meeting said:
"The officials reaffirmed their countries’ resolve to build up practical cooperation in the political, trade, economic and cultural areas and pointed to the considerable potential for partnership in mineral resources exploration, in the energy area, as well as in the delivery of Russian industrial equipment and farming machinery to the Central African Republic."
Although the exact text of the agreement has remained secret, it has unfolded over time to mean that Russian mercenaries and military advisers have been protecting Touadera and his regime in Bangui, the capital city of CAR, taking over a portion of the responsibilities formerly assumed by French troops, and by MINUSCA, the UN peacekeeping mission (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic).
In addition, Russia has been supplying masses of weapons to Touadera's army. Normally, CAR is under a UN arms embargo, and it's illegal for any UN member to send any weapons into CAR, but Russia was able to obtain a waiver from the UN Security Council to do so.
Among the weapons delivered this year are 900 Makarov pistols, 5,200 Kalashnikov assault rifles, 140 sniper rifles, 840 Kalashnikov PK 7.62-millimeter machine guns, 270 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 20 man-portable anti-air defense systems, hand grenades, mortars and millions of rounds of ammunition. Russian weaponry and parts are compatible with what Soviet-era arms remain in the CAR armories.
One estimate suggests there are now 1,400 armed Russians in the CAR, most of them employees of private military contractor Wagner PMC, operating under the name Sewa Security Services.
In return, Russia is being granted access to exploit CAR's oil, precious ores, and rare earth minerals. Russia will develop infrastructure for strategic military bases, and commercial relations with telecoms and other industries. Jamestown and AFP and Turkey Telegraph (24-Apr) and Monde Afrique (9-May) (Trans)
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In February, I wrote "9-Feb-18 World View -- US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) clash with Syrian regime forces" in Deir az-Zour in eastern Syria. In that article, I wrote:
"The war in Syria may have gotten even more chaotic on Thursday when US-backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), backed by US warplanes, clashed with pro-regime Syrian army forces and allies. The pro-regime forces launched a massive, coordinated attack on the SDF, and were driven back with the aid of US warplanes.The US had been observing the buildup of the pro-regime forces for several days, as they prepared for this assault on the SDF. During that period, the US forces contacted the Russians over an established "de-confliction" hotline that was set up to prevent such clashes. However, the pro-regime forces attacked anyway, and the SDF forces counter-attacked in self-defense."
As I described at the time, the Pentagon estimated that 100 regime fighters were killed. The Syrian regime said that the US-backed forces had committed a "barbaric aggression" representing a "war crime."
Since then, it's come out that the "pro-regime Syrian army forces and allies" were actually a Russian military contractor Wagner Private Military Company (Wagner PMC). The clash with the American backed SDF forces was a complete disaster for Wagner, as hundreds of Wagner mercenaries were unable to return to their families in Russia.
However, this debacle was not the end of the contracting firm. This is the same Wagner PMC that we described above as operating today in Central African Republic under the name Sewa Security Services.
Wagner PMC is a private military company, but is sometimes called "Vladimir Putin's personal army." It's thought to be closely connected to Russian military and intelligence organizations, and it performs "dirty work" about which Putin wished to maintain deniability.
Wagner has a core of over 4,800 well-trained, well-paid combat troops. In additional to military operations in Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, Central African Republic and other countries, it has "business-related" activities, such as protecting oil and gas fields in Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan.
According to reports, Wagner PMC has risen to prominence because of financial support from Russian billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin has also been identified as the head of Russia's "fake news" empire, including the famous St. Petersburg troll factory that turns out hundreds of Russian trolls who constantly attack people like me when we write about Russia. According to some reports, at the zenith of the U.S. election campaign, the troll factory’s accounts across different social media platforms would churn out as many as 50 million posts a month. Inform Napalm (20-Feb) and Jamestown (18-Apr) and Moscow Times (24-Mar-2017) and Conflict Intelligence Team (Moscow)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-May-18 World View -- Russia gains foothold in Central African Republic, displacing France thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-May-2018)
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China prepares to station thousands of troops in South China Sea
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In my opinion, Thursday's cancellation of the planned June 12 summit meeting between president Donald Trump and North Korea's child dictator Kim Jong-un is a major diplomatic disaster for Kim.
Two weeks ago, when talk of the summit meeting was still in the Pollyannaish honeymoon stages, I wrote "13-May-18 World View -- Likely outcome of Trump-Kim North Korea summit: Mutual recriminations and accusations." I gave a list of reasons, but the main reason were that the core objectives of the US and North Korea were in conflict and couldn't be reconciled or compromised. These conflicting objectives are:
These are incompatible core objectives that cannot be resolved except by military action. The Trump administration has made numerous promises in the hope of getting North Korea to denuclearize -- promises that Kim Jong-un would be safe and remain in power, promises that sanctions would be lifted, promises that enormous aid would pour into North Korea, making the country economically equivalent to South Korea. Kim would get all that, simply be denuclearizing which, in my opinion, will never happen except with military action.
So given those realities, what have the North Koreans been up to these last few weeks? In my opinion, they have had one and only one objective: Use diplomacy to force the Trump administration to lift the sanctions, while continuing nuclear weapons and missile development.
They've succeeded in this objective several times in the last three decades, most recently in 2008. They committed to ending nuclear weapons development and even blew up a nuclear cooling tower to prove it. The Bush administration accepted their promises and agreed that all sanctions should be lifted. The sanctions were lifted, and North Korea immediately resumed nuclear weapons development. They completely humiliated and diplomatically defeated the United States and the Western world. It was a total North Korea diplomatic victory of enormous proportions.
So every step that North Korea has taken in this year has been with only one objective: To repeat the diplomatic victory of 2008, to get the sanctions lifted, while continuing nuclear weapons and missile development.
The Trump administration has outplayed North Korea at every stage:
The letter that Donald Trump sent to Kim Jong-un on Thursday was, in my opinion, a negotiating masterpiece:
"Dear Mr. Chairman:We greatly appreciate your time, patience, and effort with respect to our recent negotiations and discussions relative to a summit long sought by both parties, which was scheduled to take place on June 12 in Singapore. We were informed that the meeting was requested by North Korea, but that to us is totally irrelevant. I was very much looking forward to being there with you. Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting. Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place. You talk about nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.
I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me, and ultimately, it is only that dialogue that matters. Some day, I look very much forward to meeting you. In the meantime, I want to thank you for the release of the hostages who are now home with their families. That was a beautiful gesture and was very much appreciated. If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write. The world, and North Korea in particular, has lost a great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth. This missed opportunity is a truly sad moment in history."
This letter has left North Korea in a desperate diplomatic position. They had hoped to use diplomacy to force Trump to agree to lift the sanctions. They proposed a summit meeting that they didn't want, but it was accepted anyway. They tried to sabotage the summit meeting, but that backfired and they're receiving the blame for the canceled summit meeting. Now they have to try something else.
Trump's cancellation of the summit meeting was another negotiating ploy, with the purpose of gaining a negotiating advantage. It is not the end of the story. The North Koreans are already issuing conciliatory statements, looking to gain the moral high ground after Trump's cancellation. It's still possible that the summit meeting will be held. But the two core irreconcilable objectives that I listed at the beginning of this article are still in place. CNN and White House and KCNA
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Satellite imagery has revealed that China has built hundreds of buildings on the artificial island that China has created illegally on Subi Reef in the South China Sea. This is on top of existing military infrastructure that includes emplacements for missiles, runways, extensive storage facilities and a range of installations that can track satellites, foreign military activity and communications. Analysts say that the buildings could house 1500-2400 troops.
This revelation occurs just a few days after China announced that it has begun landing bombers on the artificial islands it created in the South China sea, in preparation for the Battle of the South China Sea.
And that announcement came just two weeks after China deployed offensive cruise and surface-to-air missiles in South China Sea.
The Pentagon on Thursday withdrew an invitation for China to take part in the 2018 Rim of the Pacific Drill, the world's biggest multinational naval drill, scheduled for this summer. The purpose of the drill is to help build cooperation among nations, and China was invited to take part in the last two drills, in 2014 and 2016.
The Pentagon withdrew China's invitation this time because China's activities in the South China Sea "raise tensions and destabilize the region." Sputnik and Business Insider and South China Morning Post
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-May-18 World View -- North Korea suffers diplomatic defeat as Trump cancels summit thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-May-2018)
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China blames Australia and threatens retaliation
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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China is expressing renewed fury at Australian politicians after an explosive speech delivered to Parliament on Tuesday evening accused a prominent wealthy Australian politician of Chinese descent of an explosive bribery participant.
The politician, Dr. Chau Chak-wing, is accused of being linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and of being a previously unnamed co-conspirator in a 2013 case where United Nations General Assembly president John Ashe was bribed with $200,000, along with tens of thousands of dollars in custom suits and clothes, to obtain UN backing for a number of multi-billion dollar Chinese infrastructure projects in including Antigua and Barbuda, and other countries. Before becoming president of the General Assembly, Ashe was the ambassador to the UN for Antigua and Barbuda.
Ashe died before he could be convicted, but two co-conspirators were convicted by the US Dept. of Justice in New York in 2016:
"Shiwei Yan, a/k/a “Sheri Yan,” the co-founder and former chief executive officer of the Global Sustainability Foundation, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court today to 20 months in prison for paying more than $800,000 in bribes to John W. Ashe (“Ashe”), the late former Permanent Representative of Antigua and Barbuda (“Antigua”) to the United Nations (“UN”) and 68th President of the UN General Assembly. Yan pled guilty in January 2016, and was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick.U.S. Attorney Bharara stated: “As she admitted in court at her guilty plea, Shiwei Yan bribed the President of the UN General Assembly with hundreds of thousands of dollars to further private business interests. For her role in corrupting the United Nations, Yan will serve time in a federal prison.”"
Another co-conspirator, Heidi Hong Piao, a/k/a “Heidi Park”, was convicted at the same time. The complaint also named a third co-conspirator, a "Chinese real estate developer" only identified as "CC-3":
"YAN and Piao also arranged for ASHE to be paid $200,000 in exchange for attending a private conference in China in Ashe’s official capacity, hosted by a Chinese real estate developer identified as “CC-3” in the Complaint.During the scheme, YAN and Piao also arranged for Ashe to receive tens of thousands of dollars in custom suits and clothes.
In imposing sentence, Judge Broderick said, “To those bent on perverting decision-making” through bribery, “this simply will not be tolerated ... there are consequences to these actions.”"
The mysterious CC-3 was not identified by name, but was known to the FBI. Recently, politicians in Australia's government attended a confidential briefing by the FBI, and during the course of that briefing, CC-3 was identified as wealthy Australian politician Dr. Chau Chak-wing. South China Morning Post and Sydney Morning Herald (7-Oct-2015) and US Dept. of Justice (29-Jul-2016) and Business Insider
On Tuesday evening, a Liberal backbencher Andrew Hastie gave a speech identifying Chau, thus breaking the confidential agreement, taking advantage of Australia's Constitution that allows a parliamentarian to say anything in parliament and not be prosecuted.
"Today I raise a matter before the House that is of great importance to the Australian people. It is a matter that poses a threat to our democratic tradition, particularly the freedom of the press, and our national sovereignty. I refer to the threat of foreign interference in our political institutions. ...We live in a rapidly changing world. We are watching the rise of authoritarian states. Those states are conducting foreign interference operations across Western democracies. In Australia it is clear that the Chinese Communist Party is working to covertly interfere with our media and universities and also to influence our political processes and public debates. ...
The central pillar of the government's counter foreign interference strategy is sunlight. That's why we're seeking to introduce a new Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme. The principle is simple. If a person or entity engages with the Australian political landscape on behalf of a foreign state or principal, they must register accordingly. This will give the Australian public and decision-makers proper visibility when foreign states or individuals may be seeking to influence Australian's political processes and public debates. ...
For reasons that are best undisclosed, the United States government did not seek to charge CC-3 for his involvement in the bribery of John Ashe. The bribery does, however, raise the question: what were the objectives of CC-3 in securing Ashe's attendance at the conference?"
Hastie explained that CC-3 had a leadership role in China's United Front. In previous articles, I've described China's "United Front Work Department" something that China's president Xi Jingping has said was China's "Magic Weapon."
Officially, the United Front focuses on building support for the Communist Party in China, but it's become a coercive propaganda tool targeting Chinese globally, especially in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., and Canada, but in other countries as well. The agency particularly surveils and targets Chinese students and Chinese students abroad and in foreign universities to adopt language that favors pro-Beijing policies, such as delegitimizing Taiwan, and Western ideals and values, such as liberal democracy, Christianity, or Falun Gong.
Andrew Hastie described CC-3's involvement in the United Front in Tuesday evening's speech, using CC-3's Mandarin name Zhou Zerong:
"The United Front is a platform of the Chinese Communist Party that is tasked with influence operations for the People's Republic of China. It aims to influence the choices, direction and loyalties of its targets, with a particular focus overseas on foreign political and business elites. The primary objective of the United Front is to shape thinking and attitudes in a way that is favorable to China. Mao Zedong, for good reasons, described the United Front as one of the three magic weapons of the Chinese Communist Party. Zhou, or CC-3, was no stranger to the United Front. He had assumed leadership of an organization intimately involved with it. In the final paragraph of the cable, Goldberg wrote that the Guangdong Overseas Chinese Businessmen's Association was essentially a creature of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front program."
Hastie concluded his speech by naming Chau specifically:
"As chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security I led a delegation to the United States last month to discuss our espionage and foreign interference legislation with US counterparts. During discussions with United States authorities I confirmed the long-suspected identity of CC-3. It is now my duty to inform the House and the Australian people that CC-3 is Dr Chau Chak Wing, the same man who co-conspired to bribe the president of the United Nations General Assembly, John Ashe, the same man with extensive contacts in the Chinese Communist Party, including the United Front. I share it with the House because I believe it to be in the national interest. My duty first and foremost is to the Australian people and to the preservation of the ideals and democratic traditions of our Commonwealth. That tradition includes a free press. I thank the House."
Australian Broadcasting and Australian Parliament and Daily Mail (London)
Andrew Hastie's explosive revelations were not previously revealed to prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who has recently been on a charm offensive to improve relations with China.
