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The Sayings and Aphorisms of Confucius
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The University of North Florida announced that it will cut ties with the China-funded Confucius Institute on its campus. Others of the approximately 100 colleges and universities hosting Confucius Institutes are considering doing so as well, or have already done so.
Ostensibly, Confucius Institutes are apolitical partnerships between American and Chinese universities, giving American students opportunities to learn to speak Chinese or study abroad. But the Chinese themselves say that they serve as "an important part of China's overseas propaganda," and they also serve as outposts of China’s intelligence and surveillance operations, as FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to the US Senate in February.
In addition to the 100-plus Confucius Institutes in the US, China runs about 500 "Confucius Classrooms" at American K-12 schools. In Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and other countries, China runs 1,500 Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, with 40% of them in the US, more than any other country.
The Confucian Institutes are one of the programs of Beijing's international coercive propaganda agency, the United Front Work Department (UFWD). Every aspect of the Confucian Institutes is tightly controlled by the Hanban agency, the Chinese Communist Party agency that oversees all Confucius Institutes. Teachers and teaching materials are all supplied by China. Taiwan and Tibet are portrayed as undisputed territories of China, with no alternate views permitted. The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the one million Uighurs in re-education camps, the human rights abuses in China are all forbidden subjects.
The Pentagon has been working with Confucius Institutes in some colleges, and even co-funding some programs, in order to develop Chinese-speaking students. However, the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, signed in August, contains provisions barring any U.S. university from using Pentagon resources for any program involving Confucius Institutes. In many cases, this will forces universities to choose between receiving funding the Pentagon and funding from Hanban. Folio Weekly and Washington Post (14-Aug) and Washington Examiner (29-Apr)
The Confucian Institutes really have nothing to do with Confucius, but if they were called the "Chinese Communist Propaganda Institutes," then they would be rejected. However, most Americans associate Confucius with wisdom, or cutesy aphorisms, so the use of the name Confucius Institutes has been a great success for China.
In recent weeks, I've been doing my own research on China's ancient philosophers, including Confucius, and this is a tentative summary of what I've learned so far.
Confucius lived around 500 BC, and was a contemporary of Sun Tzu, who wrote the Art of War, a book that is so popular that it's probably the closest thing that the Chinese have to the Bible.
Sun Tzu was a brilliant war strategist and tactician. From deception to beheadings, every tactic is on the table for winning wars. Compromise or mercy are never possible.
If Sun Tzu's work was the recipe for imperialist warfare, Confucius' work was the theology of imperialist warfare. Confucius lived at the time of the Zhou Dynasty, about five centuries after it had beaten the Shang Dynasty. How were the Zhou able to defeat the Shang? Much of Confucius' work is devoted to answer that question in a theological framework.
The Shang worshiped a heavenly ancestor called Shangdi ("the Lord on high"), and kings were permitted to rule under the power of this god. When the Zhou defeated the Shang, they replaced (or merged) Shang Di with their own god, Tian, a sky god, a "deity above who rules the Heavens."
Under the Zhou doctrine, a king is the Son of Heaven, and is allowed to rule under a Mandate from Heaven, provided that he rules reverently and virtuously. Thus, if the Zhou defeated the Shang, then the Shang king must have lost his Mandate from Heaven. An excerpt from an ancient history classic is the Zhou explanation of what happened:
"We do not presume to know and to say that the lords of Yin (Shang) received Heaven's Mandate for so many years. ... But they did not reverently attend to their virtue and so prematurely threw away the Mandate. ... Now our king has succeeded and received the Mandate. ... Being king, his position will be that of a leader of virtue. ... The Son of Heaven could not properly fulfill his functions unless his moral nature was pure and his conduct above reproach. Heaven could not be served by a tyrant or a debauchee, the sacrifices of such a ruler would be of no avail, the divine harmony would be upset, prodigies and catastrophes would manifest the wrath of Heaven."
Confucius formalized and strengthened this doctrine of Tian and the Mandate from Heaven. He wrestled with the same "theodicy" contradiction that every religion faces: If God created everything, the God created Good and Evil, so how could God be good if God created evil?
For Confucius, this contradiction and its apparent manifestation in the Zhou conquests, applies to Tian. He finds that Tian is an absolute power in the universe, and he accepts three assumptions:
Since Tian depends on human actors to implement its will, Confucius insists on moral, political, social, and even religious activism. Only through this activism will a society maintain a harmonious order.
When you look at the work of Sun Tzu and Confucius, and use their work to analyze modern events, you see that both philosophers lack any idea of a "peace conference" or a "United Nations." Since the Chinese king was the Son of Heaven and received its Mandate from Heaven to rule, it would not make sense to sue for peace with anyone else, because no one else had the Mandate from Heaven.
But if there's no peace, it's still possible to take advantage of a "peace process." Sun Tzu said that "All warfare is based on deception," and he advocated the use of deception first, and actual war as a last resort.
So for China today, the United Nations is a tool to bring about peace, but a tool to be used with deception to win the war. For example, China treats international law with contempt, saying that its own law supercedes international law as in the South China Sea, where China is criminally violating international law, but still references internation law when it favors China. This is a perfect example of deception and manipulation. China is contemptuous of international law, but still uses it as a tool of deception.
We might assume that the North Koreans are following the same kind of strategy, with the child dictator Kim Jong-un having received his own Mandate from Heaven. Kim will never denuclearize, and treats the peace talks with South Korea and Trump with contempt, but will still use them as tools to provide political pressure to get the sanctions lifted, and make fools of and humiliate the US, as his father did ten years ago. New World Encyclopedia and University of Tennesee and Wolfram Eberhard, History of China
Many people know nothing about Confucius except his sayings, whether or not he actually said them.
"Confucius say" sayings are often meant to be funny, and can often be found as sayings in fortune cookies served after meals in a Chinese restaurant. Here are some examples: "Confucius say: Man with one chopstick go hungry." or "Confucius say: Man who cut self while shaving, lose face. " or "Confucius say: Man who jump off cliff, jump to conclusion! " or "Confucius say: Man should not sleep with woman with more troubles than he have."
Those sayings are meant to be funny, but he probably never said them.
However, there is a large body of real Confucius sayings that carry a great deal of wisdom, even though they were written down 15 centuries ago. In fact, many of them have become common sayings. Here are some examples:
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Sep-18 World View -- University of N. Florida and Pentagon cut ties with China's Confucius Institutes thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Sep-2018)
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North Korea denuclearization negotiations appear headed for another crisis
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Russia and China are starting to demand that the sanctions on North Korea be reduced.
As I've said for many months, the objective of North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un has been to get the sanctions removed, without having to denuclearize. His father was very successful at that, having resumed nuclear development when the sanctions were lifted, based on his promise to end nuclear development. The child dictator wants to prove that he's as good as his father at tricking and humiliating the West.
As I've said in the past, after they starved and viciously abused their own people for decades, based on a promise to make North Korea a great country, a world peer to the United States, it's my personal opinion that if Kim actually did denuclearize, then he would be shot dead by his own generals.
Since the beginning of the year, Kim has adopted a "charm offensive" strategy, working with the Russians, Chinese and South Koreans to put international pressure on the US administration to agree to reduce sanctions. He's taken easily reversible "confidence building steps," including destroying a nuclear test facility that could easily be rebuilt, and returning the remains of American Korean War soldiers, when he has thousands more. He's also suspended open testing for nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, but he's continued development of these weapons and, even worse, is selling them to other countries.
At the UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, America's secretary of state Mike Pompeo repeated previous criticisms of Russia and China for violating the internationally agreed sanctions on North Korea, and said that the sanctions must be continued to maintain pressure:
"It is imperative for members of the United Nations to take that to heart. Enforcement of UN Security Council sanctions must continue vigorously and without fail until we realize the fully, final, verified denuclearization. The members of this council must set the example on that effort, and we must all hold each other accountable."
However, Wang Yi, China's foreign affairs minister, responded by saying the sanction measures could be "modified":
"A provision in the Security Council resolutions that the council is prepared to modify the sanction measures in light of the DPRK’s [North Korea’s] compliance. Now given the positive developments in the inter-Korean and DPRK- US relations, and the DPRK’s important pledges and actions on denuclearization, China believes that the Security Council needs to consider invoking in due course this provision to encourage the DPRK and other relevant parties to move denuclearization further ahead."
Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov added to Wang Yi's remarks by criticizing Western nations for "stubbornly" refusing to agree to reduce sanctions. He said that, "Any negotiation is a two-way street. Steps by the DPRK (North Korea) toward gradual disarmament should be followed by the easing of sanctions," and that the continued imposition of sanctions must not become “a hindrance” to dialogue between the two Koreas. CBS News and Sputnik News and Guardian (London) and Reuters (17-Sep)
The North Koreans have made some easily reversible "confidence building" concessions, as described above.
The US has also made an easily revisible concession: The US has suspended all joint military drills with the South Koreans.
Mike Pompeo is supposed to have another meeting with Kim Jong-un in the near future.
The major demand that the US will make is for Kim to provide a list of all nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development sites, and then to allow UN IAEA inspectors to visit the sites and verify that denuclearization is in progress. I would be shocked and surprised if Kim agreed to that.
The major demand that the North Koreans will make will be to sign a peace treaty formally ending the 1950s Korean War, and then to withdraw thousands of American troops from South Vietnam. I would be shocked and surprised if Trump agreed to that.
However, if both Kim and Trump shock and surprise me, then undoubtedly some agreement would be reached to ease some sanctions.
Trump claims, in the spirit of The Art of the Deal, that he expects North Korea to fully denuclearize by the end of 2019. I would be VERY shocked and surprised if that happened.
This situation has seemed so benign for months that almost nobody has been paying attention, especially with the distraction of people being thrown to the lions in the great Washington Colosseum.
However, my expectations haven't changed. At some point, there will be a renewal of the "North Korea" crisis, and the choice will be either war, or else allowing North Korea to build an arsenal of nuclear ballistic missiles pointed at the United States. AP and Asia Times
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Sep-18 World View -- China, Russia demand that that some North Korea sanctions be lifted thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Sep-2018)
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Clashes in Kashmir after Indian police brutally kill innocent shepherd
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Details are scarce, but Mohammad Saleem Malik, a 26 year old shepherd boy, was found dead in a courtyard by his family on Thursday morning, near his home in Srinigar, the capital city of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Two hours earlier, he had left his room and entered the cattle shed to check his sheeps and goats. Indian government security forces had been conducting a "cordon-and-search operation" (CASO), and allegedly fired indiscriminately at the neighborhood houses before dawn.
According to his father Muhammad Yaqoob Malik:
"My son was fond of rearing sheep and pigeons and never in his life he had picked up a stone in his hand [to fling at police]. Why was he killed when he was not a militant, with clean police record? Why was he killed when no militant was present in the area and there was no encounter at all?"
Clashes erupted soon after the news of the killing spread in the area with the locals alleging that Malik was killed in forces’ firing. In the ensuing exchange of fire, a militant was killed and three soldiers were wounded, one of whom died.
A Kashmir separatist group, the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), is calling for a shutdown of Kashmir on Friday. First Post (India) and Kashmir Watch and Rising Kashmir
In May of last year, with tit-for-tat violence between Kashmir separatist insurgents and Indian security forces escalating, Indian security forces launched a massive house-to-house sweep in Kashmir, using 3,000 security forces to root out terrorists.
Then in June Indian security forces launched "Operation All-Out." According to India said that this would "deliver a lethal blow to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir with a long-term plan for a lasting peace in the trouble-torn Valley."
At the time that Operation All-Out was announced, Indian security forces had identified 128 militants in Kashmir who would be targeted.
However, that was then. Earlier this month, the list of militants kept by the Indian security forces had more than 300 names on it. According to a senior police officer:
"There has been a significant increase in the number of militants. The main reason for the high number of militants has been local recruitment since 2017. Last year 126 Valley youths picked up guns- which was the highest number since 2010 and this year over 130 have been inducted into militancy."
The significance of this statement is that it indicates a major change. In the past, militants came from Pakistan. In most cases, they were in Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based terrorist group that was formed in the 1990s by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to fight India in the disputed regions of Kashmir and Jammu. LeT was the perpetrator of the horrific "26/11" three-day attack on Mumbai in 2008, killing 166 people and wounding hundreds more. ( "After Mumbai's '26/11' nightmare finally ends, India - Pakistan relations face crisis" from 2008)
The major change, as the police officer's statement indicates, is that militants are now being recruited indigenously. Most of them join Hizbul Mujahedeen (HM), a Kashmir-based terrorist group that has been leading the anti-Indian stone-throwing riots, triggered by the July 8 2016 death of HM leader Burhan Wani in a gunfight with the Indian army. Since then, thousands of Kashmiris have been blinded in one or both eyes by pellet guns used by Indian security forces, and thousands of youths have been arrested.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Kashmir is replaying previous generations of violence according to a fairly standard template. India's previous two generational crisis wars were India's 1857 Rebellion, which pitted Hindu nationalists against British colonists, and then the 1947 Partition War, one of the bloodiest wars of the 20th century, pitting Hindus versus Muslims, following the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan.
Now, as the survivors of the 1947 Partition War have almost all died off, leaving behind younger generations with no fear of repeating past disasters, Kashmir is repeating the violence of 1857 and 1947. Generational Dynamics predicts that Kashmir is returning to full-scale war, re-fighting the extremely bloody partition war of 1947. Tribune India and DailyO (India)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Sep-18 World View -- Number of Kashmir militants surges as India's 'Operation All-Out' fails thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Sep-2018)
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Today's major news from Europe: Meghan Markle closes a car door
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, may be ideologically on the left, but it's hard to criticize someone who is taking a global view for the good of mankind, and is spending his own money to try to solve world problems like poverty and HIV aids.
I met Bill Gates a few times during my past as a Senior Technology Editor and technology journalist. I found him to be a brilliant man at both marketing and technology. I recall digging into the code and functionality of Windows 95 when it came out in 1995 and being extremely impressed that so complex a product could work so well and in so many diverse environments.
So when Melinda Gates was interviewed at length on CNBC on Tuesday, I was curious to hear some specifics of her plans for how she and Bill were going to save the world, and to analyze what she said from the point of view of Generational Dynamics.
Like many people, she is completely oblivious to the growing nationalism and xenophobia in the world, to the growing military threats around the world, to the growing global financial crisis in countries around the world, and how these things completely negate her Pollyannaish view of the world, and how they make the investments she's proposals either impossible or else completely worthless if they occur, in this generational Crisis era.
I'll start with something she said near the end of the interview that really caught my attention: (my transcription):
As I traveled the world, I asked myself: is there anywhere in the world where we have true equality for women, and the answer is no, not even in the United States. ...One of the places that have 40% women parliamentarians is Rwanda. It's because President [Paul] Kagame said we will have 40% of parliamentarians. They're way over that now."
In fact it is true that over 50% of the members of parliament in Rwanda. Ms. Gates' point was that Paul Kagame is a great pro-woman humanitarian who has bravely taken the political step to make sure that there's gender equality in parliament.
But even someone without knowledge of generational theory can see that's not what's going on here. Rwanda is in a region riven by centuries of tribal war, particularly between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis. In a three month period in 1994, Hutus massacred close to a million Tutsis in the most brutal way.
I've described many times what happens in country after country in the decades following a crisis ethnic civil war. Whoever comes to power after the war uses brutal police power to suppress the opposition, using the excuse that a new civil war must be prevented. This has happened in DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Cameroon, Thailand, Cambodia, Iran, Venezuela, Libya, and other places.
Paul Kagame was a Tutsi military leader who was killing Hutus in the 1980s, and continued doing so both before and after the 1994 genocide. This is a person who has perpetrated some of the most horrific things that one human being can do to another. Like many leaders in such countries, he's refusing to give up power, and he's using violence to suppress the opposition. Even today, there are reports that he's using terror attacks to subvert the Hutu government in Burundi. So he's no humanitarian, and if he supposedly supported gender equality. There must be something else going on.
An NPR article in 2016 described what happened:
"Following 100 days of slaughter in 1994, Rwandan society was left in chaos. The death toll was between 800,000 and 1 million. Many suspected perpetrators were arrested or fled the country. Records show that immediately following the genocide, Rwanda's population of 5.5 million to 6 million was 60 to 70 percent female. Most of these women had never been educated or raised with the expectations of a career. In pre-genocide Rwanda, it was almost unheard of for women to own land or take a job outside the home.The genocide changed all that. The war led to Rwanda's "Rosie the Riveter" moment: It opened the workplace to Rwandan women just as World War II had opened it to American women. ...
The call for equality was led not by thousands of women but by one man — President Paul Kagame, who has led the country since his army stopped the genocide. Kagame decided that Rwanda was so demolished, so broken, it simply could not rebuild with men's labor alone. So the country's new constitution, passed in 2003, decreed that 30 percent of parliamentary seats be reserved for women. The government also pledged that girls' education would be encouraged. That women would be appointed to leadership roles, like government ministers and police chiefs. Kagame vowed to not merely play catch-up to the West but leapfrog ahead of it."
So in a country whose population is 60-70% female, Paul Kagame sought to appoint women to high positions. So when Ms. Gates uses Rwanda as a model country to be emulated by other countries, you have to wonder what she's thinking, or whether she knows anything about Rwanda before the last six months.
I would assume the latter. I don't know anything personal about Ms. Gates, but I would assume that she's like most Americans, and thinks that "history always begins this morning."
The next question to ask is whether Rwanda is fundamentally different from other countries, besides having a lot of women in parliament. The same NPR article provides some answers:
"But even though the change was dramatic and swift, how deep was its impact? Can a country truly transform its core culture from the outside in?Justine Uvuza wondered that, and decided to find out. A Rwandan herself who had grown up in a refugee camp in Uganda and then moved back to Rwanda in 1994, after the genocide, she worked for a while for the Kagame government promoting Rwanda's pro-women policies. She was curious how much progress had been made. So when she was getting her Ph.D. at Newcastle University, she returned to Rwanda to interview female politicians about their lives — not just their public positions but their private lives, with their husbands and children. She found with rare exception that no matter how powerful these women were in public, that power didn't extend into their own homes.
"One told me how her husband expected her to make sure that his shoes were polished, the water was put in the bathroom for him, his clothes were ironed," Justine says. And this husband wanted not only his shoes laid out in the morning, but his socks placed on top of the shoes. And he wanted it done by his wife, the parliamentarian."
So really, having women in parliament is great for show, but it makes little difference in people's lives.
