Dynamics
|
|
Generational Dynamics |
| Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's | |
| HOME WEB LOG COUNTRY STUDIES COMMENT FORUM | |
| DOWNLOADS FOURTH TURNING ARCHIVE ABOUT | |
Fears grow of a new Hutu-Tutsi war
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Centuries of tribal warfare between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis in east Africa are once again threatening to return, as relations deteriorate between Burundi, which is led by Hutu president Pierre Nkurunziza, and Rwanda, which is led by Tutsi president Paul Kagame.
Two weeks ago, Nkurunziza wrote a letter to Uganda's Tutsi president Yoweri Museveni, listing a series of accusations by Rwanda against Burundi, and asking for a meeting of the East African Community (EAC):
"It is, therefore, very urgent for the East African Community to focus on the real problem that is jeopardizing peace and security throughout Burundi.It is Rwanda, a state party to the treaty establishing the East African Community, which is not at its first attempt to destabilize its neighbor, Burundi, in violation of the fundamental principles of the community. ...
In short, Rwanda is the only country in the region that is one of the main destabilisers of my country and, therefore, I no longer consider it a partner country, but simply as an enemy country."
Nkurunziza in particular is accusing Kagame of instigating an April 2015 coup attempt against Nkurunziza. The coup attempt was triggered when Nkurunziza refused to step down after announcing that he would seek a third term as president, which is not permitted under Burundi's constitution. His announcement triggered protests, and the police responded with bullets and teargas, killing ten people in four days of violence between youthful Tutsi protesters and police. Continued clashes killed hundreds of people. ( "30-Apr-15 World View -- 20,000 refugees flee violence in Burundi, fearing Hutu-Tutsi war")
Museveni is the current president of the EAC, which has six members: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda, with its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. It was formed in 2000 to improve relations among the member nations, and particularly to prevent a repeat of something like the 1993-94 Hutu-Tutsi genocide in Burundi and Rwanda.
Museveni selected Tanzania's former president Benjamin Mkapa to evaluate Nkurunziza's accusations. Mkapa investigated and submitted a report that rejected Nkurunziza's accusations against Kigali, and recommended talks between Nkurunziza’s government and dissidents, including the alleged coup plotters.
Nkurunziza responded with a decree that no outsider should interfere in his country’s internal matters, and that any such interference "would be to overthrow this institution elected by the people [of Burundi]."
Museveni then responded to Nkurunziza that he was manipulating the EAC, and that "you use it when it suits you and discard it when it does not." The Nation (Kenya, 14-Dec) and News 24 (South Africa) and AP
A United Nations human rights report in September said that Burundi officials were committing crimes against humanity in 2017 and 2018.
"These crimes include murder, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity, and persecution on political grounds," according to the report. It's believed that the Hutu government of Pierre Nkurunziza is specifically targeting Tutsis for the crimes. Tens of thousands of refugees, mostly Tutsis, have fled and are staying in refugee camps in neighboring countries.
The BBC has confirmed the worst of the accusations in its own investigations. According to the BBC, Burundi's government was running secret detention houses to silence dissent. A video, widely shared on social media, showed blood flowing from the drain of a house in the capital city Bujumbura. An eyewitness said that the blood was from beheadings.
Early in December, Burundi ordered the United Nations Human Rights Council to leave the country. "All international staff must be redeployed immediately, and the Office has two months to pack its bags and close its doors permanently," according to the order.
In October 2017, judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) authorized an investigation into crimes committed in Burundi since April 2015. Burundi officials reacted by withdrawing from the ICC. Burundi was the first ever country to leave the ICC. Reuters (5-Sep) and BBC and AFP (6-Dec) and Human Rights Watch (18-Jan)
The event overshadowing many countries in Africa, particularly in east Africa, is the 1994 Rwanda genocide, when ethnic Hutus slaughtered close to a million ethnic Tutsis in a period of about three months. The threat of a new Rwanda genocide has influenced policy in Nigeria, Central African Republic, Sudan, and in discussions outside of Africa.
Rwanda's president Paul Kagame said a year ago said that Nkurunziza's third term as president and his refusal to step down threatened a repeat of the 1994 genocide. “They should have learned the lesson of our history,” said Kagame.
Kagame's criticism is laughable because Kagame himself, as well as Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni, have all refused to step down after serving the maximum time permitted by the respective constitutions. This, of course, is similar to what we've seen in country after country in Africa.
However, from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, it's way too soon for another full-scale Hutu-Tutsi genocide. There are too many survivors still alive who remember the incredible horrors of the last genocide, and they will prevent their children from letting things get out of hand. However, the resurgence of low-level and sporadic violence is occurring right on schedule in this generational Awakening era. Newsweek and Global Security
Related Articles
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-Dec-18 World View -- Burundi's president Nkurunziza says Rwanda is no longer a partner but an enemy thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(31-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
China's history since the May Fourth Movement
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Last week on December 18, China's president Xi Jinping gave a solemn speech in the Great Hall of the People, marking the 40th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s policy of reform and openness.
In my opinion, the most important part of that speech was his goal of "wiping out the humiliation of the Chinese nation for centuries."
He made the same allusion in March of this year in a major speech to the National People's Congress -- a meeting where he made himself a dictator for life, and modified the consititution to incorporate "Xi's Thoughts" on "Socialism with China Characteristics (SWCC)."
In the March speech, he said "China has continuously striven for its dream of realizing great national rejuvenation for over 170 years," alluding to the Opium Wars of the 1840s. This is a theme I've seen frequently in Chinese statements -- that China would be a great nation today, if it hadn't been humiliated by the West, particularly Britain and Japan.
For the past few months, I've been deep into studying China's history, back to ancient times, but particularly focusing on the time since the 1840s Opium Wars. And there's a big puzzle about China that becomes starkly apparently when you compare China and Japan in the late 1800s.
Both China and Japan had generational crisis civil wars that climaxed in the 1860s (Taiping Rebellion and Meiji Restoration, respectively). Both countries were devastated by those crisis civil wars, and each had to reconstruct a shattered country. But those reconstructions proceeded in vastly different directions.
Japan embraced the West, including culture, government and technology, and by the early 1900s Japan was considered a "developed country" and even a "Western country," although the people became imbued with a militaristic attitude that resulted in disaster in World War II.
China did not embrace the West. China rejected the West (or at best had a love-hate relationship with the West), and even declared war on the West in the Boxer Rebellion. As a result, China had no idea what was going on in the world. The Chinese leaders were repeatedly "conned" by Japan and the West in World War I, and they never seemed to learn what was going on. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" is the old saying. But the Chinese were fooled over and over, and never seemed to learn anything. While Japan's government was highly competent and driven, China's government was totally incompetent, and stumbled from one disaster to another.
This created the "New Culture Movement" in the late 1910s, which was a rejection by young people of all of China's culture under previous governments, including Confucianism and the classical Chinese language. This created a vacuum that might have been filled by Western ideas, except that China was fooled and humiliated once again by Japan and the West in the Versailles Treaty of Paris, the agreement that ended World War I. The result was that a large segment of China's society began adopting anarchism, socialism and communism from Russia's Bolshevik Revolution, leading to the formation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1920s.
That triggered the May 4th movement (May 4, 1919), a massive anti-government protest by millions of students in Tiananmen Square, that the government brutally put down, but which turned the people into a driven population seeking revenge against Japan and the West.
(It's no coincidence that the May 4th movement was repeated exactly 70 years later, in May 1989, leading to the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989. It's also going to be a big problem next year for the Chinese leadership that May 4 and June 4, 2019, will be anniversaries of the May 4th Movement and the Tiananmen Square massacre.)