Relations between China and Australia have been increasingly tense for a number of reasons. One is that China's illegal militarization of the South China Sea is seen as a military and commercial threat to Australia. Furthermore, as we reported in February, a new book extensively documents China's infiltration into Australia's organizations. The new charges that prominent Australian politician Chau Chak-wing participated in a Chinese Communist Party bribery operation, and had a leadership position in the powerful United Front espionage organization only add to the concerns that many Australians have about the infiltration of China into Australia.
The increasing hostility of Australian politicians to China has brought some sharp responses from China itself. In Wednesday's press conference by China's foreign ministry, the spokesman said:
"The China-Australia relations have recently encountered difficulties, which leads to problems in our cooperation in some areas, and that is something China does not wish to see. ... [The] Australian side must first of all address its problem of perception, put China's development in a positive perspective and truly take China's development as a positive factor, instead of looking China through tinted glasses. Once the problem of perception addressed, the necessary conditions for the true improvement and sound and steady development of China-Australia relations will be created."
China's state media is taking the editorial position that Australia should be punished for its "arrogant" attitude:
"Sino-Australia relations have remained on a steady downward slope since last year due to distorted reporting on behalf of Australian media and remarks made by Australian politicians on China’s alleged interference and infiltration in Australian internal affairs.Such remarks have not only created obstacles in the development of bilateral relations between the two countries, but also have had a negative impact on Chinese living in Australia. Australian officials recently made unfriendly remarks toward China, actively hurling accusations. ...
It is high time China demonstrated how it sticks to its principles in regard to its relations with Australia, so as to make Australia pay for its arrogant attitude toward China over the past two years. ...
China has been very friendly toward Australia, but their arrogant attitudes in return over the past two years have become a virtual example of what it means to "bite the hand that feeds."
Australia's image among Chinese people has grown increasingly negative due to its warped accusations hurled at China. China does not need to spend time and effort seeking out revenge against Australia.
The cooling of bilateral relations between the two may last for a while, perhaps a few years or even longer. That would be a good lesson for Australia to learn, while also setting a precedent for other nations to follow in that there are no benefits for any country that chooses to take provocative measures against China."
It seems that relations between Australia and China will not improve much in the months to come, and in fact will probably deteriorate further. Business Insider and China Foreign Ministry and Global Times (China) and New Daily (Australia)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-May-18 World View -- Australia-China relations in crisis after revelation of Chinese bribery scandal thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-May-2018)
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Key proposals from Italy's M5S-League coalition
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Italy's Banco Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), founded in 1472, is the world's oldest operating bank. It may also be the world's worst managed bank, since by 2016 it had $55.2 billion in bad loans on its books. Even worse, salesmen working for the bank sold people high-risk high-yield bonds in place of ordinary savings accounts, so a collapse of the bank would mean hundreds of thousands of people, including many pensioners, would have their life savings wiped out.
In fact, Italy's entire banking system was close to collapse. There were €350 billion in bad loans on the books of Italy's banks, a third of the eurozone's total bad debt.
It's a violation of European Central Bank (ECB) rules for a member country to bail out its own banks, since that forces the taxpayers to pay for the mistakes of the bank managers, who should be held to account for their mistakes. Nonetheless, an MBS collapse would have been so disastrous for Italy's economy, that the EU was forced to agree to allow a bailout in July of last year, adding to Italy's already huge debt.
Today, Italian debt stands at around €2.17 trillion, or 133% of gross domestic product (GDP). That's worse than Greece's situation when it was being bailed out in 2010. At that time, Greece's debt as "only" 127% of GDP.
Furthermore, Italy has been struggling with years of crisis. The youth unemployment rate has remained stubbornly well above 30%, and Italy has felt abandoned by the EU as it had to deal with hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving on it shores across the Mediterranean Sea from Libya.
As I've been writing for years, most nations of the world have entered a generational Crisis era, and in a generational Crisis era, nationalistic and xenophobic behaviors of the population increase. This is happening in countries around the world. You can argue whether this is good or bad, but it's like arguing whether a cyclone is good or bad. It doesn't matter whether you think it's good or bad, since it's going to happen anyway.
In Italy, these nationalistic and xenophobic behaviors are converging into a potential major crisis, as it now appears that Italy is about to form a government which is anti-euro, anti-EU, anti-immigrant, and with no fiscal discipline whatsoever.
Italy's March elections failed to produce a governing coalition, and so Italy hasn't had a government since then. The political fighting has been raucous and bitter, and two parties that were particularly bitter rivals were the left-wing Five Star Movement (M5S) that got 32% of the vote, and the right-wing La Lega (The League) that got 17% of the vote.
These two parties are far apart on many issues, but they do share a nationalistic anti-euro attitude, a xenophobic anti-immigrant attitude, and a complete lack of fiscal discipline, and so much to the shock and surprise of many EU politicians, they are forming a governing coalition, based on those principles.
Luigi Di Maio is the leader of M5S, and Matteo Salvini is the leader of The League. However, neither of them will be prime minister.
Reports indicate that they have jointly agreed that Giuseppe Conte, an obscure law professor, should be chosen as prime minister. Conte is a professor of public administration law at the University of Florence and is a political novice, so the obvious intent is that he would be a figurehead and Di Maio and Salvini would control him. BBC (25-June-2017) and Deutsche Welle and International Banker(6-Oct-2017)
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Matteo Salvini is a 45 year old member of Generation-X, a generation known for its destructiveness and self-destructiveness. Luigi Di Maio is a 31 year old member of the Millennial generation, a generation known for its lack of knowledge about almost anything, and a belief that everything should be free.
Those generational descriptions are, of course, stereotypes, and apply only to a minority of each generation. However, the policies proposed by Salvini and Di Maio suggest that the stereotypes apply fully to them.
Here are some of the proposals in their policy document:
"The government's actions will target a program of public debt reduction not through revenue based on taxes and austerity, policies that have not achieved their goal, but rather through increased GDP by the revival of internal demand."
Here you see how the two sides are supporting each other. The left-wing M5S will spend more money, and the right-wing League will reduce taxes.
The nightmare scenario is an Italy fiscal crisis similar to the Greece fiscal crisis. Italy's economy is ten times as big as Greece's, so an Italy fiscal crisis would be a catastrophe. AFP and Pound Sterling Live and Bloomberg and AFP
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-May-18 World View -- European markets in turmoil over Italy's unbridled spending proposals thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-May-2018)
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China's gender imbalance caused by one-child policy has been disastrous
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Since the 1979, China has attempted to control the size of its population by adopting a "one-child policy" which limited the number of children that a couple could have to just one.
Now the government in Beijing is realizing that this is a demographic disaster in two ways. First, China's population is aging rapidly, and pension payments are not keeping up. Second, since parents wanted to have a son more than a daughter, there's a huge gender imbalance. Out of China’s population of 1.4 billion, there are nearly 34 million more males than females
Now China is considering removing all limits to birth. The new rules will take effect at the end of this year or in 2019. This announcement has the feeling of a move of desperation. The one-child policy was reformed in 2013, when China announced that couples where one parent is an only child would be allowed to have a second child. When that policy failed miserably, China announced in October 2015 that all couples would be permitted to have two children.
Even that change had almost no effect at all. In Beijing, for example, just 6.7% of those eligible applied to have a second child. Couples are complaining that they can barely afford the costs of raising one child, so they don't want to risk the financial burden of a second child.
To alleviate the financial burdens, China's State Council proposed measures ranging from taxation incentives to introducing paternity leave to boost birth rate, but demographic experts said the cost would be huge.
China's birth rate has been dipping below the "replacement level," necessary to keep the population growing. As things stand, China's population will peak at about 1.45 billion in 2030. Furthermore, it's workforce will age to the point where those 45-69 will account for over 1/3 of the population.
China's president Xi Jinping has promised to build a world-class military force. His plans face many serious problems, and one of the most serious is that China's youth in the 2020s will be too busy producing food and medicines for any aging population. Bloomberg and South China Morning Post (26-Jan-2018) and Bloomberg (26-Jun-2017)
There are 114 boys born for every 100 girls in China. In rural China, the figure is even greater, with 130 boys for every 100 girls. Out of China’s population of 1.4 billion, there are nearly 34 million more males than females.
On average in the world, humans give birth to 103 boys for every 100 girls. The number of boys is greater since men are more likely than women to be killed in war. But 114 to 100 is not expected.
Theoretically, the one-child policy should not affect the gender ratio at all. If you're going to restrict the number of births, then theoretically you would restrict the births of boys and girls equally. But that's not what happened in China. If a woman was to be restricted to having just one child, then she and her husband often wanted that child to be a boy, rather than a girl, since a boy would be able to support his parents as they grew older.
Female infanticide increased when the one-child policy came into effect, taking advantage of a loophole that if your one child died, then you were allowed to have another child. Ultrasound tests became generally available in the 1980s, and although they were banned in 1994, women still were able to find them, and abort a baby if it was a girl. This created the gender imbalance.
The disastrous consequences of the one-child policy are now being felt today, as the children who were born in the 1980s-90s are coming of age. Millions of men are unable to find girlfriends and wives, which creates not only a loneliness problem, but also a risk to the stability of society. If there are too few girls, then they're likely to be tempted into prostitution, or to be abducted and sold for human trafficking.
China is not alone in this situation. Birth rates have been falling in countries around the world. In the United States, the fertility rate has fallen to a historic low. The trend is being driven by a decline in birthrates for teens and 20-somethings. The birthrate for women in their 30s and 40s increased — but not enough to make up for the lower numbers in their younger peers.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, what we're seeing is the reflection of the baby boom that occurred at the end of World War II. Women were reluctant to have children during the Great Depression and WW II, but when the war ended, there was an explosion of births, giving rise to what demographers call the Baby Boom generation.
Today we're seeing a situation where there's a lot of anxiety about the future. There's been a financial crisis, there are multiple wars in progress in the Mideast, and war with North Korea and China is on the horizon. Many women do not wish to have a baby under these circumstances, so we're seeing a drop in fertility rate. But after the next world war ends, then we'll see a new baby boom. Washington Post and Reuters and Time (27-July-2009) and National Geographic (13-Nov-2015) and Washington Post (30-June-2017)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-May-18 World View -- China will end 'one-child policy' and all limits on births thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-May-2018)
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Turkey warns Syria's Bashar al-Assad not to attack Idlib province
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The army of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is in the final weeks of regaining control of areas around Damascus that it lost to opposition forces, mainly in the 2013-14 time frame to the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). ISIS was composed mainly of foreign fighters that had come from over 80 to fight Bashar al-Assad, and they were opposed not only by the al-Assad regime but also by local Syrian anti-Assad militias. Among these Syrian anti-Assad militias are the al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). They also include "Jaysh al-Islam" or "Army of Islam."
Al-Assad has used the same methods to take control of Eastern Aleppo a year ago, and Eastern Ghouta and Douma in the last few months. There's massive bombing by Syrian and Russian warplanes of homes, hospitals, schools and markets, particularly targeting women and children. Because many people, especially women and children, hide out in basements from the bombs, al-Assad drops barrel bombs containing chlorine. Since chlorine is heavier than air, it drifts down into the basements and forces the women and children into the streets, where al-Assad's bombs can kill many of them all at once. In addition, al-Assad has used Sarin gas for mass slaughter on occasions.
After several months of this bombardment, international pressure has caused al-Assad to agree to allow the anti-Assad militias to give up their weapons, and flee the violence along with their families by traveling to Idlib province in northwestern Syria along the border with Turkey.
Tens of thousands of refugees from Aleppo and Ghouta have traveled to Idlib province, and Idlib province is now a smoking cauldron. There are multiple competing militias all across the province, some of them moderate, and some al-Qaeda linked. New militias are being formed all the time, as tensions increase because of overcrowding. Some of the militias get along with each other, and in other cases they fight and kill each other.
Now that al-Assad is finishing up in Ghouta, he's beginning to turn his attention to Idlib province, where he plans to take control in the same way. But while Aleppo and Ghouta each started with about 300,000-400,000 people, Idlib has 2.5 million people. Furthermore, while Idlib was the location to which families fled from violence, there's no place else to go to escape Idlib.
If, as seems likely, al-Assad begins to use missiles, barrel bombs, chlorine and Sarin gas on women and children in Idlib, there will humanitarian catastrophe several times worse than we've seen in Ghouta or Aleppo. Syria Deeply (29-Mar) and Enab Baladi (10-May) and United Nations and TRT World (Turkey)
Turkey is responsible for enforcing a ceasefire in Idlib province, under the terms of agreements from the "Astana peace process," a series of meetings that took place in Astana Kazakhstan between Turkey, Russia and Iran. Those meetings defined four "de-escalation zones," and the participants are responsible for enforcing a ceasefire in them.
The whole Astana agreement about de-escalation zones has turned out to be a big joke. Not only did Russia and Iran not make any attempt to enforce a ceasefire in the de-escalation zones they were responsible for, they actually did the opposite. Russia, in particular, was particularly bloody in its warplane attacks on civilians in de-escalation zones. Bashar al-Assad has already begun bombing in the Idlib de-escalation zone. The whole de-escalation zone plan has proven to be a farce and a lie.
However, Turkey claims it will enforce a ceasefire in Idlib province, which is the de-escalation zone that it is responsible for. Turkey has been setting up observation posts within Idlib province, from which the ceasefire can be monitored. Turkey set up its 12th and final observation posts on Wednesday of last week.
Turkey's foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu last week warned the Syrian government not to attack Idlib province, since any such attack will lead to a "catastrophe":
"Currently the most important issue is for the ceasefire not be violated in Syria. If this is achieved, political settlement will become closer. There are many fragmented terror groups. Our intelligence service and the General Staff are dealing with the matter. We have achieved certain results. If the Syrian regime launches an attack tomorrow under the pretext of fighting against terrorists, it will be a catastrophe. This is why we are monitoring the situation and have established our observation posts."
So, Cavusoglu is saying that a Syrian attack will be a "catastrophe," but he doesn't say that anything will be done in response to such an attack.
In fact, each of these 12 observation posts consists of a few tanks and a few Turkish soldiers. The sites are typically on the top of a hill, so that as much countryside as possible can be observed, but it's clear that Turkish forces can do nothing to stop fighting among the local militias, or to prevent Syrian or Russian bombing with Idlib. All they can do is "observe." Anadolu and Middle East Eye and Sputnik (Moscow)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-May-18 World View -- Stage is set for a new humanitarian catastrophe in Syria's Idlib province thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-May-2018)
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China prepares for war on multiple fronts
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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While 99% of the world was hypnotized by Markle Sparkle, China made a major escalation in its illegal militarization of the South China Sea, and said it was preparing for war.