There are basic Generational Dynamics principles at work here. As I've written many times, it's a core principle of Generational Dynamics that, even in a dictatorship, major decisions are made by masses of people, by generations of people. The attitudes of politicians are irrelevant, except insofar as they represent the attitudes of the people.
It's certainly commendable that Bill and Melinda Gates want to spend their own money to promote gender equality. But I think that it's unfortunate that they're wasting their money, time and effort on programs that have a zero percent chance of succeeding.
Generational theory is not easy to understand, but Bill Gates is capable of doing so. Gates and his wife should focus their attention on programs that might actually work. NPR (29-Jul-2016) and Newcastle University (PDF,2014)
I'll give one more example from Ms. Gates' interview:
"There's a youth boom in Africa - 60% of the population is under the age of 25. If we invest in their health and their education, they'll lift up their economies. They have huge potential. They'll lift up the continent.But the converse could also happen. If we don't make those investments, you're going to see more HIV Aids, more deaths. So we need to keep our eye on the ball and make these investments, as a world. ...
I met women all over the world, and when I sit down and talk to them, in their homes, in their villages, in a township, and really listen to them ... they would say to me, "What about that tool, what about that [contraceptive] shot. Why can't I get it?" They would say, "I have five children, it's not fair to my youngest child for me to have another women."
Somebody has to answer those cries, and somebody has to rise above the politics, and say that this is important, has to be on the global agenda.
I'm Catholic, I had many discussions with my family, my parents, my siblings, with former priests and nums, and at the end of the day I decided, I use these tools, I counsel all three of my children, my sons, my daughter, to use these tools and know about them, and I thought I have to follow my conscience. Women's babies are dying because they're coming too quickly, and women's bodies can't sustain what's going on. So at the end of the day, I had to wrestle my conscience and my conscience says, this is the right thing to do."
These are great objectives. And perhaps making contraceptive shots available to women will will reduce population growth, especially if the husband also thinks it's unfair to his five children to have a sixth.
My personal opinion is that this kind of program will not work under any circumstances, because the rate of population growth is deeply embedded in the culture. Consider that in America there was a reduction in fertility before WW II, and then a Baby Boom after WW II. This had nothing to do with availability of contraceptives. There are other examples of this type as well.
But even if the program worked, the effort would be totally wasted. With nationalism and xenophobia increasing around the world in this generational Crisis era, the world is headed for a world war, and these contraceptive programs will simply fall off a cliff and be totally irrelevant.
This should not be too difficult for Bill and Melinda Gates to understand. Instead of wasting their effort on programs that a 100% probability of failure, they should devote their efforts to preparing for the world to come, after a world that has to be rebuilt by the 4-5 billion people who survive the world war, and then have to find their way when the Singularity occurs. CNBC
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In the last four or five years, I've noticed a major change in the commentary of financial experts and analysts on television. It used to be that the only view that was expressed was that the financial system had recovered nicely from the financial crisis of ten years ago, and that the worst that could happen is a mild recession, from which the economy would recover quickly.
Ironically, even that hasn't happened. There has been a bull market on Wall Street for years, much longer than history tells us is possible.
So now what I'm hearing more and more is that analysts are strongly hinting that a major financial crisis is coming.
In an interview on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday morning, JPMorgan's Mary Erdoes was asked whether there are things in the global economy that are too good to be true. She replied (my transcription):
Oh lots of things. I mean everything from housing prices in certain parts of the world, to currency prices in certain parts of the world.You can't possibly think we're in a normal world, when you have an $11 dollars that was thrown at the market to buy whatever, to keep things propped up.
Add to that a nice little tax reform in the United States of America to help that, and you have negative yields in 40% of europe. This is just not normal. You have not normal things, and not normal things don't end well.
The problem is all of this stress testing in the world isn't telling us what's going to manifest itself. next, because everything - it seems too benign, everyone is so comfortable, and that's exactly when you need to be the most uncomfortable."
Other panelists concurred, mentioned other issues: inflexibility of euro currency to meet crises, and closing of open borders.
I'm hearing this kind of thing a lot more these days. They clearly are expecting a major global financial crash, triggered by something completely unexpected - not a surprise to my readers. The S&P 500 Price/Earnings ratio is at 24.55, which is astronomical by historic standards, where the historic average is 14, and it was around 5-6 as recently as 1982, indicating that the stock market is in a huge bubble.
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Former "Suits" star Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, the new wife of Prince Harry, made big news on Wednesday when she closed a car door.
She was driven to the Royal Academy of Arts to see the opening of an exhibition of works from the Oceania region.
She stepped out of the car, and closed the door. She's supposed to wait for someone else to close the door for her.
This is now a major "moment" in the UK. The big question is: Will she close her own car door again the next time she's driven to an event? BBC
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Sep-18 World View -- Bill and Melinda Gates take Pollyannaish view of Rwanda and rest of world thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Sep-2018)
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Violence escalates in North Kivu, DRC, along with Ebola
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The latest outbreak of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was identified on August 1 in North Kivu province of DRC, near the borders with Rwanda and Uganda. Since then, Ebola has been spreading fairly rapidly. As of Tuesday, there are 119 confirmed cases, and 69 confirmed deaths from Ebola.
This outbreak has already become the seventh largest Ebola outbreak in history.
As we reported a month ago ( "25-Aug-18 World View -- In dreaded scenario, Ebola spreads to densely populated war zone in Congo"), Dr. Peter Salama, from the World Health Organization (WHO), said that WHO was extremely concerned because the disease was already spreading, and had reached an "area of very high insecurity," because it was in densely populated tribal war zone.
Now Salama's level of concern appears to have grown considerably. At a news conference on Tuesday he said:
"We are now extremely concerned that several factors may be coming together over the next weeks and months to create a potential perfect storm: A perfect storm of active conflict, limiting our ability to access civilians, distress by segments of the community, already traumatized by decades of conflict and of murder."
Salama is particularly concerned about attacks on ordinary civilians and on WHO personnel in and around the territory of Beni, which is the base of WHO's operation. “We’ve seen attacks now on August 24, September 3, 9, 11, 16, 21 and most recently and most dramatically September 22 in the city itself of Beni. The ADF in particular has enormous capabilities. They’ve been able to overrun entire FARDC-bases in and around Beni, they’ve been able to ambush (UN) forces." United Nations and Times Live (South Africa) and Reuters and AFP
The militia that Salama named as having "enormous capabilities" is the ADF, which is the Alliance of Democratic Forces, a group of Islamists formed in the late 1990s in western Uganda to fight the government of Uganda. Since then they've taken their mayhem and murder to North Kivu province in DRC, and joined with other militia groups, as well as elements of Congo's own army. The UN was particularly stunned in December of last year, when the ADF attacked UN blue helmet peacekeepers, killing 15 and wounding 54 in one evening.
The fighting in North Kivu has been escalating in all six territories of North Kivu, according to the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR. Thousands of civilians have fled their burned out villages, bringing reports of brutal attacks. It is estimated that more than a million people are displaced in North Kivu. An estimated half a million people have been forced from their homes this year alone.
The WHO's Dr. Salama mentioned a "perfect storm" of multiple risks. One of those risks is attacks by the ADP and other armed militias. A second risk is that politicians are attempting to exploit the situation, with elections scheduled for December.
A third risk is "pockets of reluctance, refusal and resistance" by civilians contacted by WHO workers. Many of the new cases of Ebola are being generated by people who are refusing to accept an Ebola vaccination. On Monday 80 percent of Ebola contacts — people at risk of developing the disease and so requiring monitoring — and three suspected cases in and around Beni could not be reached for disease monitoring. This kind of contact is the only way to stop the further spread of Ebola. If WHO workers cannot perform vaccinations or contact tracing, and cannot isolate people who have already contracted the disease, there is nothing to stop it from spreading rapidly.
Salama says that neighboring Uganda is now facing an “imminent threat”, and social media posts were conflating Ebola with criticism of the DRC government and the United Nations and “a range of conspiracy theories”, which could put health workers at risk.
WHO currently has no plans to evacuate its health workers, but that could change if the danger to them increases. "If WHO and its partners had to leave North Kivu ... we would have grave concerns that this outbreak would not be able to be well controlled in the coming weeks or months." UNHCR and WHO Situation Reports for DRC
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Sep-18 World View -- World Health Organization fears 'perfect storm' could spread Ebola rapidly in DR Congo thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Sep-2018)
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Russia blames Israel when Syria shoots down Russian plan
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The Israeli security cabinet will meet in urgent session on Tuesday over the crisis in relations between Israel and Russia, a day after Russia officially blamed Israel because Syrian surface to air missiles shot down a Russian reconnaissance plane on September 17, killing all 15 Russians onboard.
On September 17, Israeli F-16 warplanes were carrying out airstrikes in Syria to prevent Iran from deploying advanced weapons that the Syrian regime or Lebanon's Hezbollah could use to strike Israel. Earlier this month, an Israeli official admitted that Israel had carried out more than 200 attacks against Iranian targets in Syria in the last two years.
The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad attempted to use an an S-200 anti-aircraft missile battery, previously supplied by the Russians, to shoot down the Israeli warplanes, but instead shot down a Russian Ilyushin Il-20 (IL-20) reconnaissance plane, killing all 15 Russian service members onboard.
Shortly after the incident occurred, Russia's president Vladimir Putin said that the shootdown was caused by a "series of tragic mistakes."
But on Sunday, Russia's Defense Ministry said:
"Objective data says that the actions of Israeli pilots, which led to the death of 15 Russian military personnel, point to either lack of professionalism or criminal negligence. This is why we believe that the Russian Il-20 aircraft tragedy is solely the fault of the Israeli Air Force and those who made decisions concerning such actions. ...This is an extremely ungrateful response to all that Russia has done for Israel and the Israeli people recently."
The Russians describe how extremely clever and tricky Israeli pilots flew into the region and out again, tricking the hapless Syrians into shooting the Russian reconnaissance plane before they even knew what they were doing. The Foreign Ministry continued:
"The Israeli pilot could not but understand that since the Il-20 aircraft has a far larger radar cross-section compared to an F-16 jet, it would be a preferred target for air defenses. [Israel is aware that] Russian and Syrian militaries use different friend or foe identification systems so Syrian radars could have identified the Il-20 as a group of Israeli fighter jets."
So, in other words, the Syrians couldn't identify Russian planes using friend or foe identification systems, and Syrian radar operators couldn't tell the difference between a Russian IL-20 reconnaissance plane and an Israeli F-16 warplane, even though the F-16 is one-third as big as the IL-20. So the Syrians shot down the Russian plane, and therefore, the shootdown was "solely the fault of the Israeli Air Force." Those Israeli pilots were pretty clever, weren't they?
Even some Russian commentators are saying that the Russian explanation is ridiculous, and that the fault is with the total incompetence of the Syrians. According to sarcastic commentaries in the the liberal Russian media Echo Moskvy:
"How could the Syrian air defense, upon seeing on their radars a large IL-20 coming to a low speed landing, release the S-200 on a small Israeli Air Force fighter, who was in same air space sector?! Are there brainless ‘dummies’ sitting behind the radars?""We always blame someone else. Anyone but us. [The Boeing MH17 passenger plane] was hit by Ukraine, the British themselves poisoned the Skripals, White Helmets poured chlorine on the Syrian insurgents, sanctions were imposed by Russophobes, doping was planted by other Russophobes. ...
With whom have we not yet quarreled? Who else is still not to blame for all our troubles? Israel - it is now on the line. Let's go after the Jews! Moreover, our people have long suspected that the true culprits of all misfortunes are the Jews and the Masons who joined them."
A growing number of Russians are opposing Russia's involvement in the war in Syria, and so Putin cannot afford to admit that it was the incompetence of the Syrian military and the Russian military that led to the deaths of the 15 Russian soldiers. Tass (Moscow, 23-Sep) and Reuters (4-Sep) and The Hill and Echo Moskvy (Trans)
After saying that Syria shooting down a Russian plane was "solely the fault of the Israeli Air Force", Russia's defense minister Sergei Shoigu announced on Mondayk that advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems will be supplied to Syria within two weeks. According to Shoigu:
"The S-300 is capable of intercepting air threats at a range of more than 250 kilometers and simultaneously hitting several aerial targets. Russia will also jam satellite navigation, on-board radars and communication systems of combat aircraft, which attack targets in the Syrian territory, in the regions over the waters of the Mediterranean Sea bordering with Syria."
This announcement has alarmed Israel's government. Israel's president Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday initiated a phone conversation with Putin to attempt to reverse the decision. However, Putin rejected the plea, saying that "Russia’s decisions to strengthen combat capacities of Syrian air defense meet the current situation and are geared, first of all, to avert any potential threat to the lives of Russian servicemen who are fighting against international terrorism."
National Security Advisor John Bolton called the decision “a significant escalation” of the seven-year war, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday he expected to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss the matter.
The S-300 systems could potentially be a game-changer in the potential conflict between Iran and Israel. Israel has sought for years to convince the Russians not to supply S-300s to the Syrians or the Iranians, and Russia has cooperated with the Israelis to the extent of permitting them to conduct airstrikes against Iranian assets in Syria which could threaten Israel.
But right now it looks like that cooperation may be changing. The S-300 missiles, combined with jamming of electronic communications, will make it easier for Iran to deploy weapons in Syria or Lebanon that could be used by the Iranians or Hezbollah to attack Israel.
Israel does not have the capability to defeat Russia's electronic jamming technology, but some reports indicate that the US does, and Israel may request aid from the US. Reuters and Debka (Israel) and Tass (Moscow) and Al-Jazeera
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John J. Xenakis is author of the book, Iran's Struggle for Supremacy: Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East, available on Amazon for $5 for the digital version or $7 for the paperback version.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Sep-18 World View -- Russia will supply S-300 systems to Syria, and jam Israeli communications thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Sep-2018)
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Yameen's defeat is also a defeat for China's 'debt trap diplomacy'
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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People in the Maldives islands today are in something of a shock, as the results of Sunday's presidential elections appear to indicate that the incumbent president Abdulla Yameen has decisively lost to his opponent, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
With more than 80% of the ballots countred on Sunday night, Solih was winning by 58-41% of the vote. The results will be announced officially on Friday, but this lead 17% lead is thought to be insurmountable.
The Maldives is a 1,200 island archipelago in the India Ocean at the southern tip of India. More than 260,000 of the Maldives' 400,000 people were eligible to vote at about 400 polling stations across the islands. Voters also stood in long lines in Malaysia, the U.K., India and Sri Lanka, where the opposition had encouraged overseas Maldivians to participate.
The reason that everyone was expecting Yameen to win easily is because he's used violence, human rights abuse, and suppression to guarantee his victory. He jailed many of his political opponents on phony "terrorism" charges, and rolled back press freedom.
Some political opponents have been in jail since 2015, including Yameen's own half-brother. In February of this year, the Supreme Court ruled that they should be set free. Yameen first announced that he would honor the court's decision, but then changed his mind. He declared a national state of emergency, and then sent the police to arrest two of judges. The other three judges then decided that they would reverse their decision and leave the political opponents in jail.
On Saturday evening, the night before the election, police raided the main campaign office of the opposition presidential candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Saturday, saying they had acted to prevent "illegal activities."
Even so, Sunday's election went a lot better than anyone expected, without a lot of obvious election-rigging, because the United States and the European Union had threatened sanctions. The European Union said in July it was ready to impose travel bans and asset freezes on individuals if the situation did not improve. The US State Department this month warned it would "consider appropriate measures" if the election was not free and fair.
Solih declared victory on Sunday evening:
"This is a moment of happiness, a moment of hope, a moment of history. For many of us this has been a difficult journey, a journey that has led to a prison cells or years of exile.It's been a journey of a breakdown of government institutions. But it's also been a journey that has ended at the ballot box. I must thank all those people who have struggled for this cause."
However, Yameen has not made any statement. There's a great deal of tension and a sense of crisis in Malé, the capital city, because many people are afraid that Yameen will do something violent in the next couple of days to reverse the election results. Mihaaru.com (Maldives) and Washington Post and Al Jazeera and CNN
Both Sri Lanka and the Maldives, both in the Indian Ocean just south of the tip of India, have long had close relationships with India. However, both countries have become closer to China in the last ten years, alarming India.
The debt trap story of Sri Lanka has been told many times. China funded the development of Sri Lanka's Hambantota seaport, and when Sri Lanka couldn't pay its debt, China took control of the seaport and substantial land in the region, creating a large enclave of Chinese workers and their families.
Many in the Maldives are acutely aware of what happened to Sri Lanka, of course, and they're afraid that Abdulla Yameen has already put their country on the same course, with a debt trap of its own. Already, China has loaned $830 million for an upgrade to the airport. The Chinese are also building a 25-story apartment complex and a hospital. These Chinese projects account for some 70% of the country's total debt, and $92 million a year in payments to China, roughly 10% of the entire budget.
Then there's the question of corruption. I 2014-15, Yameen's tourism minister leased out more than 50 islands and lagoons to developers without public bidding. There are signs that members of Yameen's own family are heavily involved in China's infrastructure projects.
We've written about many countries where the leaders refuse to step down, and corruption is often the reason. Typically, the leader's family and cronies benefit from fat kickbacks and bribes, but those are never revealed as long as the leader is in power, and can use violence and human rights abuses to suppress that information. But once somebody else takes power, the corruption can be revealed, and the cronies become eligible to be jailed or executed.
So that's another reason why some people fear a major crisis in the Maldives in the next few days. If Yameen has followed this corruption path, and there are signs that he has, then turning power over to Solih puts himself, his family and his cronies at risk of losing their freedom or their lives. Guardian (London) and BBC and Foreign Policy (21-Mar) and AFP
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Sep-18 World View -- Maldives in crisis as China-backed incumbent president Yameen loses election thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Sep-2018)
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Attack blamed on a local Arab terrorist group, al-Ahvazi separatist movement
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Dozens of people, including women and children, were killed in a terrorist attack on a military parade in Iran, in the city of Ahvaz, the capital city of Khuzestan province, which is in southwest corner of Iran, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
The attack occurred during a military parade marking the beginning of the Sacred Defense Week, a nationwide ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the start of the Iran/Iraq war that began with an invasion by Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and continued from 1980-88. Some 1.5 million people were killed in the Iran/Iraq war, and it ended in 1988 with Saddam Hussein using the WMD mustard gas on Kurds and Iranians.