The riddle about China is why the Chinese people are so naive and credulous. For three hundred years, from 1640 to 1912, they were governed by a small army of foreigners -- the Manchus -- that they could easily have overthrown at any time, but never bothered to do so. Then during the 1910s and World War I, their incompetent government was humiliated time after time by Japan, Britain, Russia and France. In World War II, the huge Chinese empire would have been defeated by the small island of Japan if the West, principally the Americans, hadn't saved China's butt.
After the war, the disasters continued under Mao Zedong, with the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution and then, in 1989, the Tiananmen Square massacre. Even today, under Xi Jinping, China's government (the CCP) seens like a child lost in the woods, with no idea how to deal with its own population except through brutality or how to deal with the other countries of the world, except through deception and military threats. China Daily and Xinhua and Diplomat (5-May-2015) and RadiiChina
Xi Jinping sees the May Fourth Movement (May 4, 1919) as a major turning point in China's history, and he lists three major outcomes in the last century of the May Fourth Movement:
I believe that we can reasonably assume that Xi would identify the fourth major outcome of the May 4th Movement as his own anointment as dictator for life and the incorporation of "Xi's Thoughts" in the constitution, in March of this year.
In terms of intent, Deng's "Reforms and Opening Up" are comparable to the kinds of actions that Japan took in the decades following the Meiji Restoration. So one might say that in 1978, China lagged a century behind Japan.
However, there is still a big difference. Japan is a democracy, while nobody would ever call China's government a democracy.
According to the minutes of the "Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee," meeting from December 18-22, 1978, where the reforms were presented, China must implement "socialist modernization":
"Socialist modernization requires centralized leadership and strict implementation of various rules and regulations and observance of labour discipline. Bourgeois factionalism and anarchism must be firmly opposed. But the correct concentration of ideas is possible only when there is full democracy. Since for a period in the past democratic centralism was not carried out in the true sense, centralism being divorced from democracy and there being too little democracy, it is necessary to lay particular emphasis on democracy at present, and on the dialectical relationship between democracy and centralism, so as to make the mass line the foundation of the Party's centralized leadership and the effective direction of the organizations of production. In ideological and political life among the ranks of the people, only democracy is permissible and not suppression or persecution. ... The constitutional rights of citizens must be resolutely protected and no one has the right to infringe upon them.In order to safeguard people's democracy, it is imperative to strengthen the socialist legal system so that democracy is systematized and written into law in such a way as to ensure the stability, continuity and full authority of this democratic system and these laws; there must be laws for people to follow, these laws must be observed, their enforcement must be strict and law breakers must be dealt with. ... Procuratorial and judicial organizations must maintain their independence as is appropriate; they must faithfully abide by the laws, rules and regulations, serve the people's interests, keep to the facts; guarantee the equality of all people before the people's laws and deny anyone the privilege of being above the law."
There are two important concepts here: "socialist modernization" was necessary to open China to the world, and "democratic centralism" meant that the country was centrally controlled, but democratic in the sense there must be no suppression or persecution. Elsewhere, the same document says: "The Party members' right to make criticisms within the Party concerning the leadership at higher levels, up to Members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, must be guaranteed and any practice that does not conform to the Party's democratic centralism and the principle of collective leadership should be resolutely corrected."
This is what was meant by Socialism with Chinese Characteristics at the time of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, but none of this is recognizable in today's China, where members of the CCP are clearly above the law, and anyone who criticizes the CCP can be thrown into jail.
When Xi Jinping listed the three major outcomes of the May Fourth Movement, he is probably leaving out the most important: the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre.
In May 1989, exactly 70 years after the May 4th movement, millions of young Chinese students crowded into Beijing to demand greater democracy and less repression, exactly what Deng Xiaoping had called for. On June 4, Chinese troops and security police stormed through Tiananmen Square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of protesters. Thousands of students were killed, and tens of thousands were arrested.
That wasn't the only thing that happened around that time. On December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union was collapsed, and all the former Soviet republics became independent self-governing nations.
Arguably, the collapse of the Soviet Union was more traumatic to the CCP than even the Tiananmen Square massacre. Suddenly, the leadership of the CCP were staring death in the face, as they considered the fact something like that Tiananmen Square protests could force the Chinese Communist Party to collapse as well. Ever since the Bolshevik Revolution, Russian communism had always been the role model for Chinese communism. If Russian communism could collapse, then so could Chinese communism.
In the 1990s, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics began to take on a whole new and far darker and more sinister meaning. The CCP leadership became increasingly paranoid, and began seeing ghosts. Centralism was still in play, but democratic centralism was gone. The "right to make criticisms" was gone, and any criticism of the CCP leadership could lead to torture, rape and jailing.
Religious persecution surged. The Buddhism-based Falun Gong movement was and is particularly targeted, after millions of people became practioners of their form of meditation. The CCP has increasingly cracked down on Christianity and even Daoism, for fear their practice could lead to overthrow of the CCP. Beijing Review (26-May-2009) and Economist and China Global Television Network and South China Morning Post
Deng Xiaoping's reforms are almost completely unrecognizable in today's CCP, led by Xi Jinping. Consider Deng's "24-Character Strategy" (24 Chinese characters):
"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."
Xi Jinping is certainly not following Deng's advice. China today is belligerent, boastful, and militarily threatening to anyone who does not do as China demands. It's the opposite of Deng's advice.
The May 4th Movement led immediately to two disastrous Chinese leaders -- Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong -- and to China's bloody civil war (the Communist Revolution) and then to disastrous domestic policies, including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
Today, China is led by the CCP and Xi Jinping, and the government is insanity on steroids, and is completely delusional and out of touch with reality. There are a couple of examples I like to point to.
One is the fear of Winnie the Pooh, who looks like Xi Jinping. This is actually a real fear, because the deeply paranoid CCP leaders are actually afraid that Winnie the Pooh can be used as a symbol for an internal revolt to overthrow the CCP. Can you imagine Donald Trump or any other national leader being afraid of Winnie the Pooh or some other cartoon character? But that's the state of insanity of China's CCP government.
Another example is the policy of locking up a million Muslim Uighurs in reeducation camps in Xinjiang province. This has got to be the stupidest policy in the history of any country in the world. One would have to be insane to believe that this policy would work to convert the Muslim Uighurs into compliant Han Chinese.
Xi Jinping's own father, Xi Zhongxun, was dragged by Red Guards in front in front of a mob, and jailed in what might be called a "reeducation center" during the time of the Cultural Revolution. In his recent speech, Xi Jinping says that the Cultural Revolution was a "mistake," but that doesn't stop him from the insane policy of doing to a million Uighurs what was done to his own father.
Those are domestic policies. Foreign policies are equally delusional, and are characterized by deception and simple lying. I've studied China's historic claims to the South China Sea, and they're completely nonexistent. China's claims are a complete hoax. When Hitler illegally annexed Sudentenland, he could at least claim that he was protecting ethnic Germans. But there are no ethnic Chinese in the South China Sea. China's claims are a hoax.
In 2015, Xi told Barack Obama that China would not militarize the South China Sea. Today, the South China Sea is bristling with Chinese military bases and weapons. Xi's statement was a complete lie, just like Hitler's promise of "peace in our time."
At first, China pitched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as an exciting new version of the ancient Silk Road that connected China to Europe. However, it's increasingly seen as a policy of building infrastructure in other countries for the purpose of allowing China to exploit each country's natural resources. The Chinese "debt trap diplomacy" model is to send in thousands of Chinese workers, lend money to the government and demand that they use the money to pay the salaries of the Chinese workers, who then use the money to send to their families back home or to purchase Chinese products within their enclave. The country cannot afford to pay back the loan, and the Chinese workers stay there forever.