China announced on Friday that it has begun landing bombers on the artificial islands it created in the South China sea, in preparation for the Battle of the South China Sea. The announcement appeared on China's Ministry of Defense web site:
"A division of the Air Force’s aviation division has recently organized multi-model multi-bombers such as the -6K to carry out training on islands and reefs to take off and land in the southern seas, tempering the ability to “reach all regions, conduct full-time air strikes, and strike in all directions." ...The aviation division equipped with the H-6K and other multi-type bombers, keeping in mind the strategic requirements of “ideological and political should be strong, have good skills to fight and must be strong in fighting style”, are fully committed to advancing training in the new era and are preparing for the West Pacific and the Battle of the South China Sea."
This is another major escalation in China's preparation for war. The bombers are landing on the artificial islands that China constructed in violation of international law, as the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled that all of China's activities in the South China Sea are illegal.
China has repeatedly lied and hid its true intentions. Originally, the artificial islands were going to be for tourists and scientists, which was a lie. Then the military installations would be purely defensive, which was another lie. And now they're part of a massive militarization in anticipation, when preparation has been completed, to launch a full-scale war on America and its allies. Chinese military facilities in the South China Sea include air bases, radar and communications systems, naval facilities and defensive weaponry including landing strips able to accommodate military planes.
This announcement comes just two weeks after China deployed offensive cruise and surface-to-air missiles in South China Sea.
Friday's announcement referred to the artificial island off Woody Island, in the Paracel Islands. It's believed that this island is a blueprint for deployments to the Spratly Islands farther south, at its outposts at Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross Reefs. In all cases, these reefs can accommodate bombers, as well as large transport, patrol, and refueling aircraft. China Daily and China Ministry of Defense (Trans) and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (CSIS/AMTI) and Popular Science
On June 16 of last year, China sent troops and construction workers to begin road construction in Bhutan's Doklam Plateau, with the apparent intention of annexing the region. At Bhutan's request, India sent in troops to prevent the annexation. Tensions escalated for weeks, and then suddenly and unexpectedly on August 28 the crisis ended when China backed off.
No one seriously believed that China backed off because they had lost interest. The most likely conclusion was that China was not ready for a full-scale war with India, and wanted to wait until it WAS ready for a full-scale war.
In the meantime, satellite images show that China has military buildup in Bhutan's Doklam Plateau. China has positioned thousands of troops, and built two helicopter platforms, and dozens of houses and stores.
Recently, China's Foreign Ministry reaffirmed its claim that Doklam belongs to China:
"Donglong (Doklam) belongs to China because we have historical conventions. China's activities there (Doklam) are within our sovereign rights. There is no such thing as changing status quo."
Furthermore, it emerged that Chinese troops have made new roads and other construction to gain access to another region of Bhutan. So few people doubt that China has not given up, but is moving forward with a large military buildup to use for an invasion at a time of its choosing.
As we reported last week, China says that the reason that it's performing aggressive military exercises around Taiwan is with the intention of threatening Taiwan. Once again, China is preparing for an invasion of Taiwan at a time of its choosing. Similar aggressive moves are occurring around Japan's Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
Writing these articles makes it starkly clear how much utter craziness there is in the world. Would America be better off if it invaded and annexed Cuba? Would Britain be better off if it invaded and annexed Ireland? No one would even consider such insane moves. So then why on earth does China think it will be better off by invading and annexing Doklam Plateau? One doesn't have to be a full-fledged pacifist to see how insane this is, but that's what the Chinese are doing.
China has repeatedly hidden its intentions, and will continue to do so until it's prepared to launch its attack. China is following exactly the same path that the Nazis followed. Xi Jinping's "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" is the same as Hitler's National Socialism. Like the Nazis, the Chinese believe that they're a Master Race that will conquer the world. They'd have to be crazy to believe that they could succeed at that, but the Chinese are crazy. And they'll do exactly what the Nazis did -- bring destruction and catastrophe to themselves and the entire world. New Delhi TV and The Print (India) and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and The Diplomat
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-May-18 World View -- China escalates militarization of South China Sea, preparing for war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(20-May-2018)
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Iranian police clash with marginalized Qashqai tribe in southern Iran
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The latest in a series of anti-government protests in cities across Iran resulted in up to six protesters killed, and dozens more injured or arrested, by Iranian regime security forces in the last two days in the city of Kazerun (Kazeroon, Kazeroun) in southern Iran.
The population of Kazerun is about 150,000. The people are from the Qashqai tribe, a minority group of about a million people in Iran that the government has failed to fully integrate into the mainstream of Iranian society. Although they are Shia Muslims, they have little use for organized religion and are not devout followers.
They're a nomadic tribe, traditionally practicing pastoralism with sheep and goats, using camels as transports. They endure long seasonal migrations of hundreds of miles between lowland winter and highland summer pastures.
This lifestyle is relative unique for Iran, and explains why they're not integrated into mainstream society. Since the 1800s, their fortunes have gone up and down depending on who was in power in Iran. During the 1979 Great Islamic Revolution civil war, they fought in support of the Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini and the revolutionary side to oust the Shah of Iran.
After the revolution, Khomeini and the ruling regime looked upon the Qashqai with favor. But because the Qashqai were so different from the other Persian people, they quickly clashed with the new regime, which was following a pathologically harsh version of Sharia law and imposing it on the entire country. The good feelings ended pretty quickly in 1980, when Qashqai leaders were arrested, but then escaped from prison and formed an anti-government insurgency. The regime captured the escaped Qashqai leaders and executed them.
Nonetheless, the Qashqai had been harshly suppressed under the Shah, and benefitted greatly from the Khomeini regime in the 1980s. In particular, the government did not interfere with their pastoral activities nor their migration routes by which they traveled with their sheep and goats.
The Qashqai have been increasingly marginalized since the 1980s, and they now harbor a great deal of anti-government sentiment. That sentiment spilled out onto the streets in the last few months.
Last year, a government official proposed a plan to split the county of Kazerun into two, and make other administrative changes. Although some Qashqai supported the plan, most bitterly opposed it, particularly the undeveloped and poor districts which viewed the plan as further discrimination. Radio Farda and JCPA and Cultural Survival and Against The Compass
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The people of Kazerun have been peacefully protesting for weeks against the administrative plan to split the county. The government made some concessions, but apparently their sincerity was in doubt.
On April 20, the protesters occupied the site for the city's Friday prayers. There were a number of extremely angry chants, including “Our enemy is right here; liars say it is America,” but there were other, more shocking slogans too, including “Be afraid when we get guns” and “We will kill the traitors.”
These chants revived memories of massive protests in cities across the country starting in late December of last year. At that time, there were chants like, "Seyed Ali [Khamenei] shame on you let go of our country," "Death to the Dictator," "Death to Rouhani," "Leave Syria, think about us," and "Forget about Gaza and Lebanon; I’ll sacrifice my life for Iran."
Iran is in a generational Awakening era, following the 1979 Great Islamic Revolution civil war. The psychopathic hardliners view any sort of peaceful protest as a revival of the civil war, and so even peaceful protests have to be crushed brutally. So the Iranian regime brutally crushed the protests in January, killing some protesters and arresting several thousand.
The peaceful Kazerun protests of the last few weeks are being interpreted the same way, as an existential threat to the Khamenei regime, and so they have to be crushed brutally as well.
On Thursday, the protesters gathered in the city's main square. Iranian security forces fired teargas at the protesters, who set the police station on fire. The security forces responded with live gunfire, killing as many as five protesters, while dozens more were injured and arrested.
There's an irony about this situation in that it's occurring at the same time as Iran's government is criticizing the Israelis for the deaths of people from Hamas trying to break through the border fence from Gaza into Israel. Iran's government is criticizing the Israelis, but ignoring their own actions in Kazerun. The protesters themselves have noticed this hypocrisy in some of their chants: “The Government Supports Gazans, But Betrays Kazerun," and “Our Enemy is Here, not in the US." Iran Wire and Deutsche Welle and CNN (14-Jan-2018) and JCPA
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-May-18 World View -- Two protesters killed in southern Iran in latest violent clashes with police thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(19-May-2018)
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Applying lessons learned, WHO and MSF move quickly to contain Ebola outbreak
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was only marginally affected by the massive Ebola epidemic that struck western Africa (Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea) in 2014-2016. DRC itself has had its own Ebola outbreaks 9 times since 1976, but all of them have occurred in rural villages, where they were easily contained.
What's different now is that a new Ebola outbreak has spread to a large, densely packed port city, with the possibility of rapid transmission within the city, as well as transmission along the Congo River to other countries.
As far as is currently known, the latest outbreak began in a small inland village called Ikoko Impenge, accessible only by motorbike. However, the outbreak only became known on May 8, when the DRC notified the World Health Organization (WHO) that there were two confirmed cases identified in another inland village, Bikoro. By Thursday, 23 deaths had occurred from Ebola cases in isolated rural villages, giving authorities a better chance of ring-fencing the outbreak before it could spread.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization announced that the Ebola outbreak had reached a "new phase," as new Ebola cases were identified in Mbandaka, a large heavily populated urban city of about 1.2 million people. It's believed that the disease was brought to Mbandaka by two or three people who had attended the funeral of an Ebola victim in Bikoro.
The spread of the outbreak to Mbandaka is "explosive," according to senior WHO official Peter Salama:
"This is a major development in the outbreak. We have urban Ebola, which is a very different animal from rural Ebola. The potential for an explosive increase in cases is now there.This puts a whole different lens on this outbreak and gives us increased urgency to move very quickly into Mbandaka to stop this new first sign of transmission."
There are two reasons why the outbreak in Mbandaka could be explosive:
The World Health Organization on Friday is convening an emergency meeting to “consider the international risks” of the Ebola outbreak, and to decide whether to officially declare an international emergency. STAT News and BBC and Al Jazeera and World Health Organization and United Nations
The World Health Organization (WHO) was heavily criticized for moving too slowly to contain the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia from 2014 to 2016, and so is now moving quickly to try to contain the new outbreak in DRC.
The Emergency Committee meeting that WHO is convening on Friday will decide whether to declare a "public health emergency of international concern," which would mean getting access to more resources. So this step may be taken even though the outbreak is still confined to DRC.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) has sent multiple teams to hospitals in Mbandaka and Bikoro. MSF is sending tons of supplies to Mbandaka, including medical kits; protection and disinfection kits containing isolation items such as protective clothing, gloves, and boots; logistical and hygiene kits containing items such as plastic sheets, chlorine spray kits, and water treatment kits; and palliative drugs to treat Ebola symptoms, such as strong painkillers, anti-anxiety drugs, and antibiotics.
A new experimental Ebola vaccine has been developed since the 2014-2016 outbreak, and MSF has 4,000 doses available to use to control the outbreak in Mbandaka. A vaccine cannot help someone who is already sick, but it will be used in conjunction with the methodology of "contact tracing." Once a potential victim is identified, then contact tracing means that potential contacts ae located, and their contacts are located, and so forth, and all of those people could be given the new vaccine.
However, it's not clear that any of these methods will prevent an explosive spread of Ebola. In 2014, Ebola spread rapidly in Liberia's capital city Monrovia, particularly in the West Point slum area, with more than 70,000 people crowded together on a peninsula, with no running water, sanitation or garbage collection. If there is a similar slum area in Mbandaka, Kinshasa, or Brazzaville, then the spread could be equally massive. TRT World and Doctors Without Borders and AP and World Health Organization
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-May-18 World View -- New Ebola outbreak in major DR Congo city is called potentially 'explosive' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(18-May-2018)
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Taiwan, in cooperation with the U.S., strengthens defenses against China
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Last week, China conducted an "innovative joint operation" where Chinese warplanes flew in opposite directions around Taiwan. New Su-35 fighter jets flew with H-6K strategic bombers south of Taiwan, and J-11 fights flew with KJ-200 early warning aircraft north of Taiwan. These operations involved two theatre commands for exercises that involved early warning systems, detection and assaults.
China's government said Wednesday that the country’s military exercises around Taiwan are intended as a direct threat to Taiwan, following any moves toward independence. According to the Chinese government spokesman:
"It is a strong warning to Taiwan independence separatist forces and their activities. It demonstrates our determination and capabilities to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.[China has the] firm will, full confidence and sufficient capabilities to block moves toward Taiwan’s formal independence."
China has conducted frequent missions by air force fighters, bombers and surveillance planes to circle Taiwan. Also, China has repeated sailed its sole operating aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait.
China is using a "carrot and stick" to deal with Taiwan. The "carrot" is that China is introducing 31 "preferential policies" for Taiwan, in the fields of legal rights, education, culture and tourism, with the objective of charming the Taiwanese people by improving their lives. China is making it easy for Taiwanese businesses to borrow money and invest in high-tech enterprises on the mainland. China has provided internships and jobs for nearly 9,000 Taiwanese youth as of the end of 2017.
Perhaps most important, Taiwanese entrepreneurs and businessmen who are complaining about low pay and Taiwan are being offered higher wages and bigger markets on mainland China, resulting in a "brain drain" in Taiwan.
The "stick" is a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Military experts say the balance of power between Taiwan and mainland China has now shifted decisively in the mainland's favor, and they would overwhelm Taiwan unless US forces quickly came to Taiwan's rescue. The United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, but it is unclear whether the US would take military action to defend Taiwan, and have an all-out war with China. South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and AP and South China Morning Post and Xinhua and Reuters (21-Apr) and Reuters (24-Apr)
Last week for the first time, the annual Taiwan-U.S. Defense Business Forum was hosted in Taiwan, in order to "bring together US and Taiwan companies to discuss granular challenges of bilateral cooperation in the defense industry supply chain." The objective is to allow business executives and government officials from both countries to discuss defense cooperation in the shipbuilding, cybersecurity, and aerospace industries.