The attack targeted members of the Iran's powerful paramilitary group, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and their families. Four gunmen dressed in fake IRGC uniforms sprayed random gunfire into a crowd of marching soldiers, bystanders and government officials. The military parade was being televised live, saw Iranians saw marching soldiers suddenly scramble to flee, or fall to the ground to escape gunfire, many of them shielding children.
Ahvaz is the capital city of Khuzestan province, which has the country's largest oil reserves. With its proximity to Iraq and the presence of a large Arab minority, the area has seen ethnic violence in the past. It was also a frontline in the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, as Saddam Hussein was trying to gain control of Khuzestan province and its oil wealth. Mehr News (Tehran) and AP and Press TV (Tehran)
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei immediately said "This crime is a continuation of the plots of the regional states that are puppets of the United States, and their goal is to create insecurity in our dear country."
The "regional states" that Khamenei alluded to are Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif made a similar claim in a tweet:
"Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz. Children and journos among casualties. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks. Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives."
At some level, these accusations are justified. Ministers from Saudi Arabia and UAE have at times incendiary statements targeting Iran, just as Iran has threatened Saudi Arabia and UAE.
A year ago, John R. Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations, made a proposal to President Trump get out of the nuclear deal with Iran, which was a subject still under discussion at that time. Bolton recommended going beyond simple abrogation of the agreement to take steps "to limit Iran’s malicious activities and global adventurism." These actions included:
Bolton's plan, which he says is for discussion purposes only, is extremely belligerent and threatening, and specifically recommends providing assistance to groups that have had terrorist elements, including Khuzestan Arabs, Pakistan's Balochis, and Iraq's Kurds.
Furthermore, although is not generally believed that the US funded any such groups, some analysts believe that Saudi Arabia has funded Khuzestan Arabs.
Iran's accusations against Israel and the United States are made entirely without evidence. However, Iranian officials reflexively blame everything on Israel and the United States, and in today's febrile international environment, it's not surprising that Iranian officials make those claims. Times of Israel and National Review (28-Aug-2017)
Two groups claimed credit for the attack.
The first to claim credit was ISIS. But ISIS claims credit for many attacks in which it played no part, in order to puff up its own brand name. So the ISIS claim is not generally believed.
An Arab nationalist separatist group, the Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahwaz (al-Ahwaz or al-Ahvaziya or al-Ahvazi) also claimed responsibility for the assault, and their claim is generally believed. A statesman issued by a spokesman said that the attack on Saturday "was in response to the repression of Ahvazi Arabs. We do not have a choice but to carry out a resistance."
Little is known about the al-Ahvazi, except that it's an Arab separatist group based in the city of Ahvaz, the site of Saturday's attack. It's believed to be funded by Saudi Arabia.
In the past, the group has attacked only unguarded pipelines, so this is a major escalation by the group.
However, the IRGC made its own escalation last week, attacking Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq with missiles. Saturday's attack is almost a mirror image of last week's missile attack on the Kurds, so this may be a tit-for-tat escalation.
Some analysts are suggesting that Saturday's attack was the Saudis laying a trap for Iran. According to this conspiracy theory, the Saudis would like Iran to retaliate militarily in some way, to create a wider war, forcing the United States military to get involved. My response to this suggestion is the usual one: Be careful what you wish for. Times of Israel and Guardian (London)
John J. Xenakis is author of the book, Iran's Struggle for Supremacy: Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East, available on Amazon for $5 for the digital version or $7 for the paperback version.
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Sep-18 World View -- Gunmen massacre IRGC soldiers and their families during military parade in Ahvaz, Iran thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Sep-2018)
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China's claims to the South China Sea are amazingly vacuous
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Two weeks ago, the HMS Albion, a British Royal Navy flagship amphibious assault ship, was traveling through the South China Sea, en route from Tokyo to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam. On August 31, the ship exercised its "freedom of navigation" rights as it passed near the Paracel Islands. The Paracel Islands have been ruled by the courts to be in international waters, but China has used military force to annex them, in clear violation of international law. China immediately launched a military challenge in the form of a frigate and two helicopters, although both sides remained calm.
However, the Albion's freedom of navigation operation continues to trigger hysterical, irrational threats by the Chinese. In the aftermath of the incident, China made the usual threats, and these statements have been growing more hysterical and threatening as time goes on.
China's embassy in London issued this statement:
"The [Paracel Islands are] an inherent part of the Chinese territory. In accordance with the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, the Chinese government promulgated the baseline of the territorial sea of the [Paracel Islands] in May, 1996. The relevant behavior of the British warship violated Chinese law and relevant international law and infringed upon China's sovereignty. China is firmly opposed to this. We have lodged stern representations with the British side and expressed our strong dissatisfaction.The Chinese side strongly urges Britain to stop this kind of provocation lest it should undermine the overall picture of bilateral ties as well as regional peace and stability. China will continue to take all necessary measures to safeguard its sovereignty and security."
The claim that the Paracel Islands are an inherent part of Chinese territory is really laughable, as I'll explain below. China has NO sovereignty there.
China's Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming has said that the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea has never been a problem, warning that no one should underestimate China's determination to uphold "peace and stability" in the region:
"Yet to everyone’s confusion, some big countries outside the region did not seem to appreciate the peace and tranquility in the South China Sea. They sent warships and aircraft all the way to the South China Sea to create trouble. ...This was a serious infringement [of China's sovereignty]. It threatened China's security and put regional peace and stability in jeopardy.
"Freedom of navigation is not a license to do whatever one wishes. ...
"Such 'freedom' must be stopped. Otherwise the South China Sea will never be tranquil."
This is a military threat. The ambassador claims that it's about warships making trouble, but it's also about fishing boats and oil. China has repeatedly used military force to prevent Vietnam and the Philippines from fishing in international waters, and as we recently reported, China threatened war with the Philippines if the latter drills for oil in its own territorial waters.
In the last five years, islands near the Philippines have turned into Chinese military bases, bristling with radar domes, shelters for missiles, and warplane runways.
In 2015, Xi stood in the Rose Garden at the White House and promised, "there is no intention to militarize" the South China Sea, which is exactly what happened. Xi's lie is standard Chinese policy, as advised by 1980s Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping: "Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership."
But since 2015, China has completely abandoned Deng's advice, and is now openly militaristic and threatening, and preparing to launch a war.
According to a Pentagon assessment, China's military bases in the Spratly Islands will be completed by the end of the year, and presumably ready for full-scale war. The only question is what will China do next -- take immediate military action, or else start building military bases in Scarborough, in Philippines territorial waters, an act of war in itself.
In May, U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Adm. Philip Davidson said, "In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States."
China does not recognize international law except when it favors China. China believes that its own law supersedes international law. China has been pursuing the Nazi Lebensraum objective, at least since the time of Chiang Kai-shek after World War II. The Chinese Communist Party view of Han Racial Superiority is no different than the Nazi view of the Aryan Master Race.
The "freedom of navigation operations" (FONOPs) are being conducted by the US, Britain, Australian, and Japan. There's a temptation just to abandon them, and just let China have its way. But then China would just declare victory, and make further demands, prohibiting any other country's vessels of any kind to pass through the South China Sea without explicit permission of the Chinese.
So the Chinese make their hysterical statements and military threats to "prove" their claims. The FONOPs are necessary to refute China's hysterical statements and military threats. This is exactly the kind of tit-for-tat escalation that leads to war during a generational Crisis era.
The same thing is happening with trade policy between the US and China. Neither the Trump administration nor Xi Jinping is going to back down. Perhaps some intermediary can work for a truce of some kind, but it's more likely that the tit-for-tat trade escalations will also continue.
As I've written in the past, Generational Dynamics predicts that we're headed for full-scale war with China with 100% certainty, and Donald Trump is well aware of this. Many of his policies, which are totally inscrutable and incomprehensible to the media, make perfect sense when you realize that they're intended to try to prevent a world war. Preventing a world war is impossible, but I'm not going to criticize Trump for trying. Chinese Embassy in UK and Xinhua and NY Times and South China Morning Post
As we all know, in 2016 the Philippines won a historic case in the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague thoroughly humiliating China by ruling that all of China's activities in the South China Sea are illegal and in violation of international law.
The Chinese ambassador's statement quoted above says that "the British warship violated Chinese law and relevant international law and infringed upon China's sovereignty." China has no sovereignty in the South China Sea. China's use of the phrase "relevant international law" is laughable, since China believes itself superiod to international law.
In recent weeks, I've been doing my own research on China's claims to the South China Sea.
First, let's address the name, "South China Sea." This does not mean that China owns it, any more than India owns the Indian Ocean. The name South China Sea was invented by Westerners, around 1900. Prior to that, different countries used various names, including Cham sea, Luzon sea, Clove sea, South sea, East sea, and West Philippine sea. According to historian Philip Bowring:
"Do not imagine that the term “South China Sea” ever implied Chinese ownership. It is a Western construction that dates to about 1900. Previously, European maps referred to it as the China Sea, and before that as part of the Indian Sea. When the Portuguese arrived there in the early sixteenth century they called it the Cham Sea, after the maritime kingdom of coastal Vietnam. Other names at various times include Luzon Sea and (by early Arab traders) the Clove Sea. To China it has long been the South Sea and to Vietnamese the East Sea. The Philippines now refers to it as the West Philippine Sea.“Malay seas” is another term that has been applied to it and its immediate neighbors, the Java, Sulu, and Banda seas. The South China Sea itself is predominantly a Malay sea, as defined by the culture and language group of the majority of people living along its shores. Until European imperialism from the sixteenth century onward gradually snuffed out these trade-based kingdoms and sultanates, they were the region’s principal traders."
The Chinese claim sovereignty going all the way to the Han Dynasty in the 2nd century BC. Once again, this is laughable.
Starting from the beginning of the first millennium BC, there were Malay-Polynesian people settling in all the Pacific islands from Madagascar to Taiwan, conducting trade. This continued through most of the 1st and 2nd millennium AD.
Ironically, China had no interest in these islands throughout this period, and in fact discouraged its own traders from venturing out, preferring to wait for foreign traders to come to China.
China was busy looking westward, conquering Central Asian lands, including the Tibetans and the Uighur Turks. Today, these ethnic groups the ones that China is treating as violently as possible. It's even now emerging that China has locked up a million Uighurs in reeducation camps, and has separated Uighur children from their parents and locked them up in indoctrination camps.
This is standard Chinese practice. During Mao's Great Leap Forward, 500 million peasants were taken out of their homes and put into communes, with children, wives and husbands all living separately. Husbands and wives were allowed to be alone only at certain times of the month and only for brief periods. All workers took part in ideological training sessions. The purpose was to turn the population into a giant machine, proving that Communism was better than anything else. It was a disaster, resulting in tens of millions of deaths. Now the Chinese are using the same techniques on the Uighurs, though with different objectives, but just as likely to end in disaster.
Significantly, China's historical conquests were all to the west, but never to the east. China tried to conquer Korea, but failed. China apparently made no attempt to conquer the Philippines the way they conquered the Uighurs. If they had, then the Chinese claim to the South China Sea might actually have some validity.
So the historical evidence indicates that China wanted absolutely nothing to do with the South China Sea until recently. It was only after WW II that they decided that they had gotten enough Lebensraum to the west, and now wanted Lebensraum to the east. They backed up their claims by dredging up old maps and documents that were supposedly created centuries ago, but those are meaningless. If having a map of something means you own it, then the British Geological Survey owns the whole world. National Geographic (18-Jun-2014) and New York Review of Books (13-Sep-2017) and Ancient History Encyclopedia
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Sep-18 World View -- China threatens multiple Western nations militarily over South China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Sep-2018)
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Myanmar (Burma) and China agree to build China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC)
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Earlier this month, Myanmar (Burma) signed a series of memos of understanding (MOUs) for joint construction with China to build the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which is part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The CMEC will focus on 12 areas including basic infrastructure, construction, manufacturing, agriculture, transport, finance, human resource development and telecommunications.
According to the CMEC proposal, construction will begin with 24 projects costing $2 billion at the beginning, increasing later. The corridor will start from Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan Province. It will continue for 1,700-kilometers, through Myanmar’s major economic hubs, ending at Myanmar's deep sea port in Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State on the Bay of Bengal, leading to the Indian Ocean.
The project will create thousands of jobs for Burmese workers, but it will provide far larger benefits for Chinese companies and workers. The proposal claims that the CMEC would allow a direct flow of Chinese goods into the southern and western regions of Myanmar and that Chinese industries could transfer into Myanmar in order to abate the rising labor cost and overcapacity of China’s industries. It said that Myanmar would become a major trade hub for Chinese goods, between China, Southeast Asia and South Asia.
Thus, the proposal indicates that this will be a huge boon for China's industries. China is already developing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), connecting Xinjiang province in northwest China through Pakistan to the Gwadar port and the Indian ocean. CMEC would provide a second corridor for transporting Chinese goods to the Indian Ocean, this time from Yunnan province in southwest China.
CPEC and CMEC provide two routes to the Indian Ocean, thus reducing China's reliance on the Malacca straits — the narrow passage that links the Indian Ocean with the Pacific, and which is dominated by the United States. Global Times (China) and The Diplomat and The Irrawaddy (6-Jul)
Since November 2017, when China announced the proposal to build CMEC, Myanmar's public and media have raised a number of concerns.
First, the CMEC project runs ethnic conflict zones in Shan and Kachin states near the border with China, and and in Rakhine State, near the border with Bangladesh, where ethnic Rohingyas have been subjected to genocide and ethnic cleansing by the Burmese army. The project could provoke further conflicts in these ethnic areas, and even subject the project and the Chinese workers to terrorist attacks. This is already happening in the Balochistan region of Pakistan, affecting the CPEC project.
Second, the Burmese public is very aware of the "debt trap" issue, where China funds the infrastructure project with billions of dollars that have to be paid back, or else forfeit land and infrastructure that has been put up as collateral for the loans. The Burmese are very well aware Sri Lanka lost its $1 billion Hambantota seaport in exactly that way, and now the seaport and a substantial amount of land around the seaport are occupied by the Chinese and thousands of Chinese workers.
As I've described in the past, China structures the aid agreements without concern for whether the loan can be repaid, since China then has the option of taking control of the country's infrastructure in case of default.
As I explained, it's actually worse than that. China loans the money to the country, and requires that it only be used to pay the salaries of Chinese workers, and to purchase parts and equipment from Chinese factories. So the money is immediately returned to China, but still has to be repaid, so the country is effectively forced to repay the loan twice. After default, and the Chinese take control of the infrastructure project, there is an enclave of Chinese workers and their families who will be there forever.
Myanmar's Kyaukphyu seaport is not the only project facing debt-trap concerns. For the CMEC agreement, there are industrial zones, railways, roads and other infrastructure projects to be built along the corridor for which Myanmar cannot find financing.
In a bit of black humor, Ning Jizhe, head of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) claimed that China's BRI projects are not a debt trap. He said the countries with debt problems have long-standing high debt levels which shouldn’t be blamed on the BRI. But of course it's exactly people with debt problems that loan sharks and payday loan operators prey on by offering extortionary loans and then sending thugs out to collect the loans in whatever way they can.
Myanmar's government in fact dropped a couple of projects related to the Kyaukphyu seaport in July, in order to reduce the amount of debt. However, the initial loan will still be $2 billion.
However, there are several reasons why Myanmar felt forced to go ahead with CMEC proposal, even though it's almost impossible that the debt will be repaid.
First, Myanmar is an economically weak country which, even in the best of times, is unable to borrow money due to lack of transparency in its government expenses and its relationship with China. According ton one analyst, "Raising capital overseas will also likely be challenging given that foreign investors will likely find it difficult to determine Myanmar’s creditworthiness due to the lack of information."
Second, the United States is imposing sanctions on Myanmar, and Australia is considering doing the same, because of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas in the last seven years. Myanmar has been extremely successful in its genocide and ethnic cleansing efforts. Genocide and ethnic cleansing efforts by Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Joseph Kabila in DR Congo have not yet been successful, and are still ongoing. But Myanmar appears to have pretty much completed the job.
The sanctions mean that whatever Myanmar's chances of borrowing money internationally in the past, it will be almost impossible after the sanctions are imposed. The threat of sanctions is isolating Myanmar even further, so that its closest friend in China, where government officials really don't care about such things as genocide and ethnic cleansing.
So if the word "trapped" applies to any country, then it certainly applies to Burma. China will certainly use its leverage to control policies and developments in Burma in whatever way it feels necessary, and will apparently receive full cooperation. The Irrawaddy (Burma) and Myanmar Times (7-Jul) and The Hindu
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Sep-18 World View -- Myanmar signs 'debt trap' agreement with China in response to Rohingya genocide censure thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Sep-2018)
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The international #MeToo movement continues to harm women
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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We're told that the #MeToo movement is becoming an increasingly global phenomenon.
In May, the International Labor Organization held a conference to debate whether or not to legislate for a global convention on sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace. Thousands of women in many countries have signed a letter urging international legislation, and saying that a job should never ever include sexual harassment, exploitation, coercion or abuse.
When I wrote about the #MeToo movement late last year, I described how much it was hurting women, just as women in the workplace were enormously harmed by the 1991 hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, where Anita Hill accused Thomas of asking her out when they were both single and of telling her a couple of dirty jokes. ( "7-Dec-17 World View -- International #MeToo movement generates backlash against women from 'Mike Pence rule'")
Just as the Anita Hill accusations damaged women in the workplace for a decade, because many men didn't want to work with women, the #MeToo movement is having a similar effect today.
According to a recent survey, 63% of women are "How concerned ... about men being falsely accused of sexual assault and harassment." The same survey showed that 60% of women are "concerned ... about the #MeToo movement causing women to be denied professional opportunities because men are reluctant to work with them."
This corresponds to what I found talking to men in the 1990s, and talking to men today. Earlier this year, after several MeToo scandals broke, one man told me that "working with a woman is like working with an unexploded land mine -- you never know when you'll say the wrong thing a trigger an explosion."
Women need experienced men to be mentors, but today you can't turn on the television without hearing some feminist saying that all older men are automatically guilty, and all should be punished. Hatred of older men is rampant today.
And men know this. Researcher Sylvia Ann Hewlett at the Center for Talent Innovation found that men aren’t comfortable taking female protégés under their wings. "Our research shows that some 64% of senior men avoid solo interactions with junior women because they fear rumors about their motives." And as I said, fearing rumors about the men's motives isn't the half of it, as the quote above about the land mine illustrates.