One can see the elements of revenge in these policies. Xi Jinping and the Chinese blame the world for "the humiliation of the Chinese nation for centuries," and now are adopting policies to exploit and humiliate the other countries of the world.
This brings us back to understanding how incompetent China is to governing itself. When the Manchus governed China, there was some sanity. Today, Xi Jinping and the CCP have no clue how to govern their own country or how to navigate in the world. Today, the meek, naive, credulous Chinese people are being governed by another monstrous authoritarian government, led by an incompetent leader Xi Jinping, who has adopted one insane policy after another, with no idea what to do next.
The most insane policy of all is its preparation for war. China has developed one nuclear ballistic weapons system after another with no purpose except to attack American cities, American bases, and American aircraft carriers. China has nothing to offer the world except that it has become an aggressive, imperial, militaristic nation that will launch a war that it will lose, but not before it's brought catastrophe to itself and the entire world. Financial Times and American Thinker
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Dec-18 World View -- Xi Jinping's speech on 'the humiliation of the Chinese nation for centuries' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
DRC anti-government protesters attack Ebola clinic in Beni
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
There was supposed to be a presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Sunday, December 23, but it got postponed. The current president, Joseph Kabila, was supposed to step down in December 2016, but he refused to step down and postponed the presidential election for a year. Then, in December 2017, he refused again to step down, and postponed the presidential election for a year, until December 23 of last week.
Kabila himself will not be running, since the constitution limits him to the two terms he's already served. Instead, he has a hand-picked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. Many people believe that if Shadary wins, then he will just be a puppet with Kabila as the puppetmaster.
So Joseph Kabila's election commission (CENI) postponed the December 23 election for a week, until December 30. The reason given is that there weren't enough voting machines.
This week, there are new tactics. Kabila's election commission said that the election will still be held on Sunday, but will be delayed until March in three cities -- Beni, Butembo and Yumbi. The reasons given for Beni and Butembo are that there are Ebola outbreaks in those cities, and that voting would be "dangerous." However, voting has not been delayed in other cities with Ebola outbreaks.
The reason given for Yumbi is that there's violence in Yumbi. Of course there's violence in many DRC cities.
But what's special about these three cities -- Beni, Butembo and Yumbi -- is that all three cities are strongholds for anti-Kabila opposition. Voting will continue as usual in other cities where there is Ebola or violence. So there are 1.2 million votes in these three cities, and there are 40 million registered voters in all of DRC. So Kabila has disenfranchise over a million opposition supporters.
On Friday, Kabila's election commission had some further news. About 20% of the polling stations in the capital city Kinshasa will not be open because of lack of voting machines. There's no word on whether those polling stations will all be in opposition strongholds of Kinshasa. However, the election commission says that voters will be directed to other polling stations in the city.
Kabila cannot afford to simply step down, thanks to rampant, massive corruption. Kabila and his family own, either partially or wholly, more than 80 companies and businesses in the country and abroad. He and his children own more than 71,000 hectares (175,444 acres) of farmland. His family owns diamond mines, a part of the country's largest mobile phone network, companies that mine mineral deposits, gold and limestone, a luxury hotel, stakes in an airline, a share of the country's banks, and a fast-food franchise. With tentacles reaching into so many businesses, it's not surprising that Kabila is willing to use any method -- massacres, atrocities, jailings, torture -- to stay in power. If he were out of power, he and his family and friends might well be jailed or executed.
DRC's foreign ministry has unexpectedly announced the expulsion of European Union ambassador Bart Ouvry, saying he has 48 hours to leave in retaliation for the EU's decision to renew sanctions against DRC officials, including Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, who is Kabila's hand-picked successor. As Minister of the Interior and Security, Shadary was first sanctioned in 2017 for arrests and violent suppression of Kabila's political opposition. AP and Al Jazeera and Reuters and Africa News
Protesters angry with the postponement of Sunday's presidential election in Beni attacked an Ebola clinic in that city on Thursday. During the attack, shots were fired, some tents were burnt down and tables and chairs were stolen. About 21 people fled the clinic though most returned after that attack ended.
This attack is emblematic of the problems that the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners are having in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces of DRC, where the current outbreak of Ebola continues to spread.
As of December 26, a total of 591 Ebola cases, including 543 confirmed and 48 probable cases, have been reported in the two neighboring provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. Of these cases, 54 were healthcare workers, of which 18 died. Overall, 357 cases have died (case fatality ratio 60%).
WHO health officials might have already ended the Ebola outbreak, but they are being prevented from doing their work by the civil war in progress, and now by the demonstrators protesting the cancellation of elections in Beni and Butembo.
In particular, the teams in Beni are unable to carry out critical field work, including vaccinations, contact tracing, and following up on alerts of potential new cases.
WHO is concerned that if there is a period of prolonged insecurity, then there will be increased transmission of Ebola. Fortunately, many people in the local communities, including the local health authorities, are helping the WHO workers. World Health Organization and BBC and World Health Organization and Reuters
Related Articles
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Dec-18 World View -- DR Congo in election chaos, as Ebola continues to spread thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Arabs scramble to regain influence in Syria
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
In a dramatic turnaround, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that it is restoring diplomatic relations with Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria, and reopening its embassy in Syria's capital city Damascus. On Thursday afternoon, the UAE’s chargé d’affaires Abdul Hakim Naimi visited the Damascus embassy and watched the flag being raised again.
UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the UAE hopes to contribute to a political solution to the war:
"[The reopening of the embassy] reaffirms the keenness of the UAE to restore relations between the two friendly countries to their normal course.It will strengthen and activate the Arab role in supporting the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and to prevent the dangers of regional interference in Syrian Arab affairs."
The "regional interference" being referenced is thought to be interference from Turkey, Iran and Hezbollah.
It may already be too late to "prevent the dangers of regional interference" from Iran and Hezbollah. In the past seven years, Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, have brought about then genocide and ethnic cleansing of vast portions of the Syria's Sunni Arab population, and is repopulating the cleansed areas with Shia Muslims families from Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah. ( "1-Dec-18 World View -- Evidence grows of Assad's 'final solution', extermination of Arab Sunnis in Syria")
Al-Assad's Shia/Alawite Syrian army has always fought the civil war half-heartedly, with crippling defections and desertions. The army almost collapsed in 2015, until al-Assad begged for help and was saved by the massive intervention by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. That massive intervention continues until the present time, in the form of the "regional interference" that UAE's foreign ministry was referring to. So that's why preventing "the dangers of regional interference" may no longer be possible. The National (UAE) and Reuter and AP and The National (UAE)
Al-Assad's massive attacks on the Sunni Arabs had several major consequences. One was that Syria was expelled from the Arab League, something that may now be reversed, beginning with the restoration of diplomatic relations by UAE.
Officials from some Arab countries are now expressing regret that Syria was expelled from the Arab League, since it meant a complete loss of influence by the other Arab League members. But these crocodile tears ignore the reality of what was going on in 2011.
By August of 2011, it was becoming clear that al-Assad was conducting genocidal and ethnic cleansing attacks on Sunni Arabs, and this was shocking and repulsive to the other Arab states. Arab nations stayed silent for several months, hoping that the carnage would end, but finally they broke their silence in August, after the Syrian army first attacked Homa and then began attacking the city of Deir Ezzor. The technique being used in each of these cities is that tanks first surround the city to prevent anyone from fleeing and then, once the city is sealed, the tanks start flattening residential neighborhoods and the snipers kill anyone on the street, even children. This is a classic ethnic cleansing technique.