China, as usual, reacted with fury. Zhu Songling, a professor at the institute of Taiwan studies in Beijing Union University, that the event was dangerous, and could lead to war:
"The deepening US defense cooperation with Taiwan is an act of gross interference in China's domestic affairs. It's a very serious matter for the Chinese mainland. Further moves that promote concrete military exchanges will invoke a strong response from the mainland, even prompt the Chinese mainland to use non-peaceful means to resolve the Taiwan question."
A particular worry for the Taiwanese are China's J-20 stealth fighter jets. These are not detectable using ordinary radar, and if J-20s were among the warplanes circling Taiwan last week, Taiwan's military was not aware of it.
Taiwan is developing, for operational testing this year, and with mass production and deployment expected by 2020, the P01-180514-pic1BA mobile passive radar system developed by the island’s Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology. This system would be able to detect, track and lock on to targets at long range.
Finally, Taiwan scheduled its own military drills late in April. These drills simulate repelling an invading force, emergency repairs of a major airbase and using civilian-operated drones as part of military exercises. The descriptions of these drills do not mention China, but instead refer to "offensive forces invading Taiwan." The Diplomat and Global Times (Beijing, 8-May) and Asia Times
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-May-18 World View -- China says that its military exercises are intended to threaten Taiwan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(17-May-2018)
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Afghan government continues to lose control to the Taliban
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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It's just the beginning of the Taliban's Spring Fighting Season, and Afghanistan government forces have apparently been caught completely by surprise by an overwhelming Taliban attack on Farah City, the provincial capital of Farah province. Farah province is in western Afghanistan, on the border with Iran.
Hundreds of Taliban attackers overran several security checkpoints in coordinated attacks starting at 2 am on Tuesday. Heavily armed Taliban fighters, using captured Afghan military HUMVEEs and police pickup trucks, launched the coordinated assault on Farah City overnight from multiple directions. Afghan security forces have responded, but had to be backed up by American and Nato warplanes, including A-10 Warthogs.
A government official claimed that no government building or organization had fallen to the Taliban, but residents are claiming that the city is close to total collapse, and government officials have a history of reporting fake news in these situations. Videos released on social media show that a number of security forces vehicles have been torched, and that the Taliban have entered a building used by the security forces. The clashes are ongoing. Tolo News (Afghanistan) and Long War Journal and Business Insider
Afghan officials have long complained that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), aid the Taliban insurgents in western Afghanistan in an effort to torpedo construction projects and undermine stabilization efforts by the US-led coalition in the region. Unlike in the past, IRGC-affiliated media outlets now openly express support for the Taliban’s latest territorial gains in western Afghanistan. Commentary in the IRGC outlets also indicate that Iran’s support to the Taliban is aimed at expelling U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan, particularly from western Afghan provinces.
Farah is the fourth largest province in Afghanistan, with a population of 925,000 in 11 districts. According to the US Naval University in 2009, 50 percent of the Farah population is composed of Pashtun tribes, 45 percent of Tajik and the rest of the population, including the Diaspora, Hazaras and Baluchs. Middle East Institute and Tasnim News (Iran) (Translation)
Taliban began its Spring Fighting Season in late April, and according to Afghan officials, the Taliban have carried out over 2,700 attacks across the country in the first 19 days of the Spring Fighting Season. In the last week Afghan security forces suffered heavy losses in clashes against insurgents across the country, so on Sunday the Afghan interior ministry said that security forces have retreated from some areas that have high threat levels so as to avoid additional fatalities.
On the other hand, General Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said a few days ago:
"The message I would send to the Taliban is that they cannot win militarily. The international coalition, led by the United States, is focused on providing the military pressure, in conjunction with social pressure and diplomatic pressure that will force them to come to the table."
This is the latest delusional statement from the US military. It's certainly true that as an anti-government insurgency they cannot win militarily, but it's equally true that there is no chance whatsoever to "force them to come to the table."
I've been saying this repeatedly for many years, and the reasons are just as true today as ever.
As I've explained many times, Afghanistan's last generational crisis war was the extremely bloody Afghan crisis civil war, 1991-96, which mostly pitted the ethnic Pashtuns, who are Sunni Muslims and later formed the Taliban, versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. Now, twenty years later, Afghanistan is in a generational Awakening era, and a new young generation of Pashtuns is coming of age, raised on stories their parents told them about the atrocities committed by the Northern Alliance, and they're looking for revenge.
But you don't have to know anything about generational history to understand what's going on. You just have to understand that there was an extremely bloody, violent civil war in 1991-96, pitting the Pashtuns versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. And you have to know that the Taliban are Pashtuns, and that young Pashtuns are looking for revenge for atrocities committed in the 1990s, and that Nato troops are completely irrelevant.
So the funny thing is that even if Votel's claim that military force targeting a group of Taliban leaders could "force them to come to the table," the children of those Taliban leaders will have none of it. It's possible that most of the Taliban fighting in Farah province today were just children in school just a few years ago.
However, as I've written in the past, there's a dynamic going on, where Votel and the American military makes statements that the public wants to hear, even though they don't contain a word of truth. Votel understands that this war cannot be won, but there's a larger purpose. As war with China and Pakistan approaches, president Trump wants to keep American troops active in Afghanistan, and to continue to maintain several American military bases in Afghanistan, including two air bases in Bagram and Kandahar International Airport. These bases will be valuable in any future war with China. Under these circumstances, having troops in Afghanistan is what matters, whether the Taliban are defeated or not. RFE/RL and Tolo News (Afghanistan) and RFE/RL
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-May-18 World View -- Taliban launches major military operation in Farah province in Afghanistan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-May-2018)
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Opening of US embassy in Jerusalem stirs strong reactions
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Dozens of residents of Gaza were killed, and over 2000 injured, in a clash with Israeli troops in what Palestinians are calling "The Great March for Return," resulting in the greatest surge of violence in Gaza since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.
Israel said some 40,000 Palestinians had taken part in "violent riots" at 13 locations along the Gaza Strip security fence. Monday's march is the culmination of six weeks of similar marches that began late in March. The pattern is always the same. Thousands of Gazans march to the border with Israel, threatening to break through the fence into Israel. Israel's army tries to stop them, first using tear gas, then rubber bullets, and eventually using live fire, resulting in casualties.
Hamas, the government authority of Gaza, has been calling these demonstrations the "Great March for Return," meaning that it's accompanied by demands for "Right of Return," the demand that Palestinians be permitted to return to the land that they lost in the Arab-Jewish war in 1948. For that reason, the attempt by thousands of Gazans to breach the fence and cross over into Israel is considered an existential threat to Israel by the Israelis.
According to reports by both media and Israeli officials, Hamas directed women and children to sit near the border fence, and then the men used the women and children as shields while throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails over the fence at soldiers. I cannot think of any explanation for this except Palestinian politics -- to incite as many killings of women and children as possible, in order to international condemnation of Israel. Times of Israel and Ma'an News (Palestine) and BBC
On Monday, the US embassy in Israel officially moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. US Ambassador David Friedman and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin unveiled a plaque officially denoting the building as the US embassy. The building is already in use as an American visa-and-passport facility, and the new embassy will occupy a portion of the building with a small staff. David Friedman will be traveling back and forth between the new Jerusalem embassy, and his main offices in Tel Aviv.
So very little of substance occurred on Monday with the move of the US embassy in Jerusalem. But the reactions to the move indicate that it has a very high symbolic significance. It was the occasion of gleeful, euphoric bragging by Israeli officials at the dedication ceremony, as contrasted to angry, somber, furious expressions by Palestinian leaders.
While most international comments were restrained, some strongly condemned Israel for either the embassy move or the Gaza violence or both.
Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned the "shocking killing of dozens, injury of hundreds by Israeli live fire."
Turkey called the Gaza violence a "vile massacre," and recalled its ambassadors from both US and Israel. South Africa also recalled its ambassador to Israel, condemning "the indiscriminate and grave manner of the latest Israeli attack."
Numerous countries, including France, Germany and Saudi Arabia, referred to the embassy move to Jerusalem as "dangerous,", "catastrophic," "irresponsible," and "against international law."
I hear journalists, politicians and analysts say all the time that "Nobody wants a war." That isn't true. Lots of people want wars. As I described in an article last year, the public becomes heavily invested in starting a war, and extremely euphoric when the war actually begins, as most of the public are under the delusion that they'll win quickly.
That euphoria lasts until there's a major setback. According to General Carl von Clausewitz, the effects on the people and the government "is a sudden collapse of the wildest expectations, and total destruction of self-confidence. The destruction of these feelings creates a vacuum, and that vacuum gets filled by a fear that grows corrosively, leading to total paralysis."
Gaza's population clearly has an overwhelming desire for another war with Israel. They presumably have been told by Hamas leaders that this time Hamas will win. I have heard Marwan Bishara, the lead analyst on al-Jazeera, imply that Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are traitors to Palestinians because they sought peace rather than war with Israel.
The dreams of an easy victory over Israel are completely delusional. In a generational Crisis era, Israel will never surrender or compromise. If the war starts going badly for Israel, nuclear weapons will be used.
As I've written many times, Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major regional war refighting the 1948 war between Jews and Arabs that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. The war will also pit Sunnis versus Shias, 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.
Monday was supposed to be the culmination of the "Great March for Return" marches. In view of all the violence, it's possible that the marches will now fizzle out for a while, or it's possible that they'll escalate into a regional conflict. Times of Israel and Al Jazeera and BBC and Washington Post
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-May-18 World View -- Gaza violence surges in Palestinian 'Great March for Return' into Israel thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(15-May-2018)
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Growth of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) in Indonesia
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Terrorist atrocities took a new turn on Sunday when a family of six, including a mother, a father, two daughters and two sons, all performed coordinated simultaneous terror attacks on three churches in Surabaya, the second-largest city in Indonesia. At least 13 people were killed, and 40 injured.
The two sons, aged 16 and 18, rode motorcycles into Santa Maria Catholic Church and detonated the bombs they were carrying.
Five minutes later, the father drove a car containing explosives and rammed it into the gate and onto the grounds of the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church.
Five minutes after that, the mother and her two daughters, aged 9 and 12, all strapped explosives to their bodies and blew themselves up at Diponegoro Indonesian Christian Church.
ISIS (Islamic State in Syria) took credit for Sunday's attack. However, their press releases made no mention that the attackers were all from the same family, indicating that, as usual, ISIS is taking credit for a terror attack that it knows nothing about, except that it was conducted in the ISIS name.
Authorities are certain that the attackers were part of the Indonesian-based Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) militant group. JAD pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2015, and then conducted a series of explosions and shootings in Indonesia's capital city Jakarta, killing four civilians. It was the first attack in the country to be linked to ISIS.
The family of six that perpetrated Sunday's attacks had recently returned from a family trip to Syria. Like hundreds of other Indonesians, and like tens of thousands of people from over 80 countries around the world, they had gone to Syria to fight the Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad, who was attacking peaceful Sunni anti-government protesters by sending missiles into school dormitories to kill children, or dropping barrel bombs laden with metal, chlorine, ammonia, phosphorous and chemical weapons on civilian neighborhoods, or using Sarin gas to kill large groups of people.
Sunday's attack is believed to be one that is part of a growing nightmare scenario, where the tens of thousands of young jihadis who had gone to Syria to fight al-Assad are now returning home, after ISIS lost almost all of the territory it formerly controlled in Syria and Iraq. As thousands of ISIS fighters return to their home countries, they will conduct terror attacks there in the name of ISIS. Reuters and Long War Journal and Daily Mail (London)
A variation of the nightmare scenario described above was followed by Khamzat Azimov, 20. On Saturday evening, Azimov traveled to one of the most popular areas of Paris, near the celebrated opera house and theatres, and started attacking passersby with a knife. He shouted "Allahu Akbar," and killed on passerby and injured four others before being tasered and then shot dead by police.
Azimov was born in Chechnya, and obtained French nationality in 2010 when his mother was naturalized. Azimov had previously been flagged as a possible security risk, and had been interviewed by counter-terrorism police -- not because of his behavior, but because of his contacts. He was known to have links to young French people who had traveled to Syria to join ISIS.
So Azimov himself didn't go to Syria and return, as was the case with the Indonesian family. Instead, he allowed himself to be radicalized by people who had gone to Syria. Guardian (London)
Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, about 227 million Muslims out of a total population of 261 million people. About 10% of the population are Christian.
Sunday's attack was the worst terror attack since 2002, when al-Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiyah killed more than 200 people, mostly tourists, through a string of bombings at popular nightclubs and hotels on Indonesia's island of Bali. Since then, Indonesian police have arrested or killed hundreds of people with links to Jemaah Islamiyah,
By 2014, a new generation of jihadists was coming of age in Indonesia, but were impatient with the older generation that had perpetrated the Bali bombing in 2002. When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, declared his caliphate in 2014, many Indonesian jihadists immediately pledged allegiance to ISIS. There were some two dozen extremist groups competing to lead the ISIS cause in Indonesia.
Under the leadership of a radical cleric named Oman Rochman, also known as Aman Abdurrahman, Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) was formed as an umbrella organization for all these extremist groups.
Aman Abdurrahman, the leader of JAD, has been in jail for the last 12 years, and is currently on trial for inciting followers to commit acts of terrorism while behind bars at a detention center which has been described by analysts as a breeding ground for pro-ISIS militants. BBC and Al Jazeera and Long War Journal (18-Apr-2017)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-May-18 World View -- ISIS linked family of six bombs three churches in Indonesia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(14-May-2018)
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North Korea schedules dismantling of nuclear test site as TV ceremony
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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North Korea has announced that its Punggye-ri nuclear test site, located in Mount Mantap, will be dismantled during the period May 23-25, and that international journalists will be able to cover the dismantling "on the spot," and transmit their reports from a press center at the site.
This announcement comes just two days after scientists reported that an examination of satellite images shows that Mount Mantap itself has collapsed considerably more than has previously been estimated. Using these images, scientists found that Mount Mantap moved by around 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) and shrank by 1.6 feet (0.5 m). It can't be determined from the satellite images whether some tunnels have collapsed, or whether the entire mountain has collapsed.
Nonetheless, what is apparent from numerous reports starting with North Korea's last nuclear test, on September 3 of last year, is that Chinese scientists and geologists are telling North Korea not to use that test site again, because another test could risk a huge nuclear disaster that would release huge amounts of radiation and nuclear debris that would spread over large parts of northeastern China, as well as North Korea.