In my lifetime, I've seen feminist politicians do enormous damage to women. It's OK with them that Bill Clinton allegedly violently raped seven women, but Clarence Thomas committed a crime by telling a dirty joke. That's completely screwed up, and it's feminists who are screwed up, and it's women that they're damaging. Guardian (London) and Law.com and Vox and World Economic Forum
If the #MeToo movement in general is a circus, then the circus act going on in Washington today is disgusting and pathetic beyond belief.
There's a woman, Christine Blasey Ford accusing a Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of having attempted a failed sexual assault when they were in high school thirty years ago. This is the kind of pathetic situation that makes so many Americans completely disgusted with politicians and the media, and makes one wonder how the country will ever survive.
There are some statistics about rape that can clarify this situation, but which feminists don't talk about. I'll get to these statistics below.
I spent much of the 1990s decade doing research for a book on gender issues called Fraternizing with the Enemy - A book on gender issues for men and for women who care about men. I researched the whole range of gender issues - divorce, domestic violence, rape, teen motherhood, sexual harassment, child abuse, incest, including detailed discussions of the discussions of Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton, and the "victims," including Anita Hill and Juanita Broaddrick. The book was based on thousands of interviews and online conversations, as well as extensive research into such things as "feminist legal theory" and "feminist social theory."
The book is available as a free PDF, on my download page, http://generationaldynamics.com/download/.
So here are the most important facts about the Kavanaugh situation, as I understand them:
Most people think that either Ford or Kavanaugh must be lying, but that's not true. There's a perfectly reasonable scenario in which both are telling the truth. NBC News
So here are the statistics about rape that feminists don't talk about:
It's this last statistic that may be relevant here. 25% is a very high number, and it's plausible that Ford was assaulted in the way she described, but not by Kavanaugh.
Based on all I've heard about the sincere statements from both Ford and Kavanaugh, a misidentification by Ford seems extremely likely to have happened. This is a perfectly reasonable explanation, and it would mean that both Ford and Kavanaugh are telling the truth, as they know it.
The above statistics about rape were not pulled out of the air. We know these figures because of a remarkable development that occurred in the 1990s -- the use of DNA evidence to identify rapists. In many cases in the 1980s, a man was convicted of rape simply because some woman accused him, and feminists would pipe up and say, "Women are never wrong about rape."
In the 1990s, Barry Scheck's Innocence Project was able to go back and perform DNA tests on the rape kits that had been preserved. Of the first 18,000 DNA tests, 5,000 accused suspects were eliminated -- 27.8%.
Here's a quote from my book, describing a story that was widely publicized in the 1990s:
"One disturbing story was presented on PBS's Frontline. In 1985, Ronald Cotton, a black man with a record, was convicted of raping two women, based on an identification by one of the victims, Jennifer Thomson, who was a very convincing and compelling witness during the trial.In 1995, DNA tests were performed, and Cotton was exonerated and set free. Who was the real rapist? DNA tests showed it was Bobby Poole, someone whom Jennifer had actually watched testify in court, but who was excluded based on her eyewitness testimony.
According to Jennifer, "I remember feeling just an overwhelming sense of just guilt that if, indeed, we had made a mistake and I had contributed to taking away 11 years of this man's life.... I felt so bad. I fell apart."
But amazingly, she still doesn't recognize Poole as the man who actually raped her. She adds, "I have to accept the answer that's been given to me and put faith in our system that the DNA tests, the science, tells me we had the wrong guy. I just wish I had some answers. I still see Ronald Cotton. And I'm not saying that to point a finger. I'm just saying that's who I see. And I would love to erase that face out of my mind. I would do anything to erase that face out of my mind, but I can't. It's just .. it's in my head. Sometimes it's more fuzzy than others because my mind now says, 'Well, it's Bobby Poole.' But it's still the face I see."
When Bill Clinton was credibly charged by seven women as being a violent serial rapist, the feminists threw the women under the bus. Then Hillary Clinton raped them all again (to use the feminist phrase), along with Monica Lewinsky, by trashing all the women.
Now the feminists are throwing Ford under the bus as well. Senator Dianne Feinstein handled this whole situation in such a way as to inflict maximum damage on Ford. I cannot think of any way she could have harmed Ford more.
She received Ford's letter in July, and sat on it. Then she revealed it at the last minute, and is now refusing to release an unredacted version to the Republicans. This is disastrous for Ford because it suggests that when the letter is finally revealed, it will make Ford look bad, and maybe even exonerate Kavanaugh.
There's another comparison that had to be made. Anita Hill was hated by half of America in the 1990s. Bill Clinton's rape accusers, the ones who were publicly known, were hated by half the country and trashed by Democrats. And now, Ford is saying that she's receiving death threats and have to hide out. Once again, I blame the feminists for this. They're using her as a pawn, and they don't care how much she's hurt. Book: Fraternizing with the Enemy (PDF) and University of Florida and PBS Frontline and Fox News and Chicago Tribune
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Sep-18 World View -- Is Christine Blasey Ford accusing the wrong person? thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(20-Sep-2018)
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Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East
by
John J. Xenakis
Announcing a new book on Iran and Islam by John J. Xenakis
Book Announcement: World View: Iran's Struggle for Supremacy
Subtitle: Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East
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$7 -- Buy the paperback on Amazon
I've kept the price low - $5 or $7. If you buy it, please write a 5-star amazon review. Thanks.
Iran wants to be the master of the Mideast. It's threatening war with Saudi Arabia. It's supporting wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. It's supporting the Lebanon terror army Hezbollah to wage war in Syria and to attack and eliminate Israel, and to attack the United States. This book describes how a former United States ally has turned into a radical, corrupt, theological regime threatening the entire region.
This book also addresses the controversies in Islam itself, including the Sunni-Shia split, the authenticity of the Koran and Sharia Law, polygamy and pedophilia in Islam, and whether the Koran commands all Muslims to kill all non-Muslims.
About the author: John J. Xenakis is a historian, journalist and analyst and a developer of generational theory, who has written prolifically on geopolitical events, historical analysis, and technology.
Thousands of people start each day by reading the latest Generational Dynamics World View article, which is provided each day free of cost and ads.
This service has been provided, without income or funding, for 15 years as a public service. But this service will not be able to continue much longer unless it receives a source of funding or income to keep it alive.
This is a great book, and you can help support Generational Dynamics by buying this book from Amazon and then writing a 5-star review so that other people will buy it as well.
Most people in the West have little understanding of Islam and Iran, even though both of these subjects are part of major news stories almost every day.
The author, John J. Xenakis, has written thousands of articles on Iran and Islam over two decades, and has written a book that provides, for the serious reader, a serious, balanced, respectful history of Islam and Iran.
Here are some of the topics covered in this book:
Furthermore, this book was written in a respectful, balanced, non-ideological way that will be accessible to all points of view.
Some people may wonder whether it's possible or "appropriate" for a non-Muslim to write a book on Islam and Iran. The opposite may be true. A Muslim author might be able to write a balanced treatment of Islam, but will suffer from the handicap that people within his own religion or sect may criticize him if he's totally non-ideological, and particularly if he discusses the very real controversies within Islam itself, such as the validity of the Koran and Hadith, polygamy and pedophilia in Islam, and whether the Koran commands all Muslims to kill all non-Muslims.
The author is able to describe Islam and Iran in a respectful, balanced, non-ideological way, but also describing the controversies within Islam that Muslims themselves feel obligated to avoid mentioning.
The author admits that he is biased against the current leadership in Iran. An American cannot be indifferent to a leadership whose security forces massacre, jail, rape and torture peacefully protesting college students. And of course the book is also biased against al-Qaeda, ISIS and other jihadist groups committing terror acts.
The ordering of the sections of this book is like "peeling an onion," starting with the most accessible political news about Iran over the last 20 years, and then proceeding step by step to the core of Iran's Shia Islam theology. A summary is as follows:
By the time we reach the end, we'll have circled back to the beginning, with what is hopefully a complete understanding of Iran today.
This book also draws on the methodologies provided by advanced generational theory as developed for 15 years on the GenerationalDynamics.com web site. These methodologies explain, for example, why there's a big generational split today between Iran's old government leaders versus young people, and they explain such things as the transition from Iran's Constitutional Revolution in 1905-09 to Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Sep-18 World View -- Book Announcement: World View: Iran's Struggle for Supremacy thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Sep-2018)
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The delusional terms of the Turkey-Russian Idlib agreement
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's president Vladimir Putin held a summit meeting on Monday at Russia's Sochi Black Sea resort. After the meeting, the two leaders held a press conference and announced that there would be no attack on Idlib province in Syria, at least for the time being.
This would have to be viewed as a diplomatic victory for Erdogan, after a recent summit meeting in Tehran on September 7 with Russia and Iran where Turkey's attempt to avert the Idlib operation was rejected by the other two parties. ( "8-Sep-18 World View -- Turkey fails to prevent Russia and Iran from mass slaughter in Idlib, Syria")
Turkey has been desperate to stop the Syria-Russia offensive, because it would be a humanitarian disaster in Idlib, and because it would be a humanitarian disaster for Turkey. Turkey already hosts 3.5 million Syrian refugees, and there are potentially 3 million more in Idlib who would try to flee across the the border into Turkey, and possibly further on into Europe.
It's believed that Russia backed down from an immediate assault on Idlib because of international pressure. After the Tehran meeting two weeks ago, Erdogan said:
"If the world turns a blind eye to the killing of tens of thousands of innocent people to further the regime's interests, we will neither watch from the sidelines nor participate in such a game."
Since then, Turkey has been supplying additional weapons to "moderate" rebels in Idlib, to prepare them for the assault. Separately, the US and other Nato countries have repeatedly warned Russia and Syria. President Donald Trump said that the assault would be a "grave humanitarian error," while Nikki Haley said that it would provoke "dire consequences."
And Russia's decision may have been swayed by the prospect of the enormity of the humanitarian disaster, when al-Assad starts perpetrating Putin's own "Grozny Strategy," exterminating women and children in Idlib with attacks on hospitals, markets and schools, with barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals and chlorine gas, and with Sarin gas, causing massive slaughter and massive crowds of fleeing refugees.
There's one more reason why Putin might be reluctant to go ahead with the mass slaughter in Idlib. Putin has said at least 9,000 people from the republics of the former Soviet Union have gone to Syria to fight for al-Qaeda or ISIS or other extremist groups. It's possible that many of them are still in Idlib, and the Syrian-Russian assault would allow them to join refugees pouring into Turkey, and from there continue on to return home to their native countries to continue the jihad there. Russia Today and AP and Daily Sabah (Ankara)
The agreement between Erdogan and Putin is a big relief to a lot of people, especially the people in Idlib, because it buys time. But it buys little more than that, because the terms are delusional.
According to the agreement, Russia and Turkey will set up a 10-15 km wide demilitarized buffer zone in Idlib province, to be policed by Russia and Turkey.
All the anti-Assad "rebels" in this buffer zone are required to lay down their arms, leave behind heavy artillery, and depart for other enclaves. These include both "moderate" rebels, and also those in al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly the al-Nusra Front.
It will be Turkey's responsibility to separate the 60,000 or so rebels from the other three million civilians in Idlib. It would be nearly impossible anyway, but these are people who will not want to be found, and are willing to die rather than surrender.
But main objection to this temporary peace agreement is the same as all the others in Putin's "Astana process." You have a ceasefire agreement between Turkey, Russia and Iran. These are supposed to be Syrian peace agreements, but there are never Syrians involved in the agreement -- either al-Assad or the opposition.
The whole Astana process has been nothing more than a farcical cover for al-Assad's genocidal actions. The Astana process identified four "de-escalation zones," or "ceasefire zones," but Russia never had any intention of meeting his own commitments. The ceasefire zones were set up so that there would be a ceasefire until al-Assad was ready for his extermination assaults, as we've seen in Aleppo, Ghouta and Daraa.
The last de-escalation zone is Idlib, and it's different from the others in that Turkey has been responsible for enforcing the ceasefire. Al-Assad and Russia could attack at will in the other de-escalation zones, because there was nobody opposed. But in Idlib Turkey is opposed, and wants to enforce the ceasefire.
Russia and al-Assad never had any intention that Idlib would remain a ceasefire zone, but now they've been forced by international pressure to wait a while before going in for the kill. And when they do, whether they will have to face Turkey's military is an unknown.
Perhaps the biggest delusion of all, shared by many politicians and journalists, is that the Syrian war is almost over. Al-Assad said that the war would end after Aleppo was assaulted. Then he said that the war was over after Daraa was assaulted.
As I've written many times, al-Assad is a psychopathic monster, the worst genocidal war criminal so far this century, comparable to Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot from the last century. For al-Assad, the extermination of the women and children in Idlib would be the climax of his life, proving that he was better than his father Hafez al-Assad was at committing mass slaughter and atrocities. Thanks to Monday's agreement between Russia and Turkey, al-Assad is going to have to wait a little longer to prove how much more of a man he is than his father. BBC and Al Jazeera and Asia Times and Hurriyet (Ankara)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Sep-18 World View -- Turkey scores diplomatic victory, as Russia backs down from Idlib assault in Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(18-Sep-2018)
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Kurds' anti-Iran Komala party denies involvement with Paris attack
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Pro-Kurdish protesters attacked Iran's embassy in Paris on Friday. Iran says that 15 Kurdish activists burned the Iranian flag in front of the embassy. They threw stones, fire extinguishers and computers at the embassy gate in an attempt to enter the premises, but were unable to do so.
It's thought that the protests were triggered by last week's major escalation by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) when it launched a missile attack on anti-Iran opposition groups in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. The IRGC used seven missiles in the attack, killing 11 people and wounding dozens more.
The IRGC attack occurred at the same time there had been several days of violent anti-Iran protests in Basra in southern Iraq. However, the IRGC attack apparently took several weeks to prepare, and so the two events are not directly connected.
Iran confirmed that its embassy had been attacked, but Iran's foreign ministry blamed the France's police for not acting quickly enough to stop the attack:
"It is necessary for France to take serious and necessary measures and preparations to protect all Iranian diplomatic missions in that country."
Iran is complaining that some French police refused to protect the embassy and were not present at the time of the attack despite the fact that it was aware of the assault.
Iran has to walk a fine line in not going too far to criticize France. Iran has been demanding help from France and other European countries in mitigating the damage to Iran's economy of President Trump's action in pulling out of the nuclear deal and re-imposing sanctions. Press TV (Iran) and AP and Reuters
Iran accused the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan of being behind the attack on Iran's embassy in Paris. The statement issued by the Komala party alluded to Iran's missile attack on Kurdistan last weekend:
"Komala rejects the accusations of being behind the attack on Iran’s embassy in Paris.[Our members in France took part] in a peaceful gathering outside the Iranian embassy to protest Iran’s despicable actions against the Kurdish nation [on September 8].
Unfortunately, some individuals from the gathering started to violate the embassy, and even if we understand people’s anger, we completely condemn this type of uncivilized acts."
The Komala party has an armed wing known as the Peshmerga. The Peshmerga became internationally cheered in 2014-16 because it provided many of the militias fighting ISIS after the latter overran Mosul.
Once ISIS was defeated, last year the Peshmerga resumed, for the first time in 25 years, being stationed just a few miles from Iran's border, to threaten terror attacks on Iranian soil.
Komala is a Marxist-Leninist pro-Communist party that was originally formed to oppose the government of the Shah of Iran, and in 1983 joined other Communist groups to form the Communist Party of Iran.
Over the years, there have been frequent clashes between the Komala and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), which was one of the targets of last week's missile attack by Iran. Trend News (Azerbaijan) and Kurdistan 24 and Rudaw (Kurdistan, 30-Apr-2017) and Middle East Research and Information Project
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Sep-18 World View -- Kurdish protesters attack Iran's embassy in Paris thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Sep-2018)
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Consequences of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has taken the first steps in what is being described as a "historic schism" in the Orthodox Christian Church.
The ROC announced on Friday:
"We have decided to suspend joint performance of church services with the hierarchs of the Constantinople Patriarchate, to suspend our membership in all structures, which are headed or co-chaired by the representatives of Constantinople."
An ROC spokesman said that this was only a "warning," and that the ROC would break all relations with Constantinople if it grants independence to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is currently subordinate to the Russian Church.
The Constantinople Patriarchate and the Moscow Patriarchate are two of several dozen Orthodox Patriarchates in the world, but they're the two most influential.
The city of Constantinople was renamed Istanbul when it was conquered by the Ottoman Muslims in 1453, bringing an end to the Byzantine Empire. However, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians is still considered to be the Constantinople Patriarchate. All Patriarchates are considered to be equal, but Constantinople is "first among equals."
Orthodox Christians in Ukraine are officially part of the Russian Orthodox Church. There is a Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kiev that was formed in the 1990s, but it's not recognized by other Orthodox churches.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, and then invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, there was a movement in Ukraine to make the Ukrainian Orthodox Church an "autocephalous church" or independent church. Instead of being subordinate to the Russian Church, the Ukrainian church would then be a peer to the Russian and Constantinople churches.
Right now, Patriarch Bartholomew I in Constantinople is leading a debate about whether he should issue what is called a "Tomos of autocephaly" (charter of independence), which would give the Ukraine church the independence that it wants. It's believed that Bartholomew favors doing so, and that a decision will be reached by the end of the year. At that time, Patriarch Kirill in Moscow is expected to completely sever all relations with Constantinople. Russia Today and Moscow Times and BBC Russian (Trans) and Telegraph (London)
Although the current split was triggered by the Ukrainian church's request for independence, following Russia's invasion, occupation and annexation of Crimea, the chances of a split between Russia and Constantinople have been growing for years, particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union was officially atheist. Nonetheless, during the time of the Soviet Union, there was one Russian Orthodox Church, and all Orthodox Christians in the Soviet Empire belonged to it. After the Soviet collapse in 1991, independent Orthodox churches were formed in Estonia and other former Soviet republics. Constantinople recognized the Estonian church as independent, resulting in enormous friction between Moscow and Constantinople.
Those disputes became even more prominent when Russia's president Vladimir Putin came to power. Putin's dream is that the Russian Patriarchate should replace the Constantinople Patriarchate as the "first among equals." Furthermore, Putin dreamed of creating an "Orthodox Vatican" in the ancient city of Sergiev Posad, northeast of Moscow.
In line with this dream, Putin has been enticing, bribing and threatening various Orthodox churches to pledge loyalty to the Russian church, rather than the Constantinople church.