Al-Assad's actions were so shocking that finally the Arab League Secretary-General issued a statement strongly condemning al-Assad, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE recalled their ambassadors to Syria.
Al-Assad's ethnic cleansing continued to worsen as he attacked the El-Ramel Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia killing many women and children and shocking the entire Sunni Muslim world. By mid-November, the Arab League suspended Syria -- the first such suspension since it expelled Egypt in 1979 for signing a peace treaty with Israel. To claim today that Syria should never have been expelled completely ignores the fury and chaos at the time.
The attack on the Latakia refugee camp also led to the creation of ISIS. Al-Assad's attacks drew tens of thousands of young Sunni jihadists from over 80 countries to Syria to fight al-Assad, and by 2014 they had formed the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL), and took control of a large region of eastern Syria, with the headquarters of its Caliphate in the Syrian city of al-Raqqa, with a population over 300,000. It took a joint operation by American forces leading the Kurdish Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) to recapture al-Raqqa.
With the recent announcement by President Trump that American troops will be withdrawn from Syria, UAE's decision to restore relations with Syria takes on a much greater significance and urgency than before. The American withdrawal will create a vacuum in the huge eastern part of Syria, and that region will might now be taken over by Iran and Hezbollah.
It's also increasing calls across the Arab world to re-admit Syria into the Arab League. With millions of Sunni Arabs slaughtered or expelled from Syria, and their homes replaced by Shia Muslim families from Iran, it now seems likely that Iran will have a great deal of influence in Syria.
The war in Syria is far from over. With American troops withdrawing, Turkey has promised to invade Syria and attack the Kurdish SDF, which might bring Turkish troops into conflict with Syrian troops.
Even worse, Idlib province in northwest Syria is currently hosting over three million Sunni Arabs. Al-Assad has vowed to regain control of Idlib, which would amount to genocide and ethnic cleansing of the three million Sunni Arabs currently living there. Idlib is a "de-escalation zone," with Turkey responsible for maintaining the ceasefire. An attack by al-Assad could lead to a full war between Syria and Turkey. Also, it could create a new humanitarian disaster, with millions of Sunni Arabs pouring across the border into Turkey, and from there into Europe, bringing back the days of 2015. The National (UAE) and Sky News and Press TV (Iran) and The National (UAE) and Al Jazeera
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Dec-18 World View -- UAE reopens embassy in Syria to counter influence from Iran thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
UN prepares Venezuelan refugee crisis, the largest
in modern Latin American history
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Venezuela's economy desperately needs to be able to sell oil in order to survive. But Venezuela's Socialist presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro have done what many might consider to be an almost impossible feat -- turned the country with the largest oil reserves in the world into a country that can't produce oil. When you see something like this, it's almost impossible to believe it happened, but this is always what happens with Socialism. Other "Socialist paradise" countries, including China, Russia, East Germany, Cuba and Sweden, have partially or completely turned to free markets as their economies spiraled into disaster, but only two countries in the world haven't -- Venezuela and North Korea. And both are economic disasters as a result.
In Venezuela, Maduro has fulfilled his Socialist dreams by turning the country's nationalized oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) over to army generals and other political cronies to run, lest some dirty capitalist make a profit on Venezuela's oil. Well, Maduro has made sure that nobody is making money on Venezuela's oil, including Venezuela.
Oil accounts for about 98% of Venezuela's export revenue, and in November 2017, Maduro put Major General Manuel Quevedo in charge of PDVSA, in the hope of stopping its collapse.
Quevedo is a Maduro crony but knows nothing about the oil industry. In July, Quevedo joined his wife, a Catholic priest and a gathering of oil workers in prayer to ask God to boost oil output. Prayer is a great management technique, but unfortunately, God wasn't listening this time. The collapse has continued, and production has dropped 20% since Quevedo took over, and is now at the lowest level in nearly 70 years.
And now there are reports that Maduro is thinking of firing Quevedo and replacing him with another army general who has no oil industry expertise. Ironically, Quevedo is scheduled in January to assume the rotating presidency of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for one year.
There is one subsidiary of PDVSA that that has increased oil production this year. Sinovensa is jointly owned by PDVSA and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and it accounts for about 10% of Venezuela's oil output.
China has lent over $50 billion to Venezuela through oil-for-loan agreements over the past decade. China has not been producing enough oil to make the debt repayments, and so earlier this year China took over additional control of Sinovensa, and now owns 49% of the joint venture. The result is that oil production from Sinovensa increased 46% since April. Reuters and S&P Global and Hellenic Shipping and OilPrice.com
The problem of refugees fleeing from Venezuela into neighboring countries has become so massive that the United Nations refugee agency has created a Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) involving 95 organizations in 16 countries to respond to the humanitarian needs of the refugees and migrants from Venezuela.
Almost 3.3 million Venezuelans have fled into neighboring countries and beyond. This exodus is already the largest in the modern history of Latin America and the Caribbean and involves both refugees and migrants from Venezuela. UNHCR expects that another two million Venezuelans will flee in 2019, with the result that about 5.4 million Venezuelans, or 17% of the country's total population, will be living abroad by the end of 2019.
The RMRP organizations are also asking for $738 million in financing in hopes of providing assistance to 2.2 million Venezuelans and 500,000 people in the host communities. The United States has earmarked more than $95 million in aid to Colombia, Brazil and other host nations to deal with the Venezuelan crisis since fiscal year 2017.
It's interesting to compare Venezuela and North Korea, the only two major Socialist countries left in the world. Both have devastated economies and enormous poverty. Both of them are supported by Russia and China. Both are international pariahs. There are some differences. Unlike North Korea, Venezuela doesn't have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and people are permitted to leave the country without getting shot to death. Miami Herald and UNHCR and Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP, PDF)
Related articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Dec-18 World View -- Socialist Venezuela's oil output plummets as refugee outflow surges thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Recent generational history of Sudan
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
As of Monday, at least 37 people have been killed by Sudan's security forces attempting to quash anti-government protests that began in the suburbs on Wednesday of last week, and spread to the capital city Khartoum. Security forces have been shooting live fire and teargas into crowds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators.
On Tuesday, police fired into the air, used teargas and hit demonstrators with batons to disperse them as they marched to the presidential palace to demand that Omar al-Bashir, who has been president of Sudan for 29 years, step down. Four members of the Central Doctors Committee, including a doctor, surgeon and medical student -- were shot by snipers Tuesday and were recovering in the hospital.
The protests began last Wednesday, initially over rising prices and shortages of food and fuel, but later escalated into calls for al-Bashir to step down. As we've seen in one African country after another, the leader who has been in power for decades refuses to step down and uses the army and security forces to bash, arrest, torture and kill anyone who opposes him. There's nothing new here.
Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Darfur conflict in western Sudan.
Sudan's last generational crisis war was World War II, and so it's deep into a generational Crisis era. The current widespread protests could possible spiral into a full conflict.
Sudan is a country of more than 40 million people, and is a special case in one sense. It depends on oil revenue, and when South Sudan broke off and became independent in 2011, Sudan lost three-quarters of its oil revenue. CNN and Amnesty International and AFP and Sudan Tribune and Still Sudan blog
Sudan's name in Arabic means "land of the blacks," which gives an idea of the Arab view of the nature of Sudan.
For the purposes of Generational Dynamics, it's easiest to view Sudan as three separate regions, on three separate generational timelines:
The Darfur conflict began in the 1970s as minor land disagreements between farmers and camel herders. Droughts in the 1980s exacerbated the tensions, causing low-level violence. In the 1990s, the Khartoum government armed the Arab herders as the Janjaweed militias, authorizing them to police the Darfur region.