When North Korea made the initial dismantling announcement, they said that international journalists and nuclear experts would be permitted to watch the dismantling. The latest announcement omits mention of nuclear experts, and says that even the number of journalists will be limited, suggesting that there's another layer of North Korean subterfuge in process.
The bottom line is that the dismantling of the test site on May 23-25 is a completely empty gesture, since the site cannot be used again anyway. KCNA Watch and BBC and Live Science and Washington Post
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Chinese media have been talking about a "dual track" process to achieve denuclearization. This means that the North Koreans make a concession and the US makes a concession, and so forth.
China and North Korea are already pressuring the US to ease the strict sanctions that have been imposed on North Korea, based on the supposed concessions already made. They are aware that once the sanctions have been lifted, it will be almost impossible to get international agreement to re-impose them, even if North Korea reverses any concessions that it's made. The near impossibility of re-imposing sanctions has been illustrated in the last week by the international criticism of the Trump administrations announced re-imposition of sanctions on Iran.
So the following points are worth noting with regard to the steps that have already been taken in this "dual track" process to achieve denuclearization:
Many of these things are being described by the mainstream media as concessions by the North Koreans, sometimes with the implication that Donald Trump should make some concessions in return at the meeting with Kim. However, Kim and the North Koreans have displayed a great deal of theatric showmanship, but have not made a single actual concession. Panmunjom Declaration and Japan Forward
On October 11, 1986, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev held a summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland. The agenda was mutual reductions in missile arsenals, and expectations were very high. But then Gorbachev demanded limitations on Reagan's pet project, the mythical Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which supposedly would use space technology to provide a "shield" from nuclear attacks. Reagan refused, and the meeting ended in mutual accusations and recriminations, each accusing the other of lying and bad faith. Talks did not resume again for more than a year.
It has been announced that Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un will have a summit meeting on June 12 in Singapore. Expectations for this meeting are enormously high. The people of South Korea, particularly, are praying that this will be end of their long 70-year nightmare that began with the Korean War, and that they'll be reunited with the families again.
However, Kim is going to demand that some sanctions be lifted immediately, and Trump is going to demand substantial, verifiable steps to dismantle North Korea's nuclear program. And while the main agenda item is "denuclearization," the two sides have completely different meanings for that term.
In my opinion, the most likely outcome of the June 12 meeting is a repeat of the outcome of the Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, in that the meeting will end (or not be held) amidst a flurry of mutual accusations and recriminations.
After that, there are many possible scenarios. It's possible that North Korea will continue nuclear weapons development, with or without testing, and it's possible that the Trump administration will go back to continuing military options.
As I've been writing for many months now, there's are hard bottom line positions on both sides, and they haven't changed. Kim is committed to producing an arsenal of nuclear tipped ballistic missiles aimed at the United States, and selling that technology to Iran and other rogue nations. Trump is committed to preventing that from happening. History.com and Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training and 38 North
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-May-18 World View -- Likely outcome of Trump-Kim North Korea summit: Mutual recriminations and accusations thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-May-2018)
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Climate change activists struggle to replace US climate change money
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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After two weeks, an international climate change conference in Bonn Germany, attended by delegates of over 200 countries, has ended in failure, without agreeing on the major issues of finance and transparency.
Climate change finance has been in trouble from the beginning. The 2015 climate change conference that produced the famous "Paris Climate Change Accord" dictated that the "rich countries" of the world would provide $100 billion per year to the "developing countries," starting in 2020. Even before the election of Donald Trump, it was highly unlikely that that requirement would be met.
However, since Trump has pulled the US out of the Paris agreement, other "rich countries" now have to find a way to fill the gap that was created.
As I've described many times in the past, the climate change has never actually accomplished anything -- that is, you have leaders of one country after another taking a holier-than-thou attitude toward the United States about the Paris accord, but their carbon emissions go down little if at all. In the case of Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel has had the most holier-than-thou attitude of all, carbon emissions haven't declined for nearly a decade, and have been increasing for the last three years.
I first wrote about this subject in 2007 in "UN Climate Change conference appears to be ending in farce". That conference was held at a Bali Beach Resort where 159 countries sent delegates to sip mai tais on the beach and attend an occasional meeting. The rich countries would have to contribute $100 billion to a fund for developing countries. The United Nations would control this money and administer the fund.
At that time, digging a little deeper, it turned out that Louis Redshaw, Head of Environment Markets, Barclays Capital, was leading an effort to issue synthetic securities to trade in carbon credits. It was predicted that the carbon-trading market would top $1 trillion within a decade. Readers might recall that 2007 was the year that the subprime mortgage financial crisis was starting.
In the last 11 years since that conference, nothing has changed. Climate change has accomplished nothing except as a financial scam. Climate Change News and Reuters and Washington Post and Heritage
The climate change conference in Bonn that ended on Thursday was supposed to resolve many issues, including two major ones: finance and transparence.
When Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord, there were international cries that without the leadership of the United States, other countries must assume leadership. The European Union took on the role of becoming the leader of the "rich" or developed countries, while China would be the leader of the developing countries.
China has the 2nd largest economy in the world, and Chinese people brag that centrally-planned economy is stronger than any other economy in the world. China is implementing its "Belt and Road Initiative" in countries throughout Asia by lending them money to build infrastructure and sending Chinese workers to provide the labor. China is spending its enormous wealth by setting debt traps in all these countries with huge debts that they won't be able to repay.
China is also growing into the worst climate change violator in the world, building a new coal plant every week.
And yet, when it comes to climate change, they climb into their pathetic loser shells and claim to be a "developing country," so they won't have to provide funding under the Paris accord.
So China is failing in climate change finance. What we're seeing at the climate change conference in Bonn this last week is that they're also failing in climate change transparency.
China is demanding that it not be held to any climate change standards whatsoever. In return for all the money they're getting from the rich countries starting in 2020, the developing countries are supposed to start reducing emissions in 2020.
The issues are transparency and bookkeeping. Each country is required to open its accounting books to prove that it's meeting its emission reduction commitments.
But China is now demanding "bifurcation." This is a technical term meaning that the transparency and bookkeeping rules apply only to the rich countries, not to the developing countries.
This means that the "rich" developed countries have to pay all the money and also meet the transparency and bookkeeping rules to prove that they meeting their emission commitments.
But the developing countries just have to sit back and collect money, and claim that they're reducing emissions without having to provide any evidence.
China can go on building a new coal power plant every week, and just claim that it's magic coal that reduces emissions rather than increasing them.
You know, Dear Reader, this is so completely f--ked up that it's almost unbelievable. But that's the way the world is today. With idiots like these running the world, it's no wonder we're headed for a new World War. BBC and Climate Change News and Bloomberg and Climate Change News
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-May-18 World View -- Climate change conference collapses as China backs down from emission commitments thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-May-2018)
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Turkey tightens grip on Syria's Afrin, and continues to threaten Manbij
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Turkey is continuing to tighten its grip on the northern Syria city Afrin, on Turkey's border, following the successful completion of Operation Olive Branch.
Turkey's military Operation Olive Branch began on January 20 and took place over several months, with the objective of regaining control of Syria's border city of Afrin from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The YPG is linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is considered by the US and Europe as a terrorist organization, and has conducted numerous terrorist attacks within Turkey over a thirty year period.
The operation was executed by Arab militias in the Free Syrian Army (FSA), backed by Turkish armed forces. Turkey declared the operation successfully completed on March 18.
Since then, Turkey has been tightening its control on Afrin. On April 10, Turkey announced plans to open a new border crossing from Turkey to the Syrian city of Afrin with the objective of speeding up delivery of humanitarian aid to the city. However, at the same time, the new border crossing gives Turkey complete control over Afrin.
Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, is demanding that Turkey return control of Afrin back to the Syrian regime. However, Turkey is showing no signs of being willing to do so.
On Wednesday, Turkey announced that 600 Syrian police, aged 18 to 45, have received a month's training in Turkey, and are now trained and ready to be deployed back to Afrin to provide security as local police officers, "in an effort to return daily life to normal in the recently liberated city." They received training in intervention in social incidents, police regulations, general discipline, residential district, operation education, destroying improvised explosives and crime scene investigation.
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly promised on numerous occasions that once the operation in Afrin had been completed, the FSA forces would move east to perform a similar operation in the city of Manbij, and continue from there to the Euphrates River and beyond to Iraq.
That was always going to pose big problems, since the YPG in Manbij and further east were US allies that were the principal fighters that ejected the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) from Raqqa and other regions in eastern Syria. Thus, an FSA assault on the YPG in Manbij risked a military clash with US forces.
U.S. protection of the YPG in Manbij has now been formalized. On Wednesday, it emerged that U.S. forces had set up a new base in Manbij three months ago, shortly after Turkey launched its assault on Afrin. The new base will house both US and French troops, who will have the responsibility of patrolling the border to prevent clashes between the Turkish-backed forces and the YPG in Manbij. Daily Sabah (Ankara) and Reuters and Yeni Safak (Ankara) and Daily Express (London)
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The military battle between Iran and Israel that began on Wednesday evening and continued through the night has taken a pause, with many signs that the pause will be only temporary.
According to Israel's military, the battle was triggered when Iran's Quds Force, in Syria near the border with Israel, fired 20 missiles at Israeli military positions in the Golan Heights border area separating western Syria from northern Israel.
According to Israel, this was the first ever direct Iranian rocket attack on its troops.
This triggered the most intensive attack ever on Iranian positions and assets in Syria. Israel retaliated with what appeared to be surface-to-surface missiles, and multiple Syrian anti-aircraft batteries were launched to try to intercept them. Officials said that the response targeted almost all of Iran's military infrastructure inside Syria, including dozens of weapons storage sites and intelligence centers used by elite Iranian forces, as well as Syrian air defense systems. Israel struck more than 50 Iranian targets, in its most extensive operation in Syria since 1974.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, "They need to remember the saying that if it rains on us, it'll storm on them. I hope we finished this chapter and everyone got the message."
Iran said that it had no desire to escalate the military conflict. Iran's president Hassan Rouhani said, "Iran has always sought to reduce tensions in the region, trying to strengthen security and stability."
Israel informed both Russia and the US of its plans ahead of the retaliatory strikes. Israeli officials say that Iran still has long-range capabilities in Syria with which to strike Israel, suggesting that the battle has not ended. Jerusalem Post and Independent (London) and CNN and Debka (Israel)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-May-18 World View -- Israel-Iran attacks in Syria take a pause, as Turkey tightens control over Afrin thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-May-2018)
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Israel, Iran and Syria exchange fire in first direct military confrontation
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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A prototypical conflict between herders and farmers in central Nigeria has suddenly escalated in a sectarian manner with the killing of two Catholic priests, Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha, and other worshippers on April 24. The attack occurred in the town of Mbalom, just south of Makurdi, which is the capital city of Benue State in Nigeria.
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, Nigeria, 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's Benue State, the herders are mostly Muslims from the Fulani tribe. Farmers are mostly Christians from a number of tribes, including the Tiv, Mambila and Bachama tribes. The continuing tit-for-tat violence between herders and farmers in Benue State has already killed thousands of people and left tens of thousands homeless,
So the April 24 murder of the priests and worshippers was immediately blamed by the public and the media on Muslim Fulani herders, but to this day there is no solid evidence that the gunmen were Fulanis. In fact, the assailants took money, valuables and communion wine, suggesting that the motive was robbery rather than gaining farmland. Vanguard (Nigeria, 24-Apr) and Anglican News
Three days later, a Nigeria newspaper the Daily Trust reported on revenge attacks by Christian farmers from the Tiv tribe on ethnic Hausas in the Benue State capital city Makurdi.
A Hausa community leader was quoted as wondering why Tiv farmers would target Hausa people, since they were not the herders who allegedly attacked the priests:
"Last Tuesday, we saw our people running helter-skelter in the city that they brought the corpses of Church priests that were killed at Dukwayango village and then suddenly Tiv youth started attacking our people. As I am talking to you they have killed over eight people, over 20 sustained injuries and several shops were razed while over eleven people were missing.We are not farmers, we don’t rear animals. We are just traders. These things happened in villages and in the bushes. Why are Tiv youth killing our people?"
The chief Imam of a mosque in Makurdi told the BBC Hausa service that he personally saw the corpses of 27 victims at the teaching hospital in Makurdi. He said while many were injured, some were burnt.
However, some community groups are condemning as lies the claims that Tiv farmers attacked Hausa people in Benue, and say that the purpose of the lies is to promote sectarian violence:
"It is a tissue of lies and falsehood concocted to profile the Tiv youth in bad light.We consider the said story as part of the well planned agenda by our traducers to change the narrative in the state. ... The same report went on to claim that more than 10 Muslims were killed and 11 others missing in the state as from the reprisals following the attack on St. Ignatius Quasi Parish in Mbalom. ...
It is completely fake news. The statement by the Police further said such was nothing but falsehood, believably meant to cause break down of law and order in the State."
All that's really certain is that ethnic violence in central Nigeria, which has been growing for several years, continues to grow. Daily Trust (Nigeria, 27-Apr) and Independent (Nigeria) and Guardian (Nigeria)
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As this is being written on Wednesday evening ET, there is news of missile and artillery exchanges in Syria and in and around the Golan Heights, as well as airstrikes by Israel's air force.
Israel has struck Iranian missile depots and other Iranian military targets in Syria several times in the last few weeks, promising to prevent Iran and Hezbollah from building up a force capable of attacking Syria.
For several weeks, Israel has been stepping up its military forces on the border with Lebanon, in anticipation of a retaliatory strike on Israel by Iran. That Iranian attack has apparently happened, and there have been several hours of artillery exchanges over the Golan Heights that are continuing at this writing.
The Israeli attacks on Syria have been more intense than they were in the past. There are reports that the city of Damascus is without power. At least 20 heavy rockets have been fired from Syria at Israeli forces, but there are no reports yet of Israeli damage or casualties. Reuters and Washington Post and AFP and BBC
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-May-18 World View -- Killing of two priests escalates farmer-herder conflict in Benue State, Nigeria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-May-2018)
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Brexit and other European fiascos in diplomacy
by
Loretta Napoleoni
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It is true that the barycenter of the world is moving to the east, not only economically but above all politically. Our politicians would do well to pay attention to how high-level politics is done in the east, since they would learn something. The most recent masterful lesson of international diplomacy comes from the sadly famous demilitarized zone (DMZ), the scar of the cold war that runs along the 38th parallel and which divides the Korean peninsula in two.