Putin's dream sounds reasonable when you consider that the Russian church is the largest Orthodox Church in the world, in terms of numbers of members and parishes. However, if Ukraine becomes an independent church, then the Russian church will lose almost half its parishes, and that will be the end of Putin's dream. It will also cost the Russian Patriarchate a great deal of money. It will also encourage other former Soviet republics, like Belarus and Georgia, to follow the same path.
So this pending decision by Bartholomew is far more than symbolic. It has major religious and geopolitical implications. Putin would certainly retaliate. He might retaliate in Ukraine with a renewed invasion. He might retaliate by trying to convince his new pal, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to take some action in the Phanar, the portion of Istanbul still occupied by the Constantinople Patriarchate. So Bartholomew's decision, expected by the end of the year, should have major consequences. Jamestown and Moscow Times and BBC Russian (Trans) and Window on Eurasia
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Sep-18 World View -- Russian Orthodox Church in historic split with Constantinople over Ukraine issue thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(16-Sep-2018)
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Zambia faces long term corruption concerns
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Several days ago, reported that Zambia is negotiating with China over a possible takeover of the country's electricity company, ZEWASCO, after defaulting on loan repayment from a previous loan. That report was based on a news story from Kenya.
There have actually been numerous news stories in the last couple of weeks claiming that Zambia has fallen victim a China "debt trap," and is being required to give not only ZEWASCO, but also Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda International Airport [KKIA].
In addition, a subscriber-only newsletter called Africa Confidential has published reports detailing embezzlement by Zambian officials, led by President Edgar Chagwa Lungu.
Zambia officials are claiming that the news stories, including those in Africa Confidential, are "fake news," that there is no debt trap, and Zambia will have no problem making payments to China.
Zambia's finance minister, Margaret Mwanakatwe, issued a statement on Friday:
The problem with Mwanakatwe's protestations is that she's unable to provide any evidence to support them, because the entire relationship between Zambia and China, including all contracts, is completely secret. So if there's corruption and embezzlement going on, as Africa Confidential claims, then Mwanakatwe is unable to deny those claims.
In situations like this, there's a test that I always like to apply, namely to ask what the politician would say if all the accusations are true. For example, if a politician is charged with murder, and he says, "I didn't do it," then you could ask what he would say if he did, and would say "I didn't do it." In other words, the politician would say the same thing whether he committed murder or not. That doesn't mean he did it, but it does show that everything that comes out of the politician's mouth is 100% worthless, because he'd say exactly the same thing under all circumstands.
So let's apply this test to Margaret Mwanakatwe. Suppose all the charges of debt trap and embezzlement are true. What would Mwanakatwe say? The answer is that she would issue a statement exactly like the one that she did issue. In fact, the statement is filled with statements that are empty claims because the details are secret, giving me the (unprovable) feeling that the statement is an act of desperation.
This has now become a major international scandal -- not in the West, but in Africa. Many African governments are now facing embarrassing questions about revealing the terms of their contracts with China, and about why interest rates are so high, and why default terms are so harsh. Officials will also be asked a lot more questions about whether they're skimming China's loan money off the top -- something they could easily do since all the terms of the contracts are kept secret. Lusaka Times (Zambia) and Zambia Reports and Lusaka Times and VOA
In June, the Geneva-based NGO, Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, suspended $300 million in health funding to Zambia because of alleged corruption in Zambia's health ministry. Previously, Sweden and the Netherlands stopped health aid and the EU halted road-building funds.
Zambia's story is a familiar one. Zambia made huge amounts of money from copper mining in the 2000s decade, due to high prices for copper, which makes up 80% of exports. When copper prices fell in 2011, instead of decreasing government spending to match reduced income, the new government, led by the Patriotic Front (PF) went on a spending binge. According to the Economist, the PF funded new roads, hospitals and airports, doubled civil-service wage expenses in the process, and also expanded the number of districts from 72 to 115 so as to dole out more patronage.
Furthermore, the borrowed money was not well spent. In building roads, for example, the World Bank in 2017 found that Zambia paid $360,000 per kilometre, which is more than twice the African average. And since upkeep has been neglected, many new roads are already potholed.
Today, nearly a quarter of government spending goes to make debt payments. The government is broke. The government is delaying salary payments to civil servants, as well as to contractors. Apparently the government is forced to make debt payments to China, even if it means not paying its own civil servants.
Furthermore, president Edgar Chagwa Lungu is following the same corrupt path that occurs in country after country in Africa -- jailing opposition leaders, shutting down newspapers that criticize him, packing the courts with his supporters, and demanding that he stay in power indefinitely, in violation of the constitution.
So even though the country is broke and the government is corrupt, officials say that reports of debt default are "fake news." Unfortunately, government officials have little credibility and, as in the case of the statement by Margaret Mwanakatwe, there is absolutely no reason to believe anything they say. Economist and BBC and Economist
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Sep-18 World View -- Zambia denies defaulting on infrastructure loans from China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(15-Sep-2018)
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Turkey, desperate to stop Syrian Idlib offensive, is supplying weapons to rebels
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The Saudi Arabia-led military coalition fighting the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are claiming that they've cut off the main supply routes connecting al-Hodeidah seaport and city to to Sanaa, Yemen's capital city under control of the Houthis.
The Saudis and their coalition partner United Arab Emirates (UAE) were the targets of intense international criticism after their warplanes killed at least 26 children and four women in al-Hodeidah seaport, and after another airstrike two weeks earlier killed dozens of children traveling in a school bus.
The international criticism led the Saudis to enter peace talks with the Houthis and reduce the airstrikes. However, the peace talks failed, and Saudi Arabia resumed the airstrikes on Wednesday.
Al-Hodeidah is home to Yemen’s largest seaport and the main gateway for food, fuel and humanitarian aid to the rest of the country. An estimated 80 percent of Yemen’s commercial supplies go through al-Hodeidah. The Saudi-led coalition have been trying to retake the al-Hodeidah city from the Houthis for the past few months, displacing 470,000 people since June. But it is still home to hundreds of thousands of civilians, half of them children.
Taking control of roads linking al-Hodeidah to Sanaa will mean that supplied needed by the Houthi fighters will be less available, but it will also cut off food, fuel, medicines and humanitarian supplies to much of Yemen.
Ms. Lise Grande, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, said in a statement:
"Hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance in Hodeidah. The situation has deteriorated dramatically in the past few days. Families are absolutely terrified by the bombardment, shelling and airstrikes.People are struggling to survive, More than 25 percent of children are malnourished; 900,000 people in the governorate are desperate for food and 90,000 pregnant women are at enormous risk. Families need everything--food, cash, health care, water, sanitation, emergency supplies, specialized support and many need shelter. It’s heart-breaking to see so many people who need so much."
The Saudis have said that taking control of al-Hodeidah and the main supply routes would force the Houthis to the negotiating table. Reuters and Save the Children and Relief Web and Al Jazeera
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There are reports that Turkey is sending more military aid to anti-Assad rebels in Idlib, after a summit meeting last week with Russia and Iran failed to agree to a deal to avert a Syria-Russia assault into Idlib. ( "8-Sep-18 World View -- Turkey fails to prevent Russia and Iran from mass slaughter in Idlib, Syria")
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has vowed to take control of every inch of Syria, with no compromise. In previous battles, in Aleppo, Ghouta and Daraa, his regime joined with Russia to use missiles, barrel bombs, chlorine gas and Sarin gas to kill the "terrorists" in each territory, following Vladimir Putin's "Grozny Model." Entire neighborhoods are flattened, and schools, markets and hospitals are particularly targeted in order to kill as many women and children as possible, as part of Bashar al-Assad's genocidal campaign.
However, Idlib is different. It has over 3 million people, many of whom fled there from the violence in other locations. They will have nowhere to flee from Idlib, except across the border into Turkey, which Turkey has closed. Turkey is already host to 3.5 million Syrian refugees.
Turkey is desperate to stop the Syria-Russia offensive, because it would be a humanitarian disaster in Idlib, and because it would be a humanitarian disaster for Turkey. Turkey would be faced with the choice of keeping the border closed and allow al-Assad to slaughter the civilians like trapped animals, or to open the border and permit a million more refugees enter Turkey, and possibly go on from there to Europe, posing a security risk in both places.
This is Turkey's justification for providing more weapons to anti-Assad rebels in the Free Syrian Army (FSA). According to FSA commanders who have been in talks with senior Turkish officials, said:
"“They pledged complete Turkish military support for a long, protracted battle. These arms supplies and munitions will allow the battle to extend and ensure our supplies are not drained in a war of attrition."
The weapons, already spotted in convoys crossing the border from Turkey into Idlib, include large quantities of ammunition and GRAD rockets. Hurriyet/AFP and Reuters and AP
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Sep-18 World View -- Saudis in Yemen cut the supply routes from Hodeidah seaport to Sanaa thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Sep-2018)
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EU proposes a new free trade agreement with Africa
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In what some analysts are considering a historic action in the development of the European Union, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to pursue disciplinary action against Hungary over alleged breaches of the EU's core values. The phrase "core values" refers to values on which the EU was founded.
More than two-thirds of MEPs voted for the censure motion, the first in EU's history. A similar motion to censure Poland has not yet reached the European Parliament.
There were numerous charges leveled against Hungary's president Viktor Orbán, including the following:
However, the most divisive charge was Orbán's extremely hardline attitude toward migrants. Germany MEP Manfred Weber, who has announced his bid to become the next president of the European Commission, accused Orbán of running a hate campaign against Muslim migrants:
"One thing must be clear - if we say generally that you have to be afraid about Muslims, and attack a religion, then we do the job of jihadis, who want to create a clash in our societies. We have invented human rights and not Christian rights on this continent."
On Tuesday, Orbán spoke to the Parliament, and condemned the expected vote:
"I know that you have already made up your minds. I know that a majority will approve the report and I know that my speech here today will not manage to change your opinion.But still I have come here today because you are not going to condemn a government but a country as well as a nation. You are going to denounce Hungary that has been a member of the family of Christian nations for a thousand years."
After the vote, Hungary's foreign minister called the vote fraudulent and vowed to challenge it.
As I've been writing for over ten years, almost every nation in the world is becoming increasingly nationalistic and xenophobic as the world goes deeper into a generational Crisis era. This is happening because the survivors of the horrors of World War II vowed never to allow anything so horrible to happen again, and they've spent their lives doing everything they could to prevent it. But those survivors continue to disappear, and people in younger generations, with no personal knowledge of the horrors of World War II, adopt increasingly xenophobic and nationalistic behaviors that will lead to a new world war.
Orbán's remark saying that Hungary "has been a member of the family of Christian nations for a thousand years" is interesting. Xenophobia, which is derived from a Greek word meaning "fear of strangers," really has nothing to do with religion, although for Orbán the issue is Christians versus Muslims.
But a big part of Britain's campaign has been xenophobia directed at Christians from countries like Poland and Hungary in Eastern Europe, and xenophobia in America has been directed at Christians from Mexico. The xenophobic "fear of strangers" can apply anyone, such as the mutual xenophobia between China and each of Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the way the world works is that population grows exponentially, growing faster than the resources such as food and water, resulting in mass migrations. Today we're seeing huge human migrations around the world, in the Mideast, Africa, South America, and Asia. These huge human migrants cause problems that can be resolved in only one way -- a new world war. A new world war will reduce the population 30%, 40%, 50% -- through nuclear war, ground war, starvation and disease. That will reduce the need for mass migrations, will solve the problem of insufficient food for everyone, and will even reduce the amount of "human activity," making climate change activists happy. European Commission and EU Observer and BBC and EU Observer and Daily Mail (London)
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Jean-Claude Jüncker, the outgoing president of the European Commission, announced in his State of the Union speech on Wednesday a proposal for a new "Africa – Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs."
The intent is to create "a comprehensive continent-to-continent free trade agreement between the EU and Africa." During the period 2021-27, overall funding will increase by €123 billion, creating 10 million new jobs in Africa.
The major motivation for this proposal is to try to slow the flow of migrants from Africa to Europe, by providing jobs in Africa that will reduce the motivation to migrate. According to press release:
"The joint efforts on jobs and growth under the Alliance, by African and European partners, will also contribute to address challenges and opportunities linked to mobility and migration. The efforts will address the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement, building resilience, providing jobs and enabling the integration and reintegration of some of the most vulnerable parts of the population. The proposal therefore supports and contributes to the implementation of the EU Agenda for Migration."
This proposal appears to be highly delusional. EU member states would object to the proposal, particularly in the area of opening agricultural markets, where Africa would have a price advantage.
Furthermore, Africa does not appear ready to negotiate as a 54 member bloc. There are existing negotiations for an African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) where the countries are unable to agree on ending tariffs among African nations. Reuters and European Commission and RFI
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Sep-18 World View -- EU Parliament censures Hungary for breaching 'core EU values' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Sep-2018)
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Russia's Vostok-2018 war games send a message to China
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Russia on Tuesday launched Vostok-2018 ("East-2018"), its biggest military exercise in decades, involving 300,000 personnel, 36,000 armored vehicles, 1,000 aircraft, and 80 naval vessels from two Russian fleets. Three brigades of Russian paratroops will play a key role. The war games will last until September 17.
An important symbolic change this year is that 3,200 Chinese troops will participate alongside the Russian troops. Mongolia is also sending an undisclosed number of units.
One message being sent to the West is that Russia will be prepared to respond to US military action in Asia, if such every occurs. A key aim of the exercise is to practice the rapid deployment of thousands of troops, as well as aircraft and vehicles, from western Russia to eastern regions, across thousands of miles, including in-flight refuelling of fighter jets.
A second message being sent to the West is that Russia and China are "forming deep bonds," to counter America's international influence. Jamestown and Tass and Reuters and South China Morning Post
There massive Vostok-2018 war games, the largest since the collapse of the Soviet Empire, are also sending a message to China that Russia is prepared to defend its Far East region from a Chinese military incursion. This in fact was the original purpose of the Vostok war games during the days of the Soviet Union.
This is the first time that any nation outside of the former Soviet Union has been included in the Vostok exercises. Many analysts believe that Russia decided that including a small number of Chinese and Mongolian troops in the war games is the best way to send the message that Russia is STILL prepared to defend the Far East, as well as to reassure both countries that the war games are not the precursor to an imminent invasion of either country.
Russia has been openly concerned about Russia's at least since 2012, when Russia's prime minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that a huge influx of immigrants from China threatened Russia's control of Siberia and Far East. ( "31-Mar-18 World View -- Russia's Far East, Siberia and Vladivostok under threat from China")
In particular, Russia's Lake Baikal in Siberia, the deepest lake in the world, is being buried in huge mountains of garbage from Chinese tourists. Chinese guides tell Chinese tourists that Baikal is China’s northern sea, that their ancestors used to live there, and that the territory only belongs to Russia for the time being. These guides also reportedly encourage Chinese visitors to buy property and businesses in order to make money over the next decade. Many are doing so.
Also, many Chinese on social media are suggesting that China should reclaim Vladivostok, the home of Russia's Pacific Fleet, from Russia, just as China reclaimed Hong Kong from Britain. That's not going to happen without a war, and that's why Russia is sending China a message.
When Russia holds war games in the west, they are obviously aimed at Nato. But the Vostok games are held in the east, and there's no clear enemy in sight, so naturally the media assume that they're aimed at the United States. But in fact, Russia has a far more immediate enemy in the region, and that's China. So even though China is participating in the war games, it's most likely that the war games are aimed at China. Moscow Times and Asia Times
Much of what President Trump does is extremely perplexing because of his stated intention to not reveal what he plans to do. So many questions are left unanswered.
Why does Trump keep complimenting Kim Jong-un, when he must know that North Korea will never denuclearize? Does Trump really want to fire Jeff Sessions, or does he keep threatening to fire Sessions to protect Sessions, and allow him to implement Trump's programs without criticism from the Left? When Trump met with Putin privately in July, did they discuss China's plans for war with both the US and Russia?
The reality of today's international politics is that a lot of people are playing "The Art of the Deal," and one can't be sure that anyone says what he means.
The Russians have hated the Chinese ever since the Mongols defeated the Chinese in 1206, and then went on to attack and conquer almost all the Russian principalities, and made them bitter vassals of the Mongol Empire, in a relationship called the "Mongol Yoke." This hated period, two centuries long, has defined the relationship between the Russian and Chinese people forever. There is no possibility that China and Russia will remain "strategic partners" for long. In fact, Soviet Russia and China almost went to full-scale war as recently as the 1960s.
If Trump and Putin really did discuss plans for mutual defense after China's military attack, then Putin must also be aware that China is planning war with Russia, and so this mutual "strategic alliance" between Russia and China is all a charade.
Probably the biggest diplomatic blunder in Russia's history was Josef Stalin believing that Adolf Hitler would honor the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which the two had signed on August 23, 1939.
That pact was a mutual non-aggression treaty that obligated the two countries "to desist from any act of violence, any aggressive action, and any attack on each other, either individually or jointly with other Powers." Stalin was completely shocked and totally unprepared when Hitler violated the pact and invaded Russia to get some Lebensraum ("living space").
We know that China has also been pursuing the same Lebensraum objective, at least since the time of Chiang Ki-shek after World War II. The Chinese Communist Party view of Han Racial Superiority is no different than the Nazi view of the Aryan Master Race. So it's absolutely certain that Xi Jinping will double-cross Vladimir Putin, just as Adolf Hitler double-crossed Josef Stalin.
So has Putin learned the lessons of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact? If so, then Putin and Trump certainly did discuss China's plans for war in their private meeting, and Vostok-2018 is much less a message to the US than it is a message to China that Putin won't be a sucker like Stalin was. Jewish Virtual Library and Breitbart National Security
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Sep-18 World View -- Russia's 'strategic alliance' with China evokes memories of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Sep-2018)
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Zambia becomes the next nation to fall victim to China's 'debt trap'
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Philippines president Rodrigo R. Duterte was taking office in 2016 at just about the time that the Philippines won a historic case in the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague thoroughly humiliating China by ruling that all of China's activities in the South China Sea are illegal and in violation of international law.
Duterte's first acts in office were to cutoff relations with the United States, and to take a trip to Beijing, where he was given the red carpet treatment by China's president Xi Jinping. Duterte indicated that he would not enforce the Tribunal ruling, and in fact appeared to be giving Scarborough Shoal away to the Chinese.
The international headlines at the time were things like "Duterte's flip-flop into bed with China is a disaster for the United States." ( "23-Oct-16 World View -- Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte in comic dance with China")
As I wrote at the time, the "flip-flop" couldn't possibly last, for several reasons: Among the Philippine people, 54% have a favorable view of China, while 92% have a favorable view of the United States. Also, the Philippine people historically hate the Chinese, while the Chinese people historically hate the Philippine people. In 2012, a Chinese television anchor 'accidentally' claimed that the Philippines "is China's inherent territory and the Philippines belongs to Chinese sovereignty, this is an indisputable fact."