In 2003, the Darfur conflict grew into a full-fledged generational crisis war. In 2007, the United Nations Security Council authorized a large international peacekeeping force in Darfur called UNAMID, but in the last year has been reducing the size of UNAMID, even though hostilities are still occurring in parts of Darfur. Sudan Tribune (12-Nov) and Mideast Forum (March 2001)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Dec-18 World View -- Sudan police crack down violently against anti-government protesters thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
DJIA falls 650 points on Monday
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
It's Christmas in Bethlehem today (Tuesday). Bethlehem is unique in that it celebrates Christmas three times each year:
About 50% of the Palestinian Arab Christian community across Israel and the Palestinian territories belong to the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, and celebrate Christmas on January 7.
Pilgrims from around the world come to the West Bank city of Bethlemen each year to celebrate Christmas at the Church of the Nativity, venerated as the site of Jesus Christ's birth. In past years, tourists have stayed away because of tensions and violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Last year, tensions were high because of repeated violence around the al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount compound, and then again when President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
However, this has been a relatively quiet year in the West Bank, and so this has been a record setting year in terms of tourism. Some three million tourists have visited Bethlehem this year, and the city's hotels hosted an "astounding" 10,000 tourist overnight on Christmas eve. AFP and AP
Related Articles:
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell 652.83 points on Monday, and other Wall Street indexes fell proportionally. CNBC described the market decline as "very orderly."
If the decline continues and becomes "disorderly," then that will be an actual stock market panic. The S&P 500 Price/Earnings ratio is around 20, and has been above 20 for years. The historic average is 14, which means that the stock market is in a huge bubble, and something will trigger a total panic and implosion. The P/E ratio fell to the 5-6 range three times in the last century, the last time in 1982, and when it does, the DJIA will fall to around 3000.
There's been a lot of nonsense on television about President Trump blaming the Fed for a stock market crash. Blaming the Fed does no harm, but it does no good either. It's irrelevant.
There was a similar stock market bubble in 1929. It's been 89 years since the 1929 panic, and to this day nobody knows what triggered it, and why it happened on August 28 rather than a few months earlier or later. The same will be true when the new panic occurs this time. I hope Trump understands that he who lives by the stock market dies by the stock market. Market Watch and Bloomberg
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Dec-18 World View -- Christmas in Bethlehem is the biggest in years thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
The future of Generational Dynamics
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
President Donald Trump's announcements of troop withdrawal from Syria and partial troop withdrawal from Afghanistan signal a major policy change, in that it signals the end of the "War on Terror" that began on 9/11/2001.
The announcement is being widely ridiculed by the mainstream press and politicians, most of whom probably couldn't find Syria on a map if they had to.
Much of the ridicule followed from the letter of resignation from Defense Secretary James Mattis, following Trump's announcement:
"My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances.Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position."
Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the global coalition to defeat ISIS, also resigned. Typical remarks from the mainstream media are that the Trump White House is now in a downward spiral because Mattis was "the only adult in the room."
With this major change of policy occurring right at the end of 2018, an end-of-the-year look at events is in order. As the end of the year approaches, this is a good time for a thorough review of many Generational Dynamics principles and to see how these principles apply to an in-depth analysis of the announced troop withdrawal from Syria. Military Times and Fox News
In the last two years, I've seen and heard one hysterical condemnation of president Trump's policies after another in the mainstream media, mostly from so-called "experts" who have no clue what's going on in the world. These people have been wrong almost every time, but that never stops them.
On the other hand, I've written thousands of generational analyses in the last 15 years, and they've all turned out to be true or are trending true. None has turned out to be wrong.
The withdrawal from Syria signals a major change in policy that has completely baffled the mainstream "experts." So these people have been repeatedly wrong time after time for two years, and I've been repeatedly right for two years, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to be right again, and they're going to be wrong again. So, Dear Reader, believe whom you wish.
In the last two years, I've pointed out many times that Trump's policies make perfect sense when viewed from the point of view of Generational Dynamics. Trump himself is familiar with Generational Dynamics analyses, because he was educated about them by his former chief strategist and advisor Steve Bannon, with whom I worked off and on for several years. And, once again, despite the fact that the mainstream "experts" are totally baffled, Trump's policies in Syria make perfect sense from the point of view of Generational Dynamics.
Actually, this one is pretty easy. The Generational Dynamics prediction has always been that we're headed for a "Clash of Civilizations world war." The "allies" will be the United States, India, Russia and Iran, while the "axis" will be China, Pakistan, and the Sunni Muslim countries.
I've written about the reasons for this hundreds of times, and the summary behind the reasoning is as follows: China is very closely allied with Pakistan, which is very closely allied with the Sunni states. China and India are bitter enemies, as are Pakistan and India. Russia and India are very closely allied, and India is very closely allied with Iran, as Hindus have been allied with Shia Muslims going back to the Battle of Karbala in 680. Connecting the dots, the US is going to be allied with India, Russia and Iran, versus China, Pakistan, and the Sunni Muslim states. If that seems surprising, remember that Russia was our bitter enemy before WW II, was our ally during WW II, and was our bitter enemy after WW II, so you can't judge from today's political alignments how nations will act when they're facing an existential crisis in the form of a generational crisis war.
So that's the Generational Dynamics prediction, and we assume that Trump is aware of it and believes it, as he should. Now we take note of the of the following:
So if you're baffled by Trump's withdrawal policy, just read the above list. When you look at that list, it makes perfect sense to withdraw some resources from Syria and Afghanistan, in order to allocate them to the approaching war with China. It makes perfect sense to prepare for the coming preemptive attack by China on the United States. Keeping troops in Syria does not do that.
So why did Mattis and McGurk leave? I don't know for sure, of course, but I assume that Mattis and McGurk don't believe that we're headed for a war with China. They're wrong. I assume that many people reading this article don't believe that we're headed for a war with China. You're wrong. If Mattis and McGurk want to focus a lot of resources in Syria, then they're "fighting the last war." If Mattis and McGurk are unwilling to face what's going on in the world with China, with startling events unfolding in China almost every day, then Mattis and McGurk should go.
On Sunday morning I listened to the news shows, and heard one "expert" after another talk about "chaos," "Trump out of control," "Trump is crazy," "the wheels are coming off," "Trump should be impeached," and so on. I would be concerned, except that it's no different from what I've heard every Sunday for two years, except that the screams today are perhaps a bit louder and a bit more hysterical and high-pitched.
I have a theory. I think that most people are viscerally aware that we're headed for war with China, and they can't stand to think about it, so they become hysterical and displace their hysteria from China to Trump. There was a similar level of hysteria in the late 1930s directed at Franklin Roosevelt, as the war in Europe against Nazi Germany approached. The best example was Neville Chamberlain's promise of "Peace in our time." Washington Post
The big picture is that it makes sense to withdraw forces from Syria in order to prepare for an inevitable war with China. But many people believe that we have a moral obligation to protect the Kurds and to continue to fight ISIS. (Many other people claim that we never had any business being in Syria in the first place.)
An argument that I heard several times in the mainstream media is: "Trump says ISIS is defeated and he's wrong. ISIS is still in Syria, in Egypt, in Nigeria, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, and so forth. ISIS is spreading around the world, and is nowhere near being defeated."
This argument was put forth by several "experts" -- college professors, book authors, diplomats, etc. And yet, this argument is so dumb that it serves as a good example of brainless idiocy we're seeing as common fare today.