The dictator Kim Jong-un, considered crazy and bloody until four months ago, took part in a historic summit in South Korea, still 'enemy' territory, and where neither his father nor his grandfather ever set foot. He did it with all the honors reserved for a great head of state. The South Korean president Moon Jae-in, who has spent the last twenty years to get this meeting, is the country's spokesman. Meanwhile, Kim has used every political strategy, including the diplomacy of the Olympics, to get closer to the common goal: the peace agreement between the two nations.
The peace between these two countries -- which for three thousand years have been a unique geographical and linguistic expression, a single culture, a sovereign nation with the same people -- will open the doors to economic and commercial cooperation. The model will be that of the old European Common Market: exploiting the economic interdependencies and the resources of both to modernize the North and produce well-being throughout the peninsula. The union has the potential to give life to an economy much stronger than Japan's.
North and South, therefore, have common interests that they can pursue jointly. The obstacles are many. First of all, even if both have signed a peace armistice, the two countries are still at war. The People's Republic of North Korea is a buffer state for China, while South Korea is a very important US military base in the Pacific. In short, to get to shake hands on the 38th parallel and plant the tree of peace the two Korean leaders have had to convince Washington and Beijing to let them do it.
If we compare this lesson of international diplomacy with European post-electoral fiascos -- the last nation to prove incapable of forming a government on the basis of electoral results is Italy -- and animosities within the European Union, for example, Brexit, we realize why the axis of the world is moving to the east. To complete the sad picture of the decadence of politics in Europe, there are relations of subjugation with Washington. What about Macron crossing the ocean to present to Trump the European iron will to go ahead with the agreement with Iran and then change his mind twenty four hours after landing? Remarkable is the difference with President Moon (whose wife does not dress Chanel like the first French and American ladies), Moon is a politician of substance, who has clear ideas about the future of his nation, is not a populist.
Of course there is always Angela Merkel who clearly told Trump -- who continued to bomb the world with twitter triumphalists on the Korean summit presented as a creation -- not to trust Kim Jong-un. Yes, Merkel is a clever politician, but she has to play in a team of wives and has no interlocutor to work with seriously.
Here are some forecasts: Trump and Kim will meet, possibly in June. The peace agreement between the two leaders will be endorsed by the White House, at which point they will begin to work at the ceremony for the signing of the treaty, which will take place before November 2018, namely the mid-term US elections.
Trump will be credited with all the glory but will Kim and Moon let him do that? The North Korean dictator seems less inclined than the South Korean president to stroke Trump's ego. But he should be very careful, as the US president may walk away from the summit and Kim and Moon would end up with no deal. But if things go according to plans, Kim will reiterate the commitment to freeze nuclear warheads and details of denuclearization will be postponed to another summit, which will take place in 2019. Meanwhile, North and South Korea will quietly start to cooperate economically, despite international sanctions. Southern investors will therefore have priority access to the process of modernizing the north.
In Europe the bickering on Brexit will not disappear. The tensions between the right-wing populism of Eastern Europe and Brussels will increase, risking the implosion of the whole structure. Italy will most likely revive, but the results will not be better. In short, the scenarios are not at all positive. The last detail: Kim's haircut will continue to be more and more fashionable, while Merkel's will be considered passé.
Loretta Napoleoni is an Italian economist and analyst, and author of the 2018 book, North Korea: The Country We Love To Hate
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-May-18 News -- European politicians have a lot to learn from North and South Korean leaders, by Loretta Napoleoni thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-May-2018)
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Theresa May's two delusional proposals - Customs Partnership
and Maximum Facilitation
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Britain's foreign secretary Boris Johnson on Monday declared that the proposal by prime minister Theresa May to resolve Brexit issues was "crazy."
This has caused quite a sensation, because a high level cabinet minister is not supposed to openly criticize a major policy of the prime minister unless he wants to be fired.
The policy in question, called a "Customs Partnership," is indeed delusional, but in today's highly polarized world, where a man can lose his career for saying the wrong thing about whether he supports Trump, then you have to be willing to support even delusional policies if you want to keep your job.
In this case, however, May's spokesman said that the prime minister had "full confidence" in Johnson, and told officials "to do more work" on the proposal.
I've written about Brexit issues many times since the Brexit referendum passed almost two years ago, on June 23 2016, and the intractable, insoluble problem is always the same: Keeping a "frictionless border" between Northern Ireland and (Southern) Republic of Ireland, despite the fact that Northern Ireland will be part of the UK, and Ireland will be part of the EU.
Everyone says that there must be a frictionless border, so that people, trucks and goods can continue to flow freely back and forth between the two. The current open border was the result of the Good Friday agreement of 1999 that ended years of "The Troubles," bloody fighting between the indigenous ethnic Irish Gaelics (the Catholic Republicans) and the descendants of the English and Scottish invaders (the Protestant Unionists).
Today there are a lot of people who genuinely fear that fighting will resume in full force. This is not a trivial concern, in that there's still a great deal of hatred between some Gaelics and some English, and there are still walls separating neighborhoods in the province of Ulster, which spans both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and where there are still occasional flashes of violence. (See "23-Jun-11 News -- Sectarian violence in Northern Ireland grows again") (Paragraph corrected, 9-May)
Officially, Britain is scheduled to leave the EU in March 2019. There are huge unsolved problems having to do with trade, migration, citizens' rights, and Ireland for which solutions are nowhere in sight. Ireland and the EU are demanding a proposal on the Ireland "frictionless border" by June, and it will not be met.
Other deadlines are approaching as well. Concerns are widespread that the Brexit process is collapsing into a huge, unmanageable mess.
And why wasn't Boris Johnson fired? For that matter, why hasn't Theresa May lost her job as well. The answer, according to many analysts I hear, is that nobody else wants these jobs, under the current circumstances. BBC and Reuters and Express (London) and RTE (Ireland)
Any Brexit proposal by Britain also has to be approved by the EU27, the 27 nations of the EU excluding the UK. Theresa May has two proposals both of which are delusional for many reasons, not the least of which is that there is no chance that the EU27 will approve either of them. But the British politicians and the British press keep talking about them without even considering whether the EU will approve them.
One proposal is called the "Customs Partnership." Businesses shipping goods from foreign countries into Britain will be charged tariffs according to EU rules. The goods will then be tracked, and if they stay in Britain, then the businesses can claim a rebate of any overpayment. If not, then Britain forwards the tariff to the EU.
This leaves the Irish border frictionless, since goods can flow across the border freely, since the tariff has already been paid.
This is the plan that Boris Johnson is calling "crazy," because Britain would still be bound by EU rules that the whole Brexit plan was supposed to free them of:
"It’s totally untried and would make it very, very difficult to do free trade deals.If you have the new customs partnership, you have a crazy system whereby you end up collecting the tariffs on behalf of the EU at the UK frontier.
If the EU decides to impose punitive tariffs on something the UK wants to bring in cheaply there’s nothing you can do.
That’s not taking back control of your trade policy, it’s not taking back control of your laws, it’s not taking back control of your borders and it’s actually not taking back control of your money either, because tariffs would get paid centrally back to Brussels."
He said that the plan would create "a whole new web of bureaucracy," and would not meet the key test of Britain "taking back control" from Brussels. In other words, the Customs Partnership would defeat the whole purpose of Brexit.
Theresa May's second proposal is called "Maximum Facilitation."
Shipping firms would operate as "trusted traders" so they can move goods freely as EU tariff is only paid when goods arrive in destination country. Goods would be electronically tracked and pre-cleared with tax authorities. There would be a frictionless border in Ireland, because goods would move freely back and forth, and would be tracked by means of some yet to be developed technology.
The EU has dismissed this proposal as "magical thinking," because it assumes that "trusted traders" can be trusted, and because the required technology is not possible in the foreseeable future. Daily Mail (London) and The Week (UK) and Guardian (London)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-May-18 World View -- Brexit negotiations in crisis as deadlines approach with no agreements thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-May-2018)
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Phnom Penh Post had a combative relationship with Hun Sen
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Cambodia's last independent newspaper, the Phnom Penh Post, is in crisis after the editor-in-chief was fired for refusing to take down an article critical of the new owner, and several senior reporters subsequently resigned after being ordered to take down the same article.
Hun Sen, Cambodia's leader for 33 years, has become increasingly dictatorial since the opposition political party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) almost won the 2013 election, and has become increasingly popular since then. With another election scheduled for July of this year, Hun Sen has solved the problem by arresting CNRP leaders and jailing them on phony charges, and even getting the Supreme Court to declare the CNRP to be an illegal political party. In addition, Hun Sen has been jailing protesters, and shutting down media sources not controlled by the government.
The weekend sale of the Phnom Penh Post is the latest example of Hun Sen's dictatorial takeover. The Cambodian government forced the previous owner to sell by imposing an enormous $3.9 million tax bill on the paper. The only other independent newspaper in the country, the Cambodian Daily, was forced to shut down last year after receiving a $6.3 million tax bill.
An announcement on Saturday said that the Phnom Penh Post had been sold to a Malaysian investor, Sivakumar Ganapathy, executive director of the Malaysia firm Asia PR.
Sivakumar's first act as owner was to issue a statement saying that the newspaper would remain independent.
But then Sivakumar's next act as owner was to demand that the editor-in-chief take down an article posted on Sunday detailing the sale and Sivakumar's background, and then fire him for refusing.
Then Sivakumar fired the editor-in-chief, and when he demanded of the other senior editors to take the article down, there was a mass resignation.
As of Monday evening ET, the article still has not been taken down, and I was still able to access it. (Perhaps after all the senior reporters left, there was no one left with a password to the servers.)
The article described numerous examples of Sivakumar's close relationships with Hun Sen and the Cambodian government, suggesting that Sivakumar might be controlled by Hun Sen. AFP and Phnom Penh Post (6-May) and Australian Broadcasting and BBC
As an example of other articles that might have triggered Hun Sen's decision to make sure that the Phnom Penh Post would become government-controlled, an article last week described Hun Sen's "catch and release policy." The way it works is that opposition figures are arrested on phony charges, kept in jail for as many months or years as necessary, and then released just in time to achieve some objective.
For example, an opposition politician Bun Chhay was jailed on August 4 of last year, supposedly on some decade old drug charges, but just when it appeared he would pose a legitimate political challenge. Then on September 3 Sourn Serey Ratha, head of the tiny Khmer Power Party, was arrested over a Facebook post criticizing the government’s recent military stand-off with Laos.
This cleared away the only viable competitors to Hun Sen's reelection, but the arrests caused an international uproar, with threats by the US and the EU to withdraw aid. According to the Phnom Penh Post article, the "catch and release" strategy was completed last week:
"Last week, the EU publicly acknowledged that it would be taking the extraordinary step of sending a team to review its General Scheme of Preferences with Cambodia – raising questions about the future of tariff-free access to one Cambodia’s largest trading partners. The pressure was reaching a head.Days later, Nhek Bun Chhay walked out of jail.
“While it would seem that the [Cambodian People’s Party] has the upcoming election neatly sewed up, perhaps Hun Sen views him as a figure who can help diversify the electoral field just enough to gain some international credibility, while remaining too marginal to pose any real threat to the CPP’s power,” Strangio said."
Whether the EU will be fooled by this remains to be seen.
However, placing new sanctions on Cambodia will likely not have much effect. Cambodia is becoming China's most important political ally in the region. Already, between 2011 and 2015 Chinese firms funneled nearly $5 billion in loans and investment to Cambodia, mostly for major infrastructure projects, while making no demands on how Hun Sen runs the country. Like Pakistan, Cambodia is expected to be an obedient ally of China, and to follow China's policy directives in return for money. Phnom Penh Post (2-May) and Reuters and Reporters Without Borders and Nikkei Asia Review and The Diplomat (15-Jan)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-May-18 World View -- Cambodia's dictatorial Hun Sen forces sale of independent Phnom Penh Post thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-May-2018)
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Barelvi sect and Tehreek-e-Labaik political party surge in popularity
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Pakistan’s interior minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot in the arm in an assassination attempt as he spoke at a public meeting on Sunday. The gunman was about to fire a second shot when he was overpowered by people around him. It's believed that Iqbal will survive.
The gunman was Abid Hussain, 21, affiliated with the ultra-religious Tehreek-e-Labaik party, which is the political party of the loony Barelvi sect that believes that anyone accused of blasphemy should be executed.
This was not the first physical attack on Iqbal this year. A man threw a shoe at him while he was addressing a workers convention in February. Iqbal wasn't hurt and refused to press charges, so the police never investigated the motive of the perpetrator, or whether he was also a member of Tehreek-e-Labaik. (One media source claims that shoe-throwing as a form of insult is practiced in many countries, and is mentioned in the Bible in Psalms 108:9.)
The usual questions are being asked about why security at Sunday's event was so lax that a gunman was able to get into the event. The reason being given is that the levels of terrorist violence in Pakistan have been decreasing in the last two years, and so less security is being used at events like this.
Federal elections will be held this summer, and the number of political rallies will be increasing substantially. Sunday's assassination attempt is raising concerns that there may be additional terrorist attacks at this rallies as the election approaches. Express Tribune (Pakistan) and Reuters and Pakistan Today (24-Feb) and Bible Study Tools
In January 2011, Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, was shot and killed in broad daylight on an Islamabad street by Malik Mumtaz Qadri, a member of the "Elite Force" of bodyguards that were supposed to protect him. Taseer was shot 27 times in the back. Qadri confessed to the killing, and blamed it on Taseer's opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy law, which forbids blaspheming Mohammed or Islam. When Qadri arrived in court a few days later, Islamist lawyers showed him with roses.
Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the head of the Barelvi sect, was unknown in Pakistan until he became Qadri's principal defender after the Taseer assassination. Rizvi also became the principal defender of the blasphemy law that Taseer had wanted to change, and organized public support for the law.
The text of the blasphemy law, section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, is as follows:
"Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine."
This loony law has been massively abused in Pakistan. In Pakistan, if you want to kill your neighbor, make up some reason why he violated the blasphemy law, and then kill him, and you'll probably get away with it.