So the leaders of China and the Philippines can make deals if they like, but we know from generational theory that major decisions like that are made by the people, entire generations, not by the politicians. So there was never any chance that the "flip-flop" would last.
Duterte's decision on China was never really popular, and generated immediate backlash at home, but it was reluctantly accepted by the Philippine people because the alternative appeared to be war with China if the Philippines tried to enforce the Tribunal's ruling in the South China Sea.
In fact, in May of last year, Duterte explained his decision by recounting a conversation he had with Xi Jinping a year earlier, in which Xi threatened war:
"Duterte: Mr. Xi Jinping, I will insist that it is ours and we will drill oil. [T]hat is ours and we intend to drill oil there. My view is I can drill the oil.Xi: Well we are friends. We don’t want to quarrel with you. We want to maintain warm relationship, but if you force the issue we will go to war.
Duterte: I’ll drill the oil.
Xi: Please do not do that because that is ours.
Duterte: That is according to you. But I have the arbitral [referring to the Hague tribunal ruling].
Xi: Yes, but ours is historical and yours is legal of recent memory.
Duterte: But that’s too far away. It’s almost alien to us to hear those words because we were never under Chinese jurisdiction.
Xi: Well, if you force the issue, we’ll be forced to tell you the truth.
Duterte: So what is the truth?
Xi: We will go to war. We will fight you."
After recounting the conversation, Duterte added:
"Are they willing to fight? Because if they are willing to fight, we are. But why would I do that? It will result in a massacre and it will just destroy everything."
So Duterte decided that he had to accede to China's threats.
As part of Duterte's agreement with China, China promised to deliver $24 billion investments in 27 different projects. Duterte repeatedly touted China’s financial help as a key reason for pivoting away from the U.S. and Europe, which he said haven’t produced material gains for the Philippines.
But by 2018, it turns out that the $24 billion investment promise was an empty promise. A $1 billion, 300-megawatt hydropower plant was never begun. A $700 million stainless steel plant was put on hold. A project to raise three islands from a waterlogged area was canceled. ABS-CBN (19-May-2017) and Bloomberg (25-Jul-2018)
Since 2016, Duterte has tried with some success to use bilateral negotiations to resolve the South China Sea disputes. However, a series of belligerent Chinese actions in 2018 had caused Duterte to be increasingly critical of China in public statements:
Duterte's honeymoon with China, if it ever existed, appears to be over. Duterte now says that he plans to talk to US President Donald Trump about the possible purchase of military equipment for the military and the police. Philippine Star
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Zambia is one of 50 African nations whose leaders visited Beijing last week to hear Xi Jinping promise $60 billion in aid to Africa for infrastructure projects. This aid is in the form of loans that must be repaid.
Now Zambia is in talks with China over a possible takeover of the country's electricity company, ZEWASCO, after defaulting on loan repayment from a previous loan.
As I described in my article last week, China structures the aid agreements without concern for whether the loan can be repaid, since China then has the option of taking control of the country's infrastructure in case of default.
As I explained, it's actually worse than that. China loans the money to the country, and requires that it only be used to pay the salaries of Chinese workers, and to purchase parts and equipment from Chinese factories. So the money is immediately returned to China, but still has to be repaid, so the country is effectively forced to repay the loan twice. After default, and the Chinese take control of the infrastructure project, there is an enclave of Chinese workers and their families who will be there forever. Pulse Live (Kenya)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Sep-18 World View -- Tensions grow in Philippines as Duterte turns against China in South China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-Sep-2018)
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Iran's missile attack displays the rising power of the IRGC in Iran
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) took credit on Sunday for Saturday's sophisticated missile attack on the bases of two military anti-Iran opposition groups in Koya near Erbil in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. The two groups are fighting for greater autonomy for Iran’s Kurdish community.
The two groups are the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDP-I). Referring to the dissidents as "criminal groups," the IRGC statement said:
"In a successful operation, the Guards’ aerospace unit, along with the army’s drone unit ... targeted a criminal group’s meeting and a terrorist training centre with seven short-range surface-to-surface missiles.[The group's leaders decided] to ignore serious warnings by officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government about Iran’s determination to dismantle their bases ... and the need for an end to terrorist and aggressive actions against Iran."
The missile attacks were apparently very well planned for several weeks in advance. The attack on the meeting room was very precise, and occurred when the meeting was in progress. Seven missiles were used in the attacks, killing 11 people and wounding dozens more.
As we reported yesterday, anti-Iran rioters in the southern Iraqi city Basra stormed and burned down Iran's consulate in Basra. This act infuriated the Iranian officials in Tehran, who summoned the Iraqi ambassador to Tehran to protest the attack, and issued this statement:
"The Persian Gulf Director General of Iranian Foreign Ministry [Mohammad Farazmand] voiced surprise over immobility of Basra police and said that despite the promises given by the Iraqi officials through diplomatic channels reassuring about the safety of Iran’s consulate general which was threatened by the provocation of some suspicious elements, the Iraqi government did not deliver on its promises."
Even though Iran's missile attack on Erbil occurred a day after the Basra rioters' attack on the Iranian consulate, it's not believed that the two incidents are directly related, since the missile attack had apparently been in preparation for weeks. Nonetheless, anti-Iran protests have been simmering for a long time in Basra, and Iran may have wanted to send a message that the anti-Iran protests will not be tolerated.
On Sunday, Iraqi officials issued a statement condemning Iran's missile strike -- not because the strike occurred, but but because it occurred without first warning Iraq's government and coordinating with the Iraqi military:
"The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs stresses its rejection of the artillery shelling that targeted Koy Sanjaq district in Erbil on Saturday, leaving scores dead and wounded.The ministry strongly refuses the breaching of Iraqi sovereignty without prior coordination with Iraqi military authorities to avoid the fall of civilian victims."
So, the second message that Iran is sending is that it can strike deep into Iraqi territory any time it wants, without notifying the Iraqi military in advance.
The two countries fought an extremely bloody war, the Iran-Iraq war, killing 1.5 million people, and climaxing in 1988 with Saddam Hussein and Iraq using chemical weapons against both the Kurds and the Iranians. Iran's missile attack on Erbil is a major escalation in the tensions between the two countries, and a further evocation of memories of the Iran-Iraq war.
Iraq's government is in complete disarray, with a parliament that has had only two sessions since the inconclusive elections in May, and is unable even to elect a speaker.
As I described yesterday, even though it's mostly Shia Muslim government, Iraqi Shiism has a different theology than Iran's Shiism, and there are political splits over aligning with the United States or with Iran.
So the second message that Iran sent along with its missiles is that siding with the US against Iran id going to have a cost.
The third message being sent by the missile strike is to Israel. The missiles used on Saturday were extremely precise and coordinated with the drone surveillance. These missiles are considerably more sophisticated than Iran has used in the past, and they may have been distributed to Syria or Hezbollah, to be used against Israel. Iraqi News and Mehr News (Tehran) and Reuters and Jerusalem Post
Saturday's missile attack was launched by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which has become increasingly powerful.
As I described yesterday, at the time of the 1979 revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini reinterpreted Shia theology to make himself equivalent to an infallible Imam, and therefore essentially a dictator. He created the IRGC to prevent any outside coups, and to give himself absolute power.
The death of Khomeini in 1989, and the succession as supreme leader by Ali Khamenei, allowed the IRGC to expand its power. The IRGC led the extremely bloody and violent crackdown against peaceful protesters after the fraudulent 2009 presidential election, and then again in the widespread anti-government demonstrations that erupted in late 2017 and early 2018.
Since January, the IRGC has become even more belligerent, particularly in the face of the Trump administrations plans to re-implement sanctions on Iran that were removed following the 2015 nuclear deal.
Recently General Alireza Tangsiri, the head of the IRGC Navy, said that Iran had full control of the Gulf of Hormuz, and that it could take military action to block other countries' oil exports in retaliation for U.S. sanctions intended to halt its sales of crude. According to Tangsiri:
"We can ensure the security of the Persian Gulf and there is no need for the presence of aliens like the U.S. and the countries whose home is not in here.All the carriers and military and non-military ships will be controlled and there is full supervision over the Persian Gulf. Our presence in the region is physical and constant and night and day."
The IRGC was originally created to protect the regime from a coup. Although there have been no overt signs of it, there are some fears that the IRGC will itself launch a coup and create a military dictatorship. Asharq Al-Awsat (Saudi Arabia) and Reuters
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Sep-18 World View -- In major escalation, Iran's missiles strike Kurdish targets in northern Iraq thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Sep-2018)
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Dozens killed in five days of riots in southern Iraq's Basra
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Riots have continued for five days in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, in southern Iraq. Protesters have attacked or set fire to nearly every government building, including the headquarters of the Iran-linked ruling Dawa Party and the offices of the state-run Iraqiya TV station — as well as the Iranian consulate. They also attacked almost every office belonging to the Iran-backed Shia militias known as the "Popular Mobilization Forces" or "Hasheed." At least 15 people have been killed in the riots in the last week. On Saturday, assailants fired Katyusha rockets at Basra airport.
There have been occasional anti-government protests in Basra for years. The latest protests were triggered by brownish water coming out of the water taps, making people sick who try to drink it, and by a crippling electricity shortage at a time when temperatures are reaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.
By Saturday afternoon, Iraqi security forces and troops began deploying in the center of Basra and on street intersections. Dozens of gun-mounted black pick-up trucks belonging to the Interior Ministry and carrying masked security forces in combat fatigues were seen. Iraqi News and AP and Vox and CNN
Basra is home to some of the largest oil fields in Iraq. These oil fields are contributing enormously to Iraq's economy, but none of the money seems to help Basra. Basra used to be called the "Venice of the East" because of its network of waterways and canals, which should be providing it with plenty of fresh water. But the canals were bombed by Iran during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, and have not been repaired since then.
Most Iraqis are Shia Muslims, with Sunni Muslims in the minority. After the war, Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, neglected and marginalized the mostly Shia Basra population, causing considerable dissent. When Saddam was deposed by the 2003 American invasion, an Iran-linked Shia government came to power, and they have also largely neglected and marginalized the Basra population. The Basra Shias have returned the favor by forcing the few Sunnis living in Basra to leave.
Although the split between Sunni and Shia Muslims is a defining feature of the Mideast, there are also ethnic alliances that override the sectarian fault lines. Iraq had two generational crisis wars during the last century, the 1920 Iraqi Revolution and the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. In both of those wars, the Iraqi Sunnis and Shias united behind the war effort against the enemy -- the British colonists in 1920 and the Iranians in the 1980s. So even those the Muslims in Basra are Shia Muslims, they have bitter memories of the atrocities committed by the Iranians in the 1980s. Those bitter memories are revived every time someone is killed by a land mine planted by Iran during the 1980s war.
So the current riots in Basra are about more than drinking water and electricity. There is a great deal of fury directed at Iran's "meddling" in the current government, which is in a state of chaos anyway.
Politicians in Baghdad have not agreed on a government following inconclusive elections in May. The new parliament met for the first time on Monday, but failed to elect a speaker, much less name a prime minister, so the former prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, continues in power. Parliament convened an emergency session on Saturday to discuss the crisis in Basra, but no action was taken.
Another interesting fact is that there are differences between Shia theology in Basra and Shia theology in Iran.
When Ruhollah Khomeini set up his Islamic Revolutionary government after Iran's 1979 civil war, he reinterpreted centuries of Shia theology to include a doctrine called Wilayat al-Faqih, which means Guardianship of the Jurist. The effect of this doctrine was that the Supreme Leader was considered to be as infallible as the 12 infallible Imams that had led Shia Islam over a millennium ago. This meant, of course, that Khomeini was the infallible leader of all Shia Muslims.
Needless to say, Shia Muslims in Iraq do not accept Khomeini or the current Supreme Leader, Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, as infallible leaders. So the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) is rejected by Iraq's Shias in Basra, and so Iran's Shiism and Iraq's Shiism are effectively two different sects.
This difference goes to the core of the protests, as the government in Baghdad is linked with Iran and Iranian Shiism. This will have to be settled as part of the resolution to the current riots. Reuters and Al Monitor and Middle East Eye (16-July)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Sep-18 World View -- Riots in Iraq's Basra evoke fault lines of 1980s Iran-Iraq war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(9-Sep-2018)
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The Greek Tragedy in Syria
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The leaders of the three countries in the so-called "Astana Group" met in Tehran on Friday with to decide the fate of Syria's Idlib province. No Syrians participated in the meeting. Representatives of the three countries, Russia, Turkey and Iran, have met several times in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan.
Russia, Syria and Iran have been preparing for weeks, massing troops and tanks, for an assault that will create a massive humanitarian disaster among the 3.5 million civilians in Idlib. ( "5-Sep-18 World View -- Syria and Russia prepare to inflict massive bloodbath on Idlib")
At the summit meeting, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan argued for a ceasefire, and no invasion at all. At the press conference following the meeting, he said, "We don’t want Idlib to turn into a bloodbath," and said:
"Idlib is not only about the future of Syria, it is also about the peace of the whole region. Any attack launched or to be launched on Idlib will result in a disaster, massacre and a very big humanitarian tragedy."If we can declare a cease-fire here, it will be one of the most important steps of the summit, and it will relieve the civilians."
Iran's president Hassan Rouhani rejected Erdogan's plea, saying that the fighting in Syria must continue until all "terrorists" are "uprooted," especially in Idlib. He added, "fighting terrorism in Idlib is an unavoidable part of the mission of restoring peace and stability to Syria."
Russia's president Vladimir Putin also rejected the plea, saying that "the legitimate Syrian government has a right and must eventually take control of its entire national territory". Daily Sabah (Turkey) and BBC and Vox
Idlib has a population of about 3.5 million people, including several tens of thousands of jihadists belonging to al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), or less than 2% of the population. Many of the jihadists are hiding out in the same homes as the civilians. There are reports that many civilians are demanding that the jihadists leave the homes and go elsewhere, though that's unlikely to happen.
Bashar al-Assad intends to kill all "terrorists," but he's made it clear in the past that he considers the entire population of Idlib to be "terrorists," meaning that he will be targeting the entire population.
In a sense, Turkey has the most at stake in the Astana Group decision about Idlib. In the press conference on Friday, Erdogan said that there are already 3.5 million Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey, and: "Idlib's population is now 3.5 million. We do not have power and facilities to host another 3.5 million."
Bashar al-Assad's regime, along with Russia, will be using missiles, barrel bombs, chlorine gas and Sarin gas to kill the "terrorists" in Idlib following Vladimir Putin's "Grozny Model." Entire neighborhoods will be flattened, and schools, markets and hospitals will be particularly targeted in order to kill as many women and children as possible, as part of Bashar al-Assad's genocidal campaign.
This means that hundreds of thousands or even millions of civilians will be abandoning their homes, trying to flee the violence. When al-Assad was conducting a similar slaughter on Aleppo, Ghouta and Daraa, many thousands of civilians fled to Idlib. Now, there's no Idlib for Idlib, meaning that people who want to flee have no place to go.
Idlib borders Turkey, and undoubtedly many of them will try to flee across the border into Turkey. It's possible that millions of refugees will succeed in reaching Turkey, and a few hundred thousand of them may then travel to Europe. According to Turkey's Red Crescent, this would be the beginning of a "new immigration wave" into both Turkey and Europe.
One thing that's clear is that Russia and Vladimir Putin are in charge now. Putin can delay the assault, or launch it immediately. He can also use the threat of an assault to get leverage. For example, Putin has been demanding that the US and EU pay billions to rebuild Syria, after Russia played the biggest part in destroying Syria. Russia could use the Idlib assault in a negotiation that says, "Pay up or else!" Anadolu (Turkey) and Yeni Safak (Turkey)
There have been reports that Syria and Russia have been launching a new disinformation campaign, to hide al-Assad's use of chemical weapons and other atrocities. My personal experience is that the article that I wrote three days ago generated a much higher level of troll attacks than I've been seeing recently. So it may well be that Russia's troll factory, the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, is on the march again.
The trolls generally try to paint Bashar al-Assad as a sweet, gentle opthamologist (his college major), a sensitive guy who now runs a country and is trying to bring peace, justice and stability to Syria and the world.
So for trolls and for those readers with short memories, here's an article from last year from the London Guardian, summarizing a report by Amnesty International:
"[In Bashar al-Assad's Saydnaya prison in Damascus,] thousands of civilians considered opponents of the regime are systematically starved, deliberately dehumanised, mercilessly tortured and finally hanged in the utmost secrecy in the dead of night, 20 to 50 at a time. These witnesses have described executions and the conditions in the prison before December 2015 but they could be continuing.It’s like something from a grindingly bleak horror film – a grotesque series of depraved acts that almost defies description. ... Amnesty has gathered testimony from 31 former Saydnaya detainees as well as former guards, and we calculate that between 5,000 to 13,000 people have been hanged at Saydnaya since the uprising against Assad began, possibly many more.
On top of that witnesses have described deaths through sadistic beatings, starvation and disease. They have said that food and water are regularly cut off for prisoners at Saydnaya. When food is delivered, it’s often dumped in the blood, puss and dirt of the cell floors. The prison also has its own set of “special rules”. Prisoners are not allowed to make any sounds, speak or even whisper, even when being brutally beaten. They’re forced to assume certain positions when the guards come into the cells and merely looking at the guards is punishable by death.
Here’s how one former detainee described the terrifying beatings that those about to be hanged are made to endure: “We would hear a huge sound. From 10pm until 12, or from 11pm until 1am, we would hear screaming and yelling come from below us … This is a very important point. If you keep silent, you will get less beating at Saydnaya. But these people were screaming like they had lost their minds ... It wasn’t a normal sound – it was not ordinary. It sounded like they were skinning them alive.”
As for the hangings themselves, witnesses have described how they are carried out in the basement of a place called the White Building. After hours of beatings, groups of up to 50 blindfolded men at a time are taken to the execution site by white delivery trucks (called “meat fridges” by other prisoners) and made to stand on a metre-high platform. Here a noose is placed over their heads and they’re bundled to their deaths.