Let's take Egypt for example. Has ISIS really spread to Egypt? The jihadist group in Egypt was originally the al-Qaeda linked Bedouin-based Sinai terrorist group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM). In 2015 it changed its name to al-Wilayat Sinai (Province of Sinai) and changed its allegiance to ISIS. This was a change for public relations reasons, and nothing else. It allows ABM to be associated with an up-and-coming brand name, and it allows Amaq, the ISIS public relations agency, to put out press releases about the group. But it's exactly the same group. Being aligned with ISIS or aligned with al-Qaeda is completely irrelevant. Now that ISIS is on the run, ABM may change their allegiance back to al-Qaeda, though they'll look like complete fools if they do. The point is that fighting ISIS in Syria has nothing to do with fighting ABM in Egypt. The two are completely unrelated except for a public relations link.
This is really basic, obvious stuff, that any so-called "expert" should understand before calling himself an "expert." Instead, these "experts" have no clue what's going on, probably couldn't pick out Syria on map if they had to, are wrong time after time, and yet continue to say one really dumb thing after another. It reminds me of 2007, when a survey by Congressional Quarterly and the London Times revealed that so-called "experts" at the time didn't even know whether al-Qaeda was a Shia or Sunni group. ( "Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans (14-Jan-2007)") All of this goes well beyond ideology. It's sheer ignorance and stupidity, by people who babble endlessly with no idea what they're saying.
So what about ISIS in Syria? Is ISIS defeated there, as Trump claimed? ISIS mainly consists of jihadists who came to Syria to fight against Bashar al-Assad after he began genocidal attacks and ethnic cleansing targeting Arab Sunnis, particularly after his massive attack on innocent women and children in a Palestinian refugee camp near Latakia. ( "1-Dec-18 World View -- Evidence grows of Assad's 'final solution', extermination of Arab Sunnis in Syria")
In November 2016, the US announced a joint operation with the Kurdish led Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) to recapture al-Raqqa, the ISIS "capital city" and "Caliphate," and a city of over 300,000 people, from ISIS. ( "7-Nov-16 World View -- US-backed Kurdish militias in Syria make surprise announcement of Raqqa operation")
That was the commitment that President Obama made, and President Trump followed through on that commitment. There was no commitment to fight ISIS forever, and there was no commitment to protect the Kurds forever. The Kurds are better off today than they were when the joint operation began, and ISIS has been ejected from al-Raqqa, and has been reduced to just one of many local jihadist groups in the world. America's commitment has been met.
I discussed some of these issues in yesterday's article on al-Shabaab in Somalia. America has been fighting the "war on terror" since 9/11/2001, and by one estimate, America is still conducting counterterror operations in 76 countries. And yet, after 17 years, the war on terror has been increasingly a failure. As I've written many times, the current violence in the Arab/Muslim world can be dated to three epochal events that occurred in 1979. These were Iran's Islamic Revolution, the Salafist attack on Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. These three events led to the growth of modern terrorism, including the 9/11 attacks, and there is absolutely nothing that the US can do to stop this, certainly not with US special forces.
Here we have one more example of so-called Mideast "experts" having absolutely no clue what's going on. They have no idea what happened in 1979, they go on tv and make one dumb statement after another, they always turn out to be wrong, but it goes on anyway. That's the world we live in.
One particularly laughable "expert" interview occurred on Sunday on the BBC World Service. The politician made every possible criticism of Trump and the Syria decision that he could think of. The interview lasted about four minutes, and at different times he said that Trump would be turning northeast Syria over to a reconstituted ISIS, and then to Iran, and then to Russia, and then to Turkey, and also to al-Assad. Oh really? Which one is it? And if there's a war among all these groups, does we really want the American military to be involved in it? On whose side? There's a war coming, no matter what we do.
The point is that terrorism will not be stopped, and is the precursor to a larger regional Mideast war that is coming with 100% certainty, pitting Arabs vs Jews, Sunnis vs Shias, and various ethnic groups against each other. This will be part of the Clash of Civilizations world war, and nothing can be done to prevent it.
America's joint operation with the SDF to eject ISIS from al-Raqqa was a benefit to America, to Europe, the Kurds, and the world. But it's over now. America is in no position to fight ISIS forever, or to protect the Kurds forever, and troop withdrawal from Syria was going to happen sometime. Business Insider
In addition to a troop withdrawal from Syria, President Trump announced that 7,000 of the 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan would be brought home.
Ever since President Obama announced the troop surge into Afghanistan in 2009, I've written repeatedly that the Taliban cannot be defeated. This is an outcome of the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and, more importantly, the extremely bloody Afghan civil war from 1991-96. This is yet another example of something that the mainstream so-called "experts" are completely oblivious to, and yet these are the crucial events to understanding what's going on today.
The events of the last ten years have shown that this war cannot be won, and the situation is actually getting worse each year. Earlier this month, Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the incoming head of the US Central Command, testified that the Afghanistan war is unsustainable.
Reducing the number of American troops in Afghanistan does not end our commitment to Afghanistan, which is to aid in the training of Afghan soldiers to defend themselves. It does mean that the Taliban have fewer American targets to kill, which is probably a good thing.
In the past, I've speculated that a part of President Trump's strategy is that, as war with China and Pakistan approaches, to keep American troops active in Afghanistan, and to continue to maintain several American military bases in Afghanistan, including two air bases in Bagram and Kandahar International Airport. If this is the strategy, then removing 7,000 troops will probably not affect it. Fox News
At my age, I'm unable to get employment as a journalist, analyst, or a senior software engineer, because no one wants to hire an older person. (Actually, age discrimination in the computer industry is so great that no one over age 45 or so can get a job anymore.) This means that my only income source is social security, and I'm going to run out of money in a few months, which will be the end of BOTH me and Generational Dynamics. I've done this work for years as a public service, but now that has to end. If you think that this work has been valuable, then any help that anyone can provide to resolve this situation would be greatly appreciated. Resume
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Somalia's 'Black Hawk Down' event affects US policy today
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
A massive car bomb detonated at a military checkpoint near Somalia's presidential palace in the capital city Mogadishu on Saturday, followed by a smaller explosion nearby. At least 16 people were killed, and dozens injured. The bombings appeared to target people heading to work.
Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda linked terror group, took responsibility for the attacks. One of those killed was prominent journalist Awil Dahir Salad.
The attack comes a week after six airstrikes from US warplanes killed 62 al-Shabaab militants, according to the US military.
The US has a huge military base in neighboring Djibouti, from which the US has launched 40 air strikes so far this year, compared to 35 in 2017. It's estimated that at least 400 people have been killed in air strikes since the beginning of 2017, far more than the previous 10 years combined.
US airstrikes have forced al-Shabaab to change its tactics. Instead of targeting Somali government with mass attacks and assassinations, which expose its fighters to airstrikes, they've instead increase urban guerrilla warfare of terrorist bombings.
Al-Shabaab (AS) is an indigenous jihadist terror group which has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda. There is a separate jihadist group in Puntland (northern Somalia) affiliated with ISIS called "IS Somalia" or ISS (Abnaa ul-Calipha). However, ISS has had nowhere near the success in blowing people up that AS has had.
Both groups have been increasingly demanding that businesses pay them taxes, in exchange for "protection" from bombings and terror attacks. Thus, both AS and ISS are increasingly acting more and more like Mafia criminals, rather than pious jihadists. AP and Reuters and BBC and Hiraal Institute
In 1988, a full-scale generational crisis civil war began in Somalia which, combined with a growing famine, was killing tens of thousands of people. In the final days of his presidency, George H.W. Bush committed ordered more than 20,000 troops into Somalia to calm the situation and to “save thousands of innocents from death.”