Rizvi's aggressive support for the blasphemy law has made his Barelvi sect increasingly popular, and he was able to exhibit his power forcefully in October of last year. The government made a minor textual change to a government oath, and a mob of people belonging to the ehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah of Pakistan (TLYR or TLYRAP) political party, coming from the Barelvi sect, were able to paralyze multiple cities across Pakistan, with major roads blocked by a mobs of tens of thousands of Islamists in sit-ins, escalating into clashes with thousands of police.
After weeks of paralysis, the Barelvi TYRAP party scored an enormous victory by forcing the government to completely capitulate to their demands. These demands included resignations of top government officials who made the text change, or who might have known about it.
Barelvi TYRAP party has been gaining in popularity, and elections will be held this summer. Sunday's attempted assassination has raised concerns that Pakistan's loony blasphemy laws will be used to incite move violence, as well as to create a popular movement. The Nation (Pakistan, 18-Nov-2017) and Eurasia Review and The Nation (Pakistan, 18-Nov-2017)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-May-18 World View -- Pakistan's interior minister shot by member of loony anti-blasphemy Barelvi sect thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-May-2018)
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Angry protesters bring corpses to MINUSCA headquarters in Bangui
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Sectarian Muslim versus Christian violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) has continued with armed groups and marauding gangs, both Muslim and Christian, almost nonstop across the country, since the violence began in 2013. The capital city Bangui has been relatively spared from violence in the last year, but this has changed in the last month, with sectarian attacks killing dozens of people, including attacks on a Catholic Church and a mosque.
The violence mostly took place in the PK5 district of Bangui. Bangui is a mostly Catholic city, but PK5 is a mostly Muslim enclave within Bangui. I wrote about PK5 in November 2015, when Pope Francis visited Bangui, and particularly paid a visit to the PK5 mosque.
The exact sequence of events isn't completely clear, but it appears that the violence began early in April when MINUSCA, the UN peacekeeper mission for CAR, joined local CAR security forces to launch a joint security operation in PK5 to dismantle militia bases that were hiding out in PK5.
MINUSCA is the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (CAR), launched in April 2014 as a peacekeeping mission. Unfortunately, there has been little peace for MINUSCA to keep. CAR is a huge country, and pretty much the entire country is in flames, so MINUSCA has mostly restricted itself to Bangui.
On April 10, the joint security operation turned into a bloody massacre, as the security forces battled several armed groups in PK5, known as the "self-defense forces," a name that reflects lack of respect in the Muslim community for either MINUSCA or CAR's current government. A total of 21 people were killed in a four-hour gun battle between the security forces and the self-defense forces, including a peacekeeper from Rwanda. 11 peacekeepers were wounded. AFP (9-Apr)
On April 11, hundreds of angry demonstrators from PK5 held a peaceful march in Bangui, and in a dramatic gesture, carried the corpses of 17 of the 21 who had been killed, and laid the corpses in front of the MINUSCA mission headquarters. According to one demonstrator:
"We, ourselves, no longer understand anything. Does their mission consist of shooting at civilians?"
MINUSCA denied that civilians had been targeted, and said that only criminal gangs had been targeted. A spokesman criticized the demonstrators:
"This is not an operation against communities and specifically the Muslim community. The Muslim community asked our troops to launch the operation and put an end to the criminal activities.We regret the fact that the bodies were being manipulated, while they should be buried like every person who dies."
So-called Muslim "self-defense groups" have been springing up in PK5, claiming to protect the Muslim civilians.
The relationship between MINUSCA and the self-defense groups has become increasingly acrimonious. The self-defense groups claim that MINUSCA is trying to drive the Muslims out of Bangui entirely, while MINUSCA accuses them of extortion and violence against civilians. Reuters (11-Apr) and The Defense Post
One of the PK5 self-defense groups, "The Force," got revenge on May 1 when gunmen attacked a service at a Catholic Church in Bangui. Some 2000 people had gathered for the service, when armed men threw grenades and fired on the church. The attack lasted for hours, killing a priest and at least 15 people from the church, and injuring hundreds more.
After attacking the church, the perpetrators moved into neighboring districts, looting shops and homes and attacking civilians. An Evangelical church member was killed outside his home.
Various officials offered the usual rhetoric. The head of the Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Mervyn Thomas said:
"We extend our condolences to the parishioners of Our Lady Fatima Church, to the family of Albert Toungoumale Baba and to all those who have been bereaved.The attack on a place of worship not only violates the right to freedom of religion or belief, but also threatens the social fabric of the community that religious leaders of all faiths have worked to maintain throughout the recent conflict."
Amnesty International issued the usual near-boilerplate statement:
"Central African authorities and MINUSCA must send an immediate and clear message to all armed groups and their allies in CAR: No attack against civilians will be tolerated and all those suspected of committing war crimes and other serious human rights violations and abuses will be brought to justice."
La Libre (Belgium) (Translation) and Premier (UK) and Amnesty International
Despite Amnesty International's laughable rhetoric, "No attack against civilians will be tolerated," CAR is in a generational crisis civil war, and there's no end in sight.
The CAR sectarian war began in March 2013, when François Bozizé, the Christian former president of CAR, was ousted in a coup in March 2013 by Michel Djotodia, a Muslim, who became president and served until January 2014.
After Djotodia's coup took place in March 2013, Muslim Seleka militias began committing atrocities, particularly targeting the Christian constituencies of the deposed François Bozizé. In December 2013, French Foreign Legion peacekeeping troops arrived to disarm the Seleka militias.
The peacekeepers succeeded, but then the Christian anti-balaka militias "rushed into the vacuum," and began committing atrocities in 2014, for revenge against the Selekas. Since then, both Christians and Muslims have been committing atrocities, and it's become a full-scale generational crisis war. Thousands have been killed, and millions have been displaced.
Although the CAR war appears to be entirely sectarian, that isn't entirely true. The Muslims are mostly herders, while the Christians are mostly farmers, and this is the same kind of conflict between herders and farmers that I've described in Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, and even America in the 1800s. As population grows, 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 CAR, there have been situations where Muslim and Christian farmers were united in fighting Muslim herders.
As I've explained in the past, CAR's last generational crisis war was the 1928-1931 Kongo-Wara Rebellion ("War of the Hoe Handle"), which was a very long time ago, putting CAR today deep into a generational Crisis era, where a new crisis war is increasingly likely. ( "2-Oct-15 World View -- Violence resurges in Central African Republic crisis war")
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-May-18 World View -- Muslim vs Catholic violence surges again in Central African Republic thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-May-2018)
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Rift grows between Saudi Arabia and UAE in Yemen
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Residents of Socotra Island are reacting angrily and protesting about the increasing presence of hundreds of troops, tanks, armored transports and heavy equipment that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is deploying on the island in a power struggle with Saudi Arabia.
Socotra Island belongs to Yemen, and is strategically located south of Yemen where it oversees shipping traffic traveling from the Arabian Sea, through the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea through the Suez Canal.
Socotra Island is similar to the Galapagos Islands, in that it's been isolated for millions of years, allowing for the development of hundreds of unique plant species found nowhere else on earth. Because of its unique plant life, it has recently been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Since 2015, Yemen has been the target of a proxy war Iran-backed ethnic Houthis versus an Arab military coalition led by Saudi Arabia. The war has become an example of the old African proverb: "When elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers," in that the proxy war has caused endless misery to the ordinary people of Yemen, resulting in massive homelessness, starvation and cholera. The end of the war seems to be nowhere in sight.
Now the 60,000 people of the Socotra Island are being pulled into the war as well, with the UAE deployment. Many of these people are furious at the UAE, and some are even accusing the UAE of deploying the military in order to steal UNESCO-protected species of plants and animals from the island. Middle East Eye and Independent (London) and Al Jazeera and Daily Mail (London, 25-Sep-2013)
The internationally recognized government of Yemen is led by President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who has been hiding out in Saudi Arabia because of the war with the Houthis. While the Houthis are backed by Iran, Hadi's government is backed by an coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
As the war has continued for years with no end in sight, we reported in January, that there has been a split between coalition members Saudi Arabia and UAE. This has resulted in military clashes between Saudi and UAE forces in the southern port city of Aden.
The UAE has been backing the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a separatist faction calling for the division of Yemen into Northern Yemen and Southern Yemen, and claiming Aden as the capital city of Southern Yemen.
The split between Saudi Arabia and UAE is potentially dangerous because UAE is attempting to extend its influence well beyond its borders into much of what the STC would like to be Southern Yemen. UAE's move to exert control over Socotra is seen as a further move in that direction. Anadolu (Turkey) and Middle East Eye (12-May-2017) and Press TV (Iran)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-May-18 World View -- UAE troops and tanks deployed to Yemen's Socotra island in dispute with Saudi Arabia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(5-May-2018)
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China's military attacks US pilots in Djibouti
with high-grade blinding lasers
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
China has once again escalated its massive military occupation of the South China Sea by deploying offensive anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles systems. The missiles are being deployed on the artificial islands that China constructed in violation of international law, as the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled that all of China's activities in the South China Sea are illegal.
According to military analyst Gregory Poling, it means that China will soon be deploying warplanes to the area:
"This should be seen as China crossing an important threshold. Missile platforms present a clear offensive threat. [The missile deployment] is a pretty clear threat to the other claimants and furthers China's goal of establishing complete control over the water and airspace of the South China Sea."
Even before this latest deployment, Navy Admiral Philip S. Davidson told the Senate that China already has the military power to control the entire South China Sea, and only war would be able to stop this:
"China's development of forward military bases in the South China Sea began in December 2013 when the first dredger arrived at Johnson Reef. Through 2015, China used dredging efforts to build up these reefs and create manmade islands, destroying the reefs in the process. Since then, China has constructed clear military facilities on the islands, with several bases including hangars, barracks, underground fuel and water storage facilities, and bunkers to house offense and defensive kinetic and non-kinetic systems. These actions stand in direct contrast to the assertion that President Xi made in 2015 in the Rose Garden when he commented that Beijing had no intent to militarize the South China Sea. Today these forward operating bases appear complete. The only thing lacking are the deployed forces.Once occupied, China will be able to extend its influence thousands of miles to the south and project power deep into Oceania. The PLA will be able to use these bases to challenge U.S. presence in the region, and any forces deployed to the islands would easily overwhelm the military forces of any other South China Sea-claimants. In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States."
As Davidson points out, China has repeatedly lied and hid its true intentions. Originally, the artificial islands were going to be for tourists and scientists, which was a lie. Then the military installations would be purely defensive, which was another lie. And now they're part of a massive militarization in anticipation, when preparation has been completed, to launch a full-scale war on America and its allies.
According to an article last month in Chinese media, China is close to announcing how much of each country's territory it plans to annex:
"A precise continuous line will split the Gulf of Tonkin between China and Vietnam, go south into waters claimed by Malaysia, take a U-turn to the north along the west coast of the Philippines and finish at the southeast of Taiwan."
China has also been increasingly threatening an belligerent with Vietnam, Japan and Australia, by demanding that they respect China's illegal sovereignty claims. China has also been increasingly military threatening to Taiwan, and may be close to a military invasion.
China has repeatedly hidden its intentions, and will continue to do so until it's prepared to launch its attack. China is following exactly the same path that the Nazis followed. Xi Jinping's "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" is the same as Hitler's National Socialism. Like the Nazis, the Chinese believe that they're a Master Race that will conquer the world. They'd have to be crazy to believe that they could succeed at that, but the Chinese are crazy.
I frequently like to quote Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, "Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." The Chinese will not be the Master Race that rules the world. Instead, they'll do exactly what the Nazis did -- bring destruction and catastrophe to themselves and the world. CNBC and The Diplomat and Newsweek (20-Apr) and US Senate (PDF, 17-Apr) and South China Morning Post (22-Apr)
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China's belligerent military actions in the South China Sea are being repeated as well in the horn of Africa.
Chinese military personnel are using high-grade blinding lasers to target American pilots and American military crews flying over Djibouti in northeast Africa (the horn of Africa), according to the Pentagon.
There were several incidents in the past several weeks. No one has lost his life, but several Americans have received eye injuries.
The Americans are stationed in Djibouti at the Camp Lemonnier naval base which is the primary base of operations and logistics hub for missions across Africa. It supports approximately 4,000 U.S., joint and allied forces military and civilian personnel and defense contractors.
Camp Lemonnier was built in 2001, but is now being challenged by a new Chinese base in Djibouti, built in 2017. The US has formally protested to China's government, and "requested" that China launch an investigation of the situation.
As we reported last month, there is a parallel development in progress. Djibouti's strategic port at the entrance to the Red Sea is the Doraleh Container Terminal. A Dubai firm, DP World, had been operating the terminal since 2006, when DP World had signed a 30 year contract.
In February, Djibouti seized control of the terminal, and abruptly terminated the contract without notice. Next, Djibouti signed a contract with Singapore-based Pacific International Lines (PIL), a company that works with China Merchants Port Holdings, to operate the terminal. So it appears that China is poised to take control of the entire Djibouti seaport.
Whether in the South China Sea or Djibouti, China constantly lies and hides its intentions. China has been attacking American pilots and flight crews with high-powered lasers. We have to assume that this is not some rogue Chinese soldier, but is actual policy of the Chinese military, presumably to test out their laser systems in preparation for war. CNN and Washington Examiner and Washington Post
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-May-18 World View -- China deploys cruise and surface-to-air missiles in South China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-May-2018)
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Importance of 2003 Iraq War revealed by the Iranian intelligence coup
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday revealed the results of a massive intelligence coup by Israel's intelligence agency Mossad.
In February 2016, spies from Mossad discovered the top-secret location of a warehouse in Iran's capital city Tehran where thousands of documents related to Iran's past nuclear weapons developments were stored. Mossad operatives broke into the building one night in January of this year, removed half a ton of archived documents, and smuggled them back to Israel the same night. The material included 55,000 pages and another 55,000 files on 183 CDs.
The archived material was of Iran's nuclear program that began in the 1980s, and ended in 2003, when the Iraq war revealed that Saddam Hussein was not developing WMDs.
The trove of intelligence data is being used in the debate over what the Trump administration should do on May 12, when it must decide whether to abandon the nuclear deal that the West signed with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Those who favor continuing to support the JCPOA say that there's nothing in the trove of data that indicates that Iran has violated any of its obligations under the treaty, and that appears to be true.