Not all the hangings result in quick deaths. Some of the lighter men are still alive several minutes into the hangings, and two prison officials have the job of pulling on the bodies of those still alive to break their necks. One former detainee, Hamid (not his real name), told me how he could hear the sounds of the hangings as he and other prisoners slept on the floor of the rooms above: “There was a sound of something being pulled out – like a piece of wood, I’m not sure – and then you would hear the sound of them being strangled ... If you put your ears on the floor, you could hear the sound of the gurgling. This would last around 10 minutes ... We were sleeping on top of the sound of people choking to death. This was normal for me then.”"
Bashar al-Assad is not a sweet opthamologist. He's a perverted, depraved, sociopathic monster who is running a country with the intention of inflicting the same depraved, sociopathic acts on millions of people. Guardian (London, 7-Feb-2017)
It's pretty obvious now that the massive impending Idlib disaster is completely preordained and unavoidable, and nothing can be done by anyone to prevent it. It's like a mile high tsunami that's headed for land. Nothing can stop it. But for how long has it been unavoidable? Six months? Six years? Could it have been prevented seven years ago?
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, an argument can be made that the coming humanitarian disaster has been unavoidable since the 1980s.
Syria's last generational crisis war was the civil war that climaxed in 1982 with the massacre at Hama. There was a massive uprising of the 400,000 mostly Sunni citizens of Hama against Syria's president Hafez al-Assad, the current president's father. In February, 1982, al-Assad turned the town to rubble, 40,000 deaths and 100,000 expelled. Hama stands as a defining moment in the Middle East. It is regarded as perhaps the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East. But once Hama was destroyed, the anti-government movement against Hafaz al-Assad pretty much ended. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this was a generational crisis war climax, like the nuking of Hiroshima at the climax of World War II, bringing the war to an end.
Since then 36 years have passed, and new generations have grown up. I've described what happens in country after country in the decades following a crisis ethnic civil war. Whoever comes to power after the war uses brutal police power to suppress the opposition, using the excuse that a new civil war must be prevented. I've described this in DR Congo, Burundi, Cameroon, Thailand, Cambodia, Iran, and other places.
What makes the Syria situation exceptional is the level of violence. There are various levels of oppression that can be used, but Bashar al-Assad is conducting full-scale genocide and ethnic cleansing. By comparison with other countries in similar situations, that level of violence is not necessary.
In Iran for example, since the 1979 revolution, which was really just another civil war, the two Supreme Leaders have felt free to punish political opponents with gunfire, torture, rapes, jailings, and other atrocities.
The two Supreme Leaders, Ruhollah Khomeini and Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, are psychotic monsters, but those punishments just described -- torture, rape, etc. -- have only been used against tens of thousands of people, mostly young college students. There's been no attempt to exterminate entire cities. Of course tens of thousands is a horrific number, but I say "only" in comparison to Bashar al-Assad. Al-Assad has perpetrated the same genocidal atrocities, but has gone much farther with barrel bombs and chemical weapons targeting millions of women and children, something that Khomeini and Khamenei did not do.
Particularly after those 50,000 prison photos came out of years of gruesome, depraved, systematic torture of political opponents on an "industrial scale," I see Bashar al-Assad as a sociopathic monster, as I've described him many times.
So, given what happened in Hama in 1982, followed by the sociopathic nature of Bashar al-Assad, sooner or later there would have been anti-government protests, and al-Assad would have launched his genocidal attacks on peaceful protesters, focusing on women and children to exterminate the next generation. This is something that was triggered by the "Arab Spring" in 2011, but it had to happen sooner or later, and it would have led the same way to the same kind of genocide that al-Assad has been performing for the last eight years.
So that's why, from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, it could be argued that the Idlib massacre was preordained since the 1980s. It could have been stopped at any time in the last 30 years if al-Assad had been removed from power at any time, and replaced with someone less sociopathic. Even then, there would have been some violence, as in the case of Iran, but probably not to the extent pursued by al-Assad.
The Greeks invented tragedy, and as a Greek, I understand tragedy very well. It's in my bones. Tragedy is not some random event, like a child being hit by a car. The essence of Greek tragedy is that the tragic event is not random. The tragic event is inevitable: it MUST occur, and the reason it must occur is because of the nature, the personality, the character of the protagonists. A true tragedy cannot be prevented, even by those who foresee it, because the forces bringing about the tragedy are too powerful for anyone to stop. That's what's happening in Syria today.
My heart breaks every day, when I see what's happening in the world.
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Sep-18 World View -- Turkey fails to prevent Russia and Iran from mass slaughter in Idlib, Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Sep-2018)
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China's 'nine-dash line map' makes absurd claims to South China Sea
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Late last month, the HMS Albion, a British Royal Navy flagship amphibious assault ship, was traveling through the South China Sea, en route from Tokyo to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam. The 22,000 ton amphibious warship was carrying a contingent of Royal Marines.
On August 31, the ship exercised its "freedom of navigation" rights as it passed near the Paracel Islands. The Paracel Islands have been ruled by the courts to be in international waters, but China has used military force to annex them, in clear violation of international law.
China immediately launched a military challenge of the British ship by dispatching a frigate and two helicopters. However, both sides remained calm during the encounter.
In 2016, China claimed "ironclad proof" of the sovereignty of the Paracel Islands. The proof consisted of a 600 year old handwritten book by fisherman Su Chengfen, who uses the book as a guide to the various routes between the islands.
The BBC decided to investigate, and tracked down the fisherman. As I reported at the time, the BBC found that the book did not exist, and China's claim to the Paracel Islands is a hoax.
This didn't stop China's foreign ministry spokesman on Thursday from saying, "The relevant behavior of the British warship violated Chinese law and relevant international law and infringed upon China's sovereignty. China is firmly opposed to this."
This is a lie on several levels. The Chinese think that their laws are the laws of the world, and they specifically repudiate international law when it goes against them. The invoke international law as a kind of word game when they believe it favors them.
In 2016, China was thoroughly humiliated when all of their activities in the South China Sea were declared illegal by 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.
China's response to the court ruling at the time was that it was "completely a political farce staged under legal pretext," and it was "plotted and manipulated by certain forces outside the region," which could mean either the Europeans or the Americans or both. The spokesman at the time continued, "Its purpose is clearly not to seek proper settlement of disputes with China, but to violate China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests and put peace and stability in the South China Sea in jeopardy."
The logic of the Chinese statement is that China's "territorial sovereignty" over the region are a given, and any challenge puts "peace and stability in the South China Sea in jeopardy."
That of course is a threat: Any challenge will be met with a military response. Reuters and China Foreign Ministry (6-Sep-2018) and China Foreign Ministry (13-Jul-2016)
 |
China's "historic" claims to the South China Sea are either hoaxes, like the claim to the Paracel Islands described above, or worthless, or challenged by equally valid historic claims from other countries, including Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia.
The arbitrariness of China's claims is shown by its claim to Indonesia's Natuna Island. In 2016, China sent its coast guard warships to ram Indonesian vessels in the Natuna Sea. What's going on here is that the Natuna Sea is extremely rich in fishing grounds. The Natuna Sea is clearly Indonesia's territory, since it's very far from China, but that makes no difference to China. It's amazing in the 21st century that a country feels it's perfectly OK to steal another country's assets, and even feels entitled to them.
China's "historic claims" to the South China Sea really go no farther back than to 1947. According to one historical analysis:
"And finally, China’s so-called “historic claims” to the South China Sea are actually not “centuries old.” They only go back to 1947, when Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist government drew the so-called “eleven-dash line” on Chinese maps of the South China Sea, enclosing the Spratly Islands and other chains that the ruling Kuomintang party declared were now under Chinese sovereignty. Chiang himself, saying he saw German fascism as a model for China, was fascinated by the Nazi concept of an expanded Lebensraum (“living space”) for the Chinese nation. He did not have the opportunity to be expansionist himself because the Japanese put him on the defensive, but cartographers of the nationalist regime drew the U-shape of eleven dashes in an attempt to enlarge China’s “living space” in the South China Sea. Following the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in the civil war in 1949, the People’s Republic of China adopted this cartographic coup, revising Chiang’s notion into a “nine-dash line” after erasing two dashes in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1953."
What's interesting about this analysis is the relationship of Chiang to Hitler's "Lebensraum" concept, where Hitler felt entitled to invade and annex larger regions of Russia for German expansion. In other words, Chiang felt that the Chinese were the Master Race, just as Hitler's Nazis felt they were the Master Race, entitled to take anything they wanted.
I've written in the past that Xi Jinping is following in the footsteps of Hitler, adopting a government similar to Hitler's National Socialism, and feeling entitled to annex regions that have historically belonged to other countries. ( "24-Oct-17 World View -- Xi Jinping's 'Socialism with Chinese characteristics' is identical to Hitler's National Socialism")
This analysis makes it clear that this attitude is not recent, and didn't start with Xi Jinping. Apparently the Chinese were quite impressed with Hitler in World War II, and the 1947 map was meant to copy Hitler.
Today, 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. World Affairs Journal (June 2013) and CSIS (12-Jun-2015) and Diplomat (21-Jun-2016) and BBC (20-Oct-2014)
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Sep-18 World View -- Britain 'provokes' China by sending warship into South China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Sep-2018)
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Venezuela's Socialist president Maduro refuses humanitarian aid
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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As the flood of 2.3 million refugees have fled Socialist Venezuela, with no end in sight, much of central and south America is becoming destabilized, and neighboring countries are looking for ways to mitigate the disaster.
Migration officials representing eleven Latin American and Caribbean countries, attending a two-day meeting in Quito, Ecuador, have signed a joint declaration to make it much easier for refugees fleeing from Venezuela to enter their countries.
Last month, Ecuador began refusing entry to Venezuelas who didn't have valid passports, after receiving a stream of 4,000 new migrants every day. However, that decision was later overturned by a court because it contravened a regional agreement on free travel.
The decision to require a valid passport would have shut out the vast majority of Venezuelan refugees, since getting a valid passport in Venezuela can cost from $1,000 to $5,000 in bribes demanded by Venezuelan government officials. Under the rules specified by the Quito declaration, refugees will be allowed to enter the eleven countries even if their travel documents have expired.
According to the Quito declaration:
"5. Urge to the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to give priority to make the necessary measures for the timely provision of identity and travel documents of its citizens. Providing priority to identity cards, passports, birth certificates, marriage certificates and certificates of criminal records, as well as apostilles and legalization of documents required by its citizens. In view of the fact that the lack of such documents has generated: limitations on the right to free movement and mobility, difficulties in immigration procedures, impediments to extra-regional circulation, effects on social and economic integration in the host countries and, on the contrary, it has encouraged irregular migration.6. In accordance with the national legislation of each country, to receive expired travel documents as identity documents of Venezuelan citizens for immigration purposes."
The eleven countries that signed the joint declaration are: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.
There were thirteen countries meeting in Quito, but two of them didn't sign the declaration. Venezuela's left-wing ally Bolivia refused to sign, while the Dominican Republic was unable to do so immediately for administrative reasons. BBC and Reuters and Quito Declaration (PDF)
The same group of 11 Latin American countries are urging Venezuela's president Nicolás Maduro to "accept the cooperation of the governments of the region and international organizations," who are expressing a willingness to provide humanitarian aid, in order to help alleviate the migration crisis.
According to the signed Quito Declaration:
"13. They reiterate their concern about the serious deterioration of the internal situation caused by the massive migration of Venezuelans, addressed during this meeting, and call for the opening of a humanitarian assistance mechanism that will allow decompressing the critical situation, providing immediate attention to the origin of the citizens affected.14. The States agree to cooperate with each other to assist their fellow citizens and urge the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to accept the cooperation of the governments of the region and international organizations, in order to address the situation of their respective communities established in Venezuela."
However, Maduro's close associate Diosdado Cabello, president of the Constituent National Assembly, called the offer "disgusting" and "shameful," suggesting that the offer of humanitarian aid is unlikely to be accepted.
Maduro is calling the entire refugee crisis a hoax, claims that the videos of Venezuelan's fleeing on foot are a Hollywood style campaign designed by Americans to embarrass him. He says that most of the refugees that have left now want to come back
"More than 90 percent are regretting it, of this group that isn’t more than 600,000 Venezuelans who have left the country in the last two years, according to confirmed, certified serious figures. ...I sometimes feel pain for the Venezuelans who left. We will hug you again, come to Venezuela, come back to the homeland. We Venezuelans are here, with our big, big Bolivian hearts."
Actually, the real confirmed, certified serious figures are well into the millions.
Maduro has urged departed refugees to "stop cleaning toilets abroad" and return home. In August, he sent a plane to Peru to pick up around migrants who had been duped into abandoning Venezuela, but only 100 returned. More airlifts are being scheduled. Channel News Asia and Reuters and LA Times and VOA
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Sep-18 World View -- Latin American countries open their borders to migrants from Socialist Venezuela thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Sep-2018)
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Syria and Russian forces prepare to 'clean out' the 'terrorists' in Idlib
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Ever since Syria's army took control of Daraa in southern Syria, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad and Russia's president Vladimir Putin have been declaring the war almost over and won. ( "22-Jul-18 World View -- Bashar al-Assad declares victory in southern Syria as opponents are bused out")
There's just one more quick battle to be fought, they've been suggesting, the battle to take control of Idlib province.
Airstrikes by Russian warplanes struck targets in Idlib on Tuesday, after a lull of several weeks, although Syrian warplane airstrikes had been ongoing. According to reports, the warplanes bombarded the countryside around Jisr al-Shughour on the western edge of Idlib, killing 13 civilians but no fighters.
Syria was losing the war in 2016, but Russia saved al-Assad by actively joining the fight. Russia's military had been completely shut out of the Mideast after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. But now, for the first time in decades, Russia has two military bases in the Mideast -- the Tartus naval base, and the Hmeimim airbase, both of them in Syria, in return for supporting al-Assad.
In the last month, Russia has launched a large naval deployment in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Syria. The naval force has more than a dozen vessels including destroyers, frigates and submarines, some armed with Kalibr cruise missiles. It's expected that the naval force will participate in the assault on Idlib, and remain at the Tartus naval port indefinitely.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday:
"It goes without saying that this problem (terrorists in Idlib) must be straightened out. We do know that the Syrian armed forces are getting ready for tackling this problem."
Iran's forces have also supported al-Assad in the war. Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday that all the "terrorists" in Idlib must be "cleaned out":
"All of Syrian territory must be preserved and all the sects and groups should start the round of reconstruction as one collective and the displaced should return to their families.And the remaining terrorists in the remaining parts of Idlib must be cleaned out and the region should be placed back under the control of the Syrian people."
Al-Assad has made it clear that he considers the entire population of Idlib to be "terrorists." Moscow Times and Tass (Moscow) and National Interest and Daily Sabah (Ankara)
With Syrian army forces massing on the border with Syria, a full-scale assault is expected to start at any time.
There are 3.5 million people in Idlib. About half of them arrived there after fleeing from the violence in earlier battles in Aleppo, Ghouta and Daraa. There are probably around several tens of thousands of "rebels," including some belonging to al-Qaeda based Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and others belonging to ISIS.
In Aleppo, Ghouta and Daraa, al-Assad has been using Vladimir Putin's "Grozny strategy," where warplanes attack hospitals, schools and markets with the objective of creating millions of refugees, who can then be attacked while they're out in the open. A refinement developed by al-Assad's forces is to drop barrel bombs filled with metals, explosives, and chlorine gas. The metals would kill as many people as possible, and the chlorine gas, which is heavier than air, would fall into basements and bunkers where women and children were hiding. Once they were forced out into the open, additional barrel bombs and missiles or Sarin gas could kill the women and children en masse.
In the case of earlier targets, international pressure caused Russia and Syria to agree to allow many people to flee the violence, and take refuge in Idlib. But there is no Idlib for Idlib, which means that there is no place in Idlib for people to go to flee. So there are 3.5 million people, including about one million children, all trapped in Idlib.
Russia and Syria claim that they're only going to be targeting "terrorists" in Idlib, but al-Assad considers everyone in Idlib to be a terroris, and so many people are expecting a massive bloodbath. Possibly over a million people will try to cross the border into Turkey, a country that already hosts about three million refugees from Syria. That may result in a new surge of refugees into Europe.
A big unknown is what role Turkey's military will play.
Idlib is supposed to be one of the four de-escalation ceasefire zones, set up by agreement of Russia, Turkey and Iran in meetings in Astana, Kazakhstan last year. However, the de-escalation process turned out to be a hoax, to provide cover for al-Assad's attacks.
Idlib is the one of the de-escalation zones that Turkey is responsible for. Turkey has a string of observation posts around Idlib, and has been fortifying them with tanks and personnel in recent days. It's not known whether Turkey would take any military action to block Syria's ground forces.
The United State has warned Syria that there will be a military reprisal if al-Assad uses chemical weapons in Idlib. According to reports, US intelligence and military targeting experts have created a list of Syrian chemical weapons facilities that could be struck if Trump decided to order a new round of airstrikes in the country. BBC and Daily Sabah (Ankara) and CNN and Jerusalem Post
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Sep-18 World View -- Syria and Russia prepare to inflict massive bloodbath on Idlib thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Sep-2018)
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Why China's mothers are refusing to have a second child
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
China's president Xi Jinping is hosting, on Monday and Tuesday, the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), attended by leaders of more than 50 African countries. At the meeting, he announced that China will offer a huge $60 billion in aid for African nations, mostly to develop infrastructure projects for China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Xi was eager to refute the growing concerns that China's BRI investments are a form of "neo-colonialism," using the aid money as a "debt trap" as leverage to exert control over the internal affairs of the countries involved and, when the debt money can't be paid back, to gain control of valuable assets, as has already happened when Sri Lanka was unable to repay its debt for the building of the valuable strategic Hambantota seaport.
So Xi may a point of saying the following:
"China’s investment in Africa comes with no political strings attached. China does not interfere in Africa’s internal affairs and does not impose its own will on Africa."
The claim was laughable, as proven by this very conference. Every African nation but one was invited. The one that was excluded was Swaziland, which just happens to be the only African nation left that has diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than China.
China refuses to have diplomatic relations with any country that has diplomatic relations with Taiwan. China has been using every tool available to it, including bribes, threats and extortion, to force countries to end relations with Taiwan. The most recent success was Burkino Faso. But Swaziland, recently renamed eSwatini, is the last remaining holdout in Africa. According to government spokesman Percy Simelane:
"The people of eSwatini have been benefiting from the cordial relations existing between Taiwan since independence 50 years ago. The nation is benefiting and by extension as expected the leader benefits.Taiwanese doctors continue to be pillars of our health system. To say it is the king alone who benefits is a projection of political bankruptcy on the part of the accuser.