As always happens in a generational crisis war, the situation deteriorated, and in October 1993, elite American troops launched a disastrous raid in the Somali capital Mogadishu. Two American Black Hawk helicopters were shot down using rocket-propelled grenades. Some of the survivors were rescued, but two pilots were attacked by a mob of thousands of Somalis who hacked them to death with machetes and dragged their mutilated bodies through the streets as trophies. The result was a 15-hour battle that killed hundreds of Somalis, as well as about 18 Americans and two UN soldiers.
The "Black Hawk Down" incident, which was later made into a movie, was the climax of the Battle of Mogadishu and also the climax of Somalia's civil war. Black Hawk Down shocked the American public, and caused the US under Bill Clinton to withdraw its forces from Somalia in 1994, and to be reluctant to intervene in African crises since then. So, for example, the US stayed out of the massive Rwanda massacre in 1994, which is probably just as well.
The American military's hasty retreat was viewed by many as a sign of weakness -- that the United States could not tolerate military casualties. In 1996, Osama bin Laden taunted the Clinton administration about its withdrawal: "You left carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you."
After the terror attack on 9/11/2001, US Special Forces began gradually returning to Africa. By 2016, 17% of all Special Forces deployed overseas were in Africa.
About 40 American soldiers were sent to Somalia in March 2017, the largest deployment of American troops to the Horn of Africa since Black Hawk Down in 1993. Their job was not combat, but was rather to train the Somalis to fight al-Shabaab on their own, supported by American airstrikes.
Today, 17 years after 9/11, it seems clear that the "war on terror" is not being won, and this is causing the Trump administration to reevaluate its military policies. This has resulted in announcements of troop withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, and may lead to other announcements. Washington Post and AP
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Dec-18 World View -- Al-Shabaab double bombing kills 16 people in Mogadishu, Somalia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
NY Times: CPEC in Pakistan will build military jets and weaponry for China
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Ever since the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was launched on May 22, 2013, both the Chinese and Pakistan government promised that the project would bring wealth to Balochistan province, home of Pakistan's marginalized ethnic Baloch people.
Balochistan officials have been complaining for years that Balochistan is being shortchanged, and claim that both Pakistan and China denied. However, it couldn't be verified, because the details of the CPEC deal between Pakistan and China are top secret, just like all the deals in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) program. Many of these deals are assumed to be "debt traps" for the countries involved, ensnaring a country in debt to China that can't be paid back, giving China leverage to take control of land and other assets in the client country.
However, the Balochistan Cabinet were stunned on December 10 when some of the secrecy was pulled back in a briefing, revealing the following:
Pakistan government officials claim that the lack of funding to Balochistan are "concocted stories" to damage the China-Pakistan relationship, and that they are "fully committed" to more investment in Balochistan.
The explosive report showed that the most extreme claims of Baloch activists have turned out to be true. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist terror group, have opposed the project since its inception, claiming that Balochistan was being "colonized" by Punjabi and Chinese workers. ( "6-Nov-18 World View -- Pakistan's Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claims credit for killing CPEC workers")
Insurgents trying to disrupt construction of CPEC projects in Balochistan have killed 66 persons since 2014. The BLA have been conducting a series of terror attacks on Chinese and Punjabi workers, and are promising to continue. Dawn and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Asia Times
Related Articles:
China has demanded that all the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deals be kept top secret, and a recent report has revealed one of the reasons why. BRI is supposed to be building roads and bridges and ports.
But according to documents uncovered by the NY Times, China and Pakistan plan to create a special economic zone under CPEC in Pakistan to produce a new generation of fighter jets, navigation systems, radar systems, and onboard weapons. This would expand China and Pakistan’s current cooperation on the JF-17 fighter jet, which is assembled at Pakistan’s military-run Kamra Aeronautical Complex in Punjab province.
China has already signed an agreement with Pakistan to build a network of satellite stations to establish the Beidou Navigation System as an alternative to the American GPS network. This will be major technology that China provides to numerous countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, and strengthens the military space capabilities of the Chinese military.
Revelation of the military deal also resolves a mystery. As we've reported numerous times, Pakistan is on the brink of bankruptcy, and Pakistan’s first debt repayments to China are set for next year, starting at about $300 million and gradually increasing to reach about $3.2 billion by 2026. Pakistan has been begging for money from China, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, and all have refused. Finally, Pakistan asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for another loan, but one of the conditions of an IMF loan is that every detail of the relationship between Pakistan and China would have to be revealed.
Apparently China has had a change of heart. The Chinese Embassy in Islamabad demanded that CPEC deals be kept secret and promised to loan more money to Pakistan.
Generational Dynamics predicts that in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, the "allies" of America, India, Russia, Iran and the West will be at war with the "axis" of China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries. China is Pakistan's "all-weather friend," whose friendship is "higher than mountains, deeper than oceans, stronger than steel, sweeter than honey, and dearer than eyesight." This military relationship brings the two countries ever closer together. NY Times and The News (Pakistan) and India Times
Related Articles
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Dec-18 World View -- China's CPEC project in Pakistan turns military, marginalizing Balochistan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Steve Bannon: Chinese engineers working on American weapons systems
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The Dept. of Justice on Thursday accused China of a massive international hacking scheme that penetrated commercial and military systems in at least 12 countries, including Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
An indictment charged two Chinese nationals, Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong, with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
According to the indictment:
"Over the course of the Technology Theft Campaign, which began in or about 2006, Zhu, Zhang, and their coconspirators in the APT10 Group successfully obtained unauthorized access to the computers of more than 45 technology companies and U.S. Government agencies based in at least 12 states, including Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. The APT10 Group stole hundreds of gigabytes of sensitive data and information from the victims’ computer systems, including from at least the following victims: seven companies involved in aviation, space and/or satellite technology; three companies involved in communications technology; three companies involved in manufacturing advanced electronic systems and/or laboratory analytical instruments; a company involved in maritime technology; a company involved in oil and gas drilling, production, and processing; and the NASA Goddard Space Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In addition to those victims who had information stolen, Zhu, Zhang, and their co-conspirators successfully obtained unauthorized access to computers belonging to more than 25 other technology-related companies involved in, among other things, industrial factory automation, radar technology, oil exploration, information technology services, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and computer processor technology, as well as the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.Finally, the APT10 Group compromised more than 40 computers in order to steal sensitive data belonging to the Navy, including the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, salary information, personal phone numbers, and email addresses of more than 100,000 Navy personnel."
Most of the news coverage has focused on the theft of commercial and military technology, and how that will be used by China's state-run companies and military. These technologies will be useful to the Chinese as they build weapons systems and prepare to launch a war on the United States.
But for this article, I want to focus on the theft of personal data on Americans (and citizens of other Western countries).
This indictment says that a hack of navy computers stole names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, salary information, personal phone numbers, and email addresses of more than 100,000 Navy personnel.
I recently described the Marriott hotel data breach by China's spy agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) which stole names, addresses, telephone numbers, credit card numbers, passport numbers, birthdates, passport photos, hotel arrival and departure dates, and information on where people traveled and with whom on roughly 500 million guests.
Other data breaches attributed to China's MSS include a 2017 Equifax hack that collected detailed credit information on 145 million people, a 2013 Target breach that exposed payment card and contact information for 60 million customers, and a 2015 hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that collected detailed personal information on more than 20 million government employees, family members and applicants. There were other breaches of health-care institutions, including Anthem and CareFirst, that provided health data.
China's military is creating a huge database of hundreds of millions of Americans. Such a database would be illegal in the United States, but it's being done by the Chinese. Dept of Justice and Dept of Justice and UK government and CNBC
China's government has complete control over databases and servers in China, and can delete messages at will on Chinese social media platforms. But social media platforms outside of China, such as Twitter and Facebook, should be out of reach of the Chinese, right? In fact, since Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China, and only a person with sophisticated software skills can get to them from China, the Chinese can simply ignore then, right?
Starting in early November, China's government launched a large campaign to remove from Twitter tweets that the government finds offensive. Many of these tweets were written years ago. Apparently this was done very rapidly, in order to maintain the element of surprise before Twitter users had a chance to arrange for all their tweets to be safely backed up.
If the owner of the Twitter account is in China, the government security thugs simply arrested him, brought him into a police station, and demanded that he access his Twitter account immediately and delete all his tweets. This apparently happened to quite a few people.
In many cases, however, the Chinese government was able to delete tweets from an account without the participation of the account owner, or knowing his password. The methods by which they did this are a sketchy in the reports, but I believe the following is how they accomplished it.
In most online systems, you can change or reset your password automatically, and then the system sends you an e-mail message where you have to click on something to confirm the change. Only the owner of that e-mail account should have access to it, so that should provide a secure means of confirmation.
However, if your e-mail account is in China, then the Chinese government can gain control of it, and then make the password change on the Twitter account, and confirm it on the e-mail account, without you even knowing.
However, many online services go further and also use the telephone. Instead of (or in addition to) sending you an e-mail message. the online service will ring your telephone, using a phone number for you that it has on file, and then the recorded voice says, "press 1 to confirm or 2 to cancel," or something like that.
In America, that should be secure means of confirmation, since only you can answer that phone number. But if it's a Chinese phone number then, as in the case of e-mail, the military can take control of your phone number and then use it to confirm a password change.
There's one more method that China's military could be using. If you have Chinese-manufactured phone from Huawei or ZTE, it's believed that these phones have back doors that the Chinese military can use to access data, or even to control the phone. This would provide another method for confirming a password change.
The point is that China's military is willing to use any means it can to steal information, and they're willing to try everything, no matter how obscure, until something works. That's why they already have a database containing personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Last week, I received a letter from Bowker Corp. saying that their database had been hacked, and my data might have been compromised. There are companies being hacked successfully every day, sometimes by kids in basements, sometimes by the Russians, and sometimes by the Chinese.
The Chinese in particular are using every technique available to them to get as much data on ordinary Americans as they can, and merge it into a database that they can access at any time they want to track someone. Human Rights Watch and Radio Free Asia and Hong Kong Free Press and China Change
There has been a lot of news recently about China's "Social Credit Score" system that has been rumored for a long time and was officially announced in December. China is creating a large "big data" database of all of its 1.3 billion people, accumulating data from a variety of departments and agencies, combining the data in individual data agency databases into a large database, and using it to crease a credit score for every Chinese citizen.
The system will reward "pro-social behaviors," such as volunteer work and blood donations. The system will penalize things like violating traffic laws or charging under-the-table fees. Agencies like tourism bodies, business regulators and transit authorities are supposed to work together. These agencies will provide data on private citizens to the central system, and will then use the credit score to reward or punish citizens. In fact, the system is already partially in place, in that people with unacceptable credit scores have already been blocked from booking more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips. According to reports, other punishments include slower internet speeds, reducing access to good schools for individuals or their children, banning people from certain jobs, preventing booking at certain hotels and losing the right to own pets.
Many Americans and Westerners view this system with little more than curiosity, thinking that applies only to Chinese citizens in China, so it doesn't matter to them.
Starting with Thursday's indictments against Chinese hackers, it's becoming increasingly clear that the Chinese military is going a lot farther, and creating databases of hundreds of millions of people in other countries, whether American, or others. Of course, the data on foreign citizens is not readily available to the military in the way that domestic data is, but the Chinese are employing increasingly sophisticated methods to collect this data on foreign citizens, whether hacking Western commercial or government databases, or using its vast population studying and working overseas to collect data and information and pass it back to China. Bloomberg and Xinhua and Independent (London) and Life Site News
China has a massive population of 1.3 billion people and, as I've written several times in the past, China considers these people to be "magic weapons" to be used in other countries to infiltrate government, military and commercial organizations, and to influence these organizations as well as to collect information about them to be sent back to China's military.
Steve Bannon, formerly the chief strategist and advisor to president Donal Trump, has researched the extent that Chinese engineers are working on American weapons systems.
According to Bannon, many Chinese workers start out as students in American colleges, through Confucius Institutes, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through Beijing's international coercive propaganda agency, the United Front Work Department (UFWD), and funded by China's military. Every aspect of the Confucian Institutes is tightly controlled by the CCP. 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.
Bannon says that Chinese students study in colleges to get access to the latest scientific research to be passed back to the CCP. These students become contractors to get access to the latest American weapons systems, once again for the CCP. According to Bannon, Defense Department reports on the infiltration of China into our research universities and our weapons labs shows extensive infiltration:
"I don't think people understand these reports. These reports are essentially declassified reports that showed that the 300,000 students are here on student visas and the 10,000 contractors that we have the weapons labs -- I think that up to 2/3 of them could be intelligence assets, intelligence officers or agents.This is political correctness and greed and avarice writ large. How did contractors-- and let's call them out-- Booz Allen and all these contractors-- how do these contractors and these big government programs get so many Chinese nationals working into our weapons labs? Our weapons labs are at the cutting edge of national security. How did it happen? ...
The political correctness of it all-- the Financial Times of London leaked the other day that my colleague, Stephen Miller, who's a terrific young man, actually had the plan in place to get all 300,000 Chinese students out of the country with a way to cut the visas off right away. Not that we we're going to execute on it, but it was even in thinking.
And obviously, it got leaked. In the Times, it goes around the State Department, et cetera. Look at all the appeasers. I am so glad. I take great pride that someone like Susan Thornton now owns a farm up in Maine because she was part of this kind of rational accommodationist, this softness in the Defense Department, in the State Department, in our intelligence services that basically went along with what China wanted to do and looked the other way."
A book titled "Silent Invasion: How China Is Turning Australia into a Puppet State," written by Clive Hamilton, documents the extent to which Chinese nationals have infiltrated Australia's government, and influences its policies. Several publishers withdrew offers to publish the book because of pressure from the Chinese Communist Party. As one Australian commenter pointed out, he could walk into any bookstore or library in Australia and find a dozen books that accused the CIA of controlling Australia's government and institutions, and no one would care. However, just one book about China caused a furious, threatening response from China. ( "26-Feb-18 World View -- New book documents extensive Chinese infiltration into Australia's organizations")
The book was finally published in February, thanks to pressure from alarmed members of the Australian parliament's national security committee. His research revealed evidence of CCP influence and infiltration in politics, culture, real estate, agriculture, universities, unions, and even primary schools. The book lists more than 40 former and sitting Australian politicians allegedly doing the work of China's totalitarian Government, if sometimes unwittingly.
Another book documented similar infiltration into New Zealand's government. ( "16-Feb-18 World View -- Concerns grow over China's covert infiltration into New Zealand's government")
There are some changes in the works. Some colleges have severed relations with Confucius Institutes, and 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 force universities to choose between receiving funding the Pentagon and funding from China's military.
The information provided by China's "magic weapons," the Chinese nationals working and studing in the West, can provide a great deal more information to add to the data collected by hacks of hotel databases and other sources. ZeroHedge and RealVision
Related Articles:
Several countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan have banned