Those who oppose continuing to support the JCPOA say that Iran lied about the extent of its nuclear weapons program that ended in 2003. In particular, they say that Iran claimed that the nuclear development was only for peaceful purposes, while the intelligence data provides extensive technical information on how Iran was developing nuclear weapons.
Those who favor continuing to support the JCPOA say nothing revealed in the intelligence haul was new, and that in fact it was known and published in a 2011 document from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Those who oppose continuing to support the JCPOA say that the 2011 IAEA document contains only a small fraction of the information that was revealed in the intelligence trove, and that furthermore Iran had not destroyed all the work in its nuclear weapons program, as it had promised.
So this is all going to be a major heated and sometimes acrimonious debate between now and May 12, when President Trump will announce the administration's decision on whether to continue to support the JCPOA.
It's also worth noting that in October 2015, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of Iran's Expediency Council, said in a televised interview that Iran had begun developing nuclear weapons in the 1980s during the Iran/Iraq war, and continued development for many years. Times of Israel and International Atomic Energy Commission-IAEA (PDF,2011) and Times of Israel
Even by the extremely low to nonexistent standards of today's journalists and today's politicians, the statements made about the Iraq war on a daily basis are abysmally ignorant, saying that it was a catastrophe and the worst war in American history and other idiotic things. Actually, it's the people who opposed the Iraq war in 2003 who owe the world an apology, since they were unwilling to stop Saddam Hussein from using WMDs to kill thousands of people.
The new intelligence trove from Iran provides further evidence that NOT pursuing the Iraq war could have been a catastrophe.
We now know that the Iran had a very aggressive nuclear weapons development program that began in the 1980s during the Iran/Iraq war, at a time when Saddam Hussein was using mustard gas and other WMDs on Kurds and Iranians.
This program continued until October 2003, when Iran's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa ending all nuclear weapons development. The fatwa was issued because the American invasion of Iraq and the defeat of Saddam Hussein had ended any possibility of Iraq developing nuclear weapons. Iran had already been victimized by Saddam's WMDs, and in 2003 Saddam was refusing IAEA inspections, so without the Iraq war there was little doubt that Saddam would continue development of WMDs, and possibly nuclear weapons.
If it hadn't been for the Iraq war, then Iran would have continued nuclear weapons development, and would be a major nuclear weapons power in the Mideast today. Furthermore, since Iran has been working with North Korea, North Korea would also be a major nuclear weapons power today.
Saudi Arabia would not have simply tolerated a nuclear Iran, so it would have obtained its own nuclear weapons from Pakistan. Saddam Hussein would undoubtedly at least continued development of WMDs. So the Mideast and the world would be very different and infinitely more dangerous places today if it hadn't been for the Iraq war. Bloomberg
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-May-18 World View -- Israel reveals intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear weapons program thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-May-2018)
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Armenia in a generational Awakening era
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Armenia's political turmoil went into full-scale chaos on Tuesday, when the governing Republican party, which has a majority in the parliament, refused to support opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan's bid to become prime minister, leaving the country with no prime minister and no obvious alternate candidate.
Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan stepped down as prime minister on August 23, in the face of huge street protests led by Pashinyan, and his threats to shut down the country with nationwide protests and strikes. ( "26-Apr-18 World View -- Armenia's protesters continue protesting after forcing resignation of prime minister")
After the parliament on Tuesday had hours of acrimonious debate and then refused to elect Pashinyan as the new prime minister to replace Sargsyan, there were once again tens of thousands of protesters in Republic Square in the capital city Yerevan. Pashinyan told the cheering supporters, "We will block the streets, the airports, the metro, the railway, everything that can be blocked."
The protests are expected to continue. The parliament will hold another vote on May 8, and if no prime minister is elected, then the parliament will be dissolved, and new elections will be held. News (Armenia) and BBC and Reuters and Bloomberg
The turmoil in Armenia is of crucial importance to Russia because Armenia under Serzh Sargsyan was a close ally to Russia and followed Russia's policy. Russia has an airbase in Armenia, and in 2013, Armenia chose to join a Russian-led customs union, rather than sign an association agreement with Armenia.
The rapid collapse last week of the Sargsyan government sends shock waves through Moscow because of visceral fears that a popular uprising could similar bring about the collapse of Russia's government, led by president Vladimir Putin. Those who consider this idea far-fetched might think back to 1991, when a popular uprising led to the collapse of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, and its replacement by a government led by Boris Yeltsin.
In the last ten years, Russia has used military force in Ukraine and Georgia in the face of threats of the governments of those countries to align themselves with the European Union rather than Russia. Until last month, Armenia was safely on Russia's team, but now that's no longer certain.
Prior to the election in parliament that rejected his bid to become prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan gave a speech outlining his policies, including the following "foreign policy":
"If I am elected, Armenia will not make turns in the foreign policy domain; it will remain a member of the EAEU and the CSTO. This position does not stem from a person’s taste, but the logic of the movement that brought victory to the people. Demanding numerous changes in domestic life, the people did not and do not demand any change in foreign policy domain. We considered and consider Russia the strategic ally of Armenia, and this movement does not pose any threat to the [Russian Federation].We will deepen relations with the European Union and the EU member countries. We will do everything for the [Republic of Armenia] citizens toward the EU visa regime abolition; we expect to start negotiations on it in the nearest future. The soonest implementation of the EU-Armenia agreement stems from our own interests. The government that I will head will deepen relations with the US, China, will remain committed to the process of [Armenian] Genocide recognition; Armenia will continue playing the role of the pioneer on this matter."
Pashinyan's speech could hardly have been reassuring to Russian officials. But the current situation, where Pashinyan was rejected by the legislature, and massive protests and demonstrations are continuing in the streets, can hardly be considered any better. Jamestown and News (Armenia) and Tass (Russia) and AFP (26-Apr)
According to some reports, Russian officials have been caught by surprise by the rapid collapse of the Serzh Sargsyan government, since they had expected Sargsyan to have used military force to stop the protests and remain in power. Perhaps the Russians were thinking of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, who stopped similar protests by sending missiles into school dormitories to kill children, or dropping barrel bombs laden with metal, chlorine, ammonia, phosphorous and chemical weapons on civilian neighborhoods, or using Sarin gas to kill large groups of people.
For those interested in the theoretical aspects of Generational Dynamics, it's worth taking a moment to sort out what's happening.
As I described a couple of times, Armenia is in a generational Awakening era, one generation past the bloody conflict in 1989-94 versus Azerbaijan over the enclave Nagorno-Karabakh. In this sense, Armenia is similar to America in the 1960s, one generation past the end of World War II.
Every generational Awakening era (including the Unraveling era that follows) is politically torn by a "generation gap" that pits the traumatized survivors of the preceding crisis war versus their children, the generations that grow up after the crisis war and have no personal memories of its horrors and atrocities.
Regular readers know that there's been a great deal of theoretical development on how these Awakening eras differ, depending on whether the preceding crisis war was an external war with another country versus an internal crisis civil war between tribes and ethnic groups. In the former case, the two armies each withdraw from the other country, and further contact between the populations is done diplomatically. But in the latter case, the two populations to live with each other when the war ends -- in the same country, the same villages and even on the same streets. This means that the hatred and the desire for revenge continue at a very personal level.
In the case of popular protests when the previous crisis war was an ethnic or tribal civil war, the protests are taken as a sign that the civil war is beginning again, and the government uses that as an excuse to use massacres, extrajudicial killings, jailings, torture, rape and other atrocities on the political opposition. The extreme example is Bashar al-Assad, whom I've described is the worst genocidal monster and war criminal so far this century. But I've also described the same phenomenon, with varying levels of violence, with Paul Biya in Cameroon, 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, Hun Sen in Cambodia and Maithripala Sirisena in Sri Lanka.
But if the last crisis war was an external war, then popular protests are not viewed as posing a similar sort of threat, and lead to an "Awakening climax" which is often a bloodless coup. This is what happened in America when Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, and is what is happening now in Armenia with the forced resignation of Serzh Sargsyan.
It's impossible to predict how this political chaos in Armenia will sort itself out. Right now, it appears that Nikol Pashinyan is so popular, that one way or another he's going to become prime minister, after which probably the same mobs that put him into power will turn against him, and he'll go from being the most popular to being the most unpopular. The only thing we can be sure of is that the chaos is going to continue for some time to come, and the only thing that Russians can do is watch and see what happens. Pravda (Moscow) and Chai Khana (Georgia) and World Policy Institute
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-May-18 World View -- Russia confounded by the chaotic popular uprising in Armenia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-May-2018)
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Analysts guess at why Afghanistan's security situation keeps deteriorating
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Two coordinated suicide bombings on Monday in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, killed at least 26 people, including nine journalists, who were apparently targeted. The first suicide bomber was on a motorbike and exploded his device near Afghan intelligence headquarters in Kabul. After the initial suicide bombings, journalists arrived to report on it, and were targeted by a second suicide bomber.
There were other terror attacks in cities across Afghanistan on Monday, including a car bombing in Kandahar province that killed eight Romanian soldiers, as well as multiple Afghan police officers and civilians.
Last Sunday, a massive terror attack in Kabul killed 60 people as they waited in a voter registration center, in a region of the city inhabited by members of the mainly Shia ethnic Hazara community, whom the Taliban has frequently targeted. Tolo News (Afghanistan) and Reuters and Business Insider
This new series of attacks just a few days after the Taliban announced its 2018 fighting season, codenamed "Al Khandaq." According to the Taliban announcement:
"The planning and strategy of the Al Khandaq Jihadi operations are organized by the expert and proficient skilled cadre of the Military Commission of the Islamic Emirate which is based on guerilla, offensive, infiltrated and various other new and intricate tactics against the new war strategy of the enemy, mainly focusing on crushing, killing and capturing American invaders and their supporters. ...Besides sustaining the ongoing illegitimate occupation, the newly adopted war strategy of Trump has been ruthlessly implemented in the villages and rural areas against our oppressed Afghan people for the past nine months. Thousands of additional foreign forces are being deployed inside Afghanistan and they are supplied with new devastating weapons and vast military authorities."
The Taliban statement dismissed efforts at bringing about peace negotiations as "deceptive efforts" launched by the "ineffectual and corrupt officials of the puppet regime inside and outside the country are nothing but a conspiracy orchestrated by the foreign occupiers for enervating." Daily Times (Pakistan)
Every time I read an article by an analyst or journalist trying to explain why the security situation in Afghanistan has been deteriorating for years, it's pretty clear that they don't even know the most basic facts about the country. I've been explaining for years why any sort of "victory" in Afghanistan is impossible, and the reasons I gave years ago are still true today. I'll repeat them below, but first, let's take a look at some of the reasons that the media are providing.
Axios writer Michael Kugelman gives three reasons that don't even make as much sense as a Donald Duck cartoon. Here are his reasons:
Kugelman's reasons were completely empty-headed, but a more intelligent attempt was made by Allison Jackson, AFP's Kabul Bureau chief. Jackson gave her reasons in an interview on Monday on RFI. Jackson was asked whether the security situation has deteriorated (my transcription):
"Absolutely. I don't know anyone who would say otherwise. I've only been here 8 months, but everyone I speak to says since 2014 the security situation has deteriorated significantly, and now it's the worst it's ever been, and there are a number of reasons for that.Nato ended its combat mission at the end of 2014. Since then, the Taliban has been resurgent, and is taking back a lot of the territory that they had lost while the Nato combat troops were on the ground, and the US presence is obviously much more diminished in comparison to what it was pre-2014.
And Islamic State would have been merged in Afghanistan in 2014 2015, and they claimed their first major attack in 2016, in the summer of 2016, with an attack on Shias, and since then have launched more than a dozen attacks in Kabul alone.
They've come under significant pressure. The Taliban has also come under significant pressure, following Donald Trump's new strategy in August, and that announcement basically gave the US air force and special forces much more leeway to go after the Taliban, IS, other militant groups. I think what these sorts of attacks show is that even in the heart of Kabul, ordinary Afghans are extremely vulnerable, the government is not able to secure the capital city. Resolute Support, which is the name of Nato's mission here, has said that protecting Kabul is a priority, but they've also admitted that it's very difficult to protect a city that is so porous as Kabul."
Jackson's entire explanation is that the security situation has worsened because of the withdrawal of most Nato forces in 2014. That makes sense, but it's not particularly useful because it doesn't explain why Nato forces are needed in the first place. There are dozens of countries where no Nato troops aren't deployed. Why does Afghanistan have terror attacks when those countries don't?
Kugelman's office is in Washington DC, far from Afghanistan, so there's no reason to expect him to know anything, unless he makes a special effort, which apparently he hasn't.
But Jackson has been Kabul bureau chief for eight months. During that eight months, she might have learned something about the shifting ethnic and generational pressures that are bringing about these Taliban terror attacks.
As I've explained many times, Afghanistan's last generational crisis war was the extremely bloody Afghan crisis civil war, 1991-96, which mostly pitted the ethnic Pashtuns, who are Sunni Muslims and later formed the Taliban, versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. Now, twenty years later, Afghanistan is in a generational Awakening era, and a new young generation of Pashtuns is coming of age, raised on stories their parents told them about the atrocities committed by the Northern Alliance, and they're looking for revenge.
But you don't have to know anything about generational history to understand what's going on. You just have to understand that there was an extremely bloody, violent civil war in 1991-96, pitting the Pashtuns versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. And you have to know that the Taliban are Pashtuns, and that young Pashtuns are looking for revenge for atrocities committed in the 1990s, and that Nato troops are completely irrelevant.
Those are simple facts that Amy Jackson might have learned during her eight months in Kabul, or that even Michael Kugelman might have learned, even though he's in Washington. Then they could give more intelligent analyses.
However, as I've written in the past, I believe that this dynamic is understood by the Nato military, and by the US administration, and that they understand that this war cannot be won, but they have a larger purpose in mind. As war with China and Pakistan approaches, president Trump wants to keep American troops active in Afghanistan, and to continue to maintain several American military bases in Afghanistan, including two air bases in Bagram and Kandahar International Airport. These bases will be valuable in any future war with China. Under these circumstances, having troops in Afghanistan is what matters, whether the Taliban are defeated or not. Axios and ABC News
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-May-18 World View -- Nine journalists killed by suicide bombers in Kabul Afghanistan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(1-May-2018)
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