Everywhere in the world, culture is the soul of a nation, only a political imbecile would put a regional meeting above the soul of the nation."
According to one senior Chinese diplomat recently, China has been upping the pressure on the country, and they expect the eSwaziland to change policies soon.
So Xi's claim that aid comes "with no political strings attached," and "China does not interfere in Africa’s internal affairs and does not impose its own will on Africa" is really an insult to everyone's intelligence. AP and AFP and Reuters
Xi Jinping also sought to reassure African leaders that he is not leading them into a "debt trap," where the objective of China's policy is to put a country into a position where it's forced to give up valuable asset in lieu of paying off its debt to China.
Many Kenyans in particular are concerned that they are going to be forced to give up the Mombasa seaport, just as Sri Lanka was forced to give up the Hambantota seaport. And indeed, I doubt that few people would be surprised if that were China's actual unstated policy. As I described last month in "14-Jul-18 World View -- China's railway contractor in Kenya accused of 'neo-colonialism, racism and blatant discrimination'", China's infrastructure projects are set up contractually to make this kind of default as likely as possible.
Chinese officials have been bragging that China is charging low interest rates on its latest loans, but interest rates are actually a small part of the problem.
Researcher Anne Stevenson-Yang describes the problem succinctly as follows: China's loans are quoted in dollar terms, "but in reality they're lending in terms of tractors, shipments of coal, engineering services and things like that, and they ask for repayment in hard currency."
This one-sentence description is highly significant, as becomes apparent with the lengthier explanation I've given in the past:
According to one analyst:
"This debt acquired from China comes with huge business for Chinese companies, particularly construction companies that have turned the whole of Africa into a construction site for rails, roads, electricity dams, stadia, commercial buildings and so on."
So China provides aid for its own companies and workers to build infrastructure projects, but since the countries have to pay for the loans twice, the countries pay substantially more for the infrastructure projects themselves. So why don't they do that? Because they can't afford it, just as they can't afford to pay back China's loans.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Chad, Eritrea, Mozambique, Congo Republic, South Sudan and Zimbabwe were considered to be in debt distress at the end of 2017 while Zambia and Ethiopia were downgraded to "high risk of debt distress."
When America loans money to a country, either directly or through the IMF, it's a small enough amount that one can be certain that it can be repaid. One thing that's clear from China's policies is that they're making loans without any guarantee that they will be repaid and, in fact, where it's all but certain that they WON'T be repaid. It appears to be China's policy to make loans that can't be repaid, and then take control of infrastructure and land in the target country. That's why China has control, or will soon have control, of seaports across the Indian Ocean, in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Djibouti and Kenya. BBC and The Nation (Kenya) and Standard Media (Kenya) and Sputnik News (Moscow)
Related Articles
Last week, I wrote "29-Aug-18 World View -- China ends two-child policy, but considers a 'wacky' three-child policy", about why mothers weren't having a second child, even when the one-child policy ended. It seems that there are a lot of reasons why China's mothers don't want more than one child, according to a web site reader who sent me the following:
My Chinese wife was an elementary school teacher in Xi'an, China. She says that the biggest reasons why the two-child policy would fail were mostly economic. Consider the following:
In short, even one child is too expensive for a couple in China.
Then comes the fact that now, a married couple also has to support *two* sets of parents. My wife has four sisters and a brother, so they have no problems taking care of her parents. But her son, and her nieces and nephews, will have to support *two* sets of parents because of the one-child policy in place for their generation. Add to that the costs of bribing their children through the education system, and you have a completely broken economic system at the family level.
That is why an increasingly large number of Chinese children are delaying marriage, and often forsaking the entire concept.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Sep-18 World View -- China courts African nations as charges of 'neo-colonialism' grow thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Sep-2018)
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The deterioration of Libya since the 2011 'Arab Spring'
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Libya's government in Tripoli, the country's capital city, announced a state of emergency in Tripoli and closed the Mitaga airport, the only remaining airport in operation in Libya, since the Tripoli International Airport was destroyed by militia warfare in 2014.
The announcement follows several days of fierce fighting between various militias and armed groups from within and around Tripoli. Rockets appear to be falling at random into densely populated areas, fired by one or more of the militias. At least 39 people, including civilians, have been killed in the violence and nearly 100 others wounded.
Libya today has two completely separate governments. The western government, based in Tripoli, is the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is internationally recognized by the United Nations. However, the real power in Tripoli lies with the warlords and militias inside and outside the city.
The second government is the eastern government, based in Tobruk, is the House of Representatives, led by a renegade General Khalifa Haftar.
The Libyan state in Tripoli has been almost totally "captured" by a cartel of militias in central Tripoli, the main ones being the Tripoli Revolutionaries' Brigades and the Nawasi Battalion. They use violence, fraud and embezzlement to control state institutions, banks, businesses, and the only functioning airport. A major source of funding has been kidnapping victims from wealthy families, who provide substantial rewards to free the victims.
The militias inside and outside Tripoli also formed an "alternative economy" -- receive payment from Italy in return for preventing migrants from crossing the Mediterranean to Italy by locking them up in horrific refugee camps.
Because of the excessive violence and corruption, the cartel controlling central Tripoli has angered many of the tribes on the outskirts of Tripoli. The battles last week were the Seventh Brigade, or Kaniyat, from Tarhouna, a town 40 miles southeast of Tripoli.
There are also al-Qaeda militias in Misrata, a city 125 miles east of Tripoli, who are threatening to attack central Tripoli as well. But they've lately been occupied with fighting ISIS-linked militias in Sirte, which is east of Misrata.
Finally, renegade General Haftar has been staying out of Tripoli, but it's thought that he's making plans to conduct his own attack. Libyan Express and Al Jazeera and Reuters and Times of Malta
The "Arab Spring" in 2011 was triggered by the death of a Tunisian food vendor, followed by massive protests and gun battles in Tunisia, forcing the president to flee the country. There were violent protests in Egypt, and there were anti-government demonstrations in Yemen. There were fears that instability would continue to spread. Lebanon's government collapsed.
A major refugee crisis had already began in Tunisia and Libya, with hundreds of thousands of people pouring into neighboring countries, and thousands crossing the Mediterranean to Italy. Libya's dictator Muammar Gaddafi declared war on the protesters and was threatening genocide, especially in Benghazi. It was this refugee crisis that caused Libyans to demand a no-fly zone, and for the Arab League to do the same, after which the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing a no-fly zone. As fighting continued, this turned into the 2011 military intervention, and the assassination of Gaddafi. ( "5-Mar-16 World View -- A look back at Libya in 2011 as the West debates another military intervention")
Gaddafi came to power in Libya in 1969 in a generational Awakening era. As we've described in Syria, Cambodia, Burundi and a number of other countries in the decades following a generational crisis civil war, Gaddafi kept an iron grip on power by committing human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial executions and revenge attacks. However, even with these methods, he lost control of the population in a new civil war triggered by the Arab Spring, and was threatening the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Benghazi.
Since the fall of Gaddafi, the deterioration of Libya's government that was originally triggered by the Arab Spring has continued. According to a June analysis by the Small Arms Survey:
"Since state institutions split in two in mid-2014, the armed groups in Tripoli have undergone far-reaching changes in their financing patterns. Protection rackets and large-scale fraud, which are both contributing to a deepening economic crisis, have replaced state salaries as their principal source of income.Over the past two years, the large Tripolitanian militias have transformed into criminal networks straddling politics, big business, and the administration. They have infiltrated the bureaucracy and are increasingly able to coordinate their actions across different state institutions. The government is powerless in the face of militia influence.
For the average citizen, security in Tripoli has improved substantially, as clashes between rival forces have receded and the cartel has focused on controlling the administration and the economy. But this state of affairs is fuelling resentment among powerful forces in the capital and beyond. It could provoke a new war over the capital."
That analysis was published in June, and it predicted that the Tripoli cartel would provoke sufficient anger that it could lead to a new war in Tripoli. The first signs of that have begun to appear in the last week. Small Arms Survey and Libyan Express and BBC
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Sep-18 World View -- Libya declares state of emergency, closes Tripoli airport thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Sep-2018)
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US military cancels $300 million in aid to Pakistan
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
International governments are expressing alarm that the decision to end all US aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) could destabilize the Mideast and create increased radicalism.
UNRWA provides services to Palestinian Arabs living in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank. There are 1.5 million registered Palestinians living in 58 recognized Palestinian refugee camps. An additional 3-4 million Palestinian refugees and descendants live in "unofficial camps where Palestine refugees are concentrated, such as Yarmouk, near Damascus," according to UNWRA.
UNRWA's services include education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance and emergency assistance, and support in times of armed conflict. UNRWA provides these services to all Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
UNRWA is dependent on funding from UN Member nations, with the United States having been the biggest donor. In 2017, the US provided $364 million to the agency, with other member states donated $650 million. The US on Friday announced that it would cut all aid, giving as a reason that UNRWA programs are "irredeemably flawed."
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness expressed "deep regret and disappointment" at the U.S. decision:
"We reject in the strongest possible terms the criticism that UNRWA's schools, health centers, and emergency assistance programs are 'irredeemably flawed.'It is the failure of the political parties to resolve the refugee situation which perpetuates the continued existence of UNRWA.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the decision as "a flagrant assault against the Palestinian people and a defiance of UN resolutions." He added, "Such a punishment will not succeed to change the fact that the United States no longer has a role in the region and that it is not a part of the solution."
PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki said that the US decision would backfire and draw strong reactions from several countries that oppose the “American policy of thuggery.” He said that the Palestinians, together with Jordan and EU countries, will launch a diplomatic campaign to urge many countries to fund UNRWA.
In fact, the German government on Friday said that it will significantly increase its support for UNRWA, although it would not be enough to make up the agency's current shortfall of $217 million.
Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said:
"It is therefore all the more important that we, as the European Union, jointly undertake further efforts. ... The loss of this organization could unleash an uncontrollable chain reaction."
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the US decision violates international law and the UN resolution that established UNRWA. He added:
"[The US is] not entitled to support or bless the theft of Palestinian lands and illegal Israeli colonialism. It has no right to act at the whim of [American business magnate, investor and philanthropist] [Sheldon Adelson and [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu. ... The US decisions regarding Jerusalem, the settlements and the refugees destroy the international law and undermine security and stability in the region. They are a gift to the forces of extremism and terrorism in the region."
Other Palestinian officials made several angry accusations directed at the Trump administration:
So as it turns out, these three accusations are pretty much true. UNRWA and Deutsche Welle and Haaretz and Jerusalem Post
On Friday, the US State Department issued this statement:
"The Administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA. When we made a U.S. contribution of $60 million in January, we made it clear that the United States was no longer willing to shoulder the very disproportionate share of the burden of UNRWA’s costs that we had assumed for many years. Several countries, including Jordan, Egypt, Sweden, Qatar, and the UAE have shown leadership in addressing this problem, but the overall international response has not been sufficient.Beyond the budget gap itself and failure to mobilize adequate and appropriate burden sharing, the fundamental business model and fiscal practices that have marked UNRWA for years – tied to UNRWA’s endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries – is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years. The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation. We are very mindful of and deeply concerned regarding the impact upon innocent Palestinians, especially school children, of the failure of UNRWA and key members of the regional and international donor community to reform and reset the UNRWA way of doing business. These children are part of the future of the Middle East. Palestinians, wherever they live, deserve better than an endlessly crisis-driven service provision model. They deserve to be able to plan for the future.
Accordingly, the United States will intensify dialogue with the United Nations, host governments, and international stakeholders about new models and new approaches, which may include direct bilateral assistance from the United States and other partners, that can provide today’s Palestinian children with a more durable and dependable path towards a brighter tomorrow."
The reference to "UNRWA’s endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries" refers to the fact that UNRWA is providing services to all descendants of the original 1948 refugees. UNRWA was set up to provide services to about 750,000 refugees of the bloody war between Jews and Arabs that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. These refugees were moved into camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
It was thought at the time that these refugees would move out of these camps and become citizens of the various countries in the region. Instead, UNRWA's services have made it possible for the refugees to stay in the camps, and for their children and grandchildren to stay there as well. And so there's an exponentially growing population of descendants of the original refugees, and the entire population now totals 5.1 million, and is continuing to grow exponentially. The means that the amount of aid that's required is also growing exponentially at the same rate. The State Department announcement says that this "business model," which depends on exponentially growing donations, is unsustainable, and that's true.
For the same reason, the "right of return" is delusional. When UNRWA was first formed, providing services to 750,000 refugees, perhaps it might have been possible for Israel to absorb a signficant number of them. But now the number of "refugees" is at 5.1 million, and is growing exponentially, and it's not reasonable to expect Israel to absorb the exponentially growing population.
Early in August, leaked January e-mail messages emerged from Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, indicating that the Trump administration does indeed want to do away with UNRWA. According to published excerpts:
"It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA. ... This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace."
The logic behind this statement is that the existence of UNRWA, which is dependent on exponentially growing donations to service an exponentially growing population of refugee descendants, is giving this population a false hope that they might one day leave their refugee camp and go home again to their grandparents' houses in Israel. This is obviously never going to happen, and so the best way to get to a new peace agreement is to begin by removing the agency that makes a peace agreement impossible.
As regular readers know, Generational Dynamics predicts that there is an approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, pitting the "axis" of China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries against the "allies," the US, India, Russia and Iran. Part of it will be a major new war between Jews and Arabs, re-fighting the bloody the war of 1948-49 that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. The war between Jews and Arabs will be part of a major regional war, pitting Sunnis versus Shias, Jews versus Arabs, and various ethnic groups against each other. The Trump administration is generally aware of all this, having been educated by Steve Bannon, whom I worked with off and on for many years.
Trump believes that he can get a peace deal in the Mideast. Every president for decades has tried to do the same, with no success. Trump's approach is to create political chaos, to destroy the status quo, so it will be necessary to renegotiate everything to bring peace. That's why the US Embassy was moved to Jerusalem and why now aid to UNRWA is ending. This is the approach he's taken with China, North Korea, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. As I've said many times, I'm not going to criticize Trump for taking steps to prevent a world war -- or a Mideast war -- even if preventing such a war is impossible. US State Dept. and Al Jazeera and Fox News and Jerusalem Post
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The U.S. military said it has made a final decision to cancel $300 million in aid to Pakistan that had been suspended over Islamabad's perceived failure to take decisive action against militants. In the past, Trump has accused Pakistan of rewarding past assistance with "nothing but lies and deceit." Reuters
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Sep-18 World View -- Worldwide alarm as the US ends aid to UNRWA Palestinian refugee agency thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Sep-2018)
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Alexander Zakharchenko was increasingly annoying to his masters in Moscow
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the Russian troops in eastern Ukraine and prime minister of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), was killed on Friday in a terrorist bomb blast at a local restaurant. The bomb had been deliberately planted in the restaurant, the Separ in central Donetsk, which was frequented often by Zakharchenko.
Russia's defense ministry initially blamed the bombing directly on Ukraine, but this accusation was not repeated as a DPR official announced that the suspects had already been detained within Donetsk itself. However, Ukraine Security Services and the United States were still blamed for organizing the attack. In view of the attack, a state of emergency was declared, and the borders were closed.
It's worthwhile providing a brief catalog of Russian statements about the war in Ukraine, almost all of which have been provable lies. The war in Ukraine began in 2014 when Russian troops invaded eastern Ukraine. Russia always denied that there were Russian army troops in Ukraine, and when it was proven there were, the Russians claimed that they were just "volunteers." That also turned out to be disinformation, as 80% of Russia's army is a volunteer army. America has an all-volunteer army. So saying that Russian troops in Ukraine are "volunteers" is like saying that America's troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are "volunteers."
In July 2014, the Russians in eastern Ukraine shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 passenger plane with a Russian Buk 9M38 missile that was transported by a Volvo truck from Russia, as was confirmed in 2015 by a Dutch report following a lengthy investigation. Russia made one moronic claim after another, everything from the claim that MH17 fell out of the sky by itself to a claim that the US shot down MH17 to embarrass Putin.
After Putin's Russian forces invaded Crimea, Putin denied that there were Russian troops in Crimea, but later he awarded a medal to the leaders of the successful invasion. Putin said there were no plans to annex Crimea, but then Russia annexed Crimea soon after.
So he war in east Ukraine is being fought by Russian troops -- "volunteers" -- supplied with heavy Russian weapons, including tanks. Alexander Zakharchenko web site and Sputnik News (Moscow) and BBC and Sputnik News
Although the Russian government reflexively blamed Ukraine and the United States for the explosion, there are plenty of reasons to look elsewhere for a culprit, especially Moscow.
Zakharchenko was said to have as many lives as a cat, because he survived numerous assassination attempts. Friday's successful attack was believed to be the ninth assassination attempt, which meant that on Friday he used up the last of his nine lives.
According to numerous analysts, Zakharchenko was a major annoyance to his masters in Moscow, and was also facing dissension within his officers in Donetsk, people who would like to replace him. He repeatedly declared that he would attack Kiev, and the DPR would replace the government of Ukraine, but he received no backing from Moscow. In January 2015, he announced a large-scale offensive aimed at capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol. But after receiving a phone call from Moscow, he gave a rushed press conference canceling the operation.
According to Igor Girkin, a former commander in eastern Ukraine, Zakharchenko had many enemies: "He could have been taken out because of criminal schemes or maybe his Kremlin curators grew tired of him or the Ukrainians may have done it. He was a problem for everyone."
Another analyst, Michael Bociurkiw, a global affairs analyst and former spokesman for the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said: "This looks like an internal operation because for the past few weeks and months, Zakharchenko has been critical of some of his colleagues and deputies in the so-called DPR parliament. So, I think the writing was on the wall for him."
In February 2015 in Minsk, Belarus, negotiators reached a ceasefire agreement. The negotiators were Russia's President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine's leader Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's President François Hollande.
It was noteworthy that the negotiations did not include Zakharchenko or any east Ukraine Russian leader, whereas Putin's presence made it clear that he was in charge of the Russians in east Ukraine.
The so-called "Minsk Agreement" did not bring about a ceasefire. Since then, there has low-level violence almost every day, and people are being killed almost every day. Analysts are expressing concern that the assassination of Zakharchenko will destablize the region, and be the final end of the Minsk agreement. Al Jazeera and RFE/RL and Washington Examiner
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Sep-18 World View -- Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, is assassinated thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Sep-2018)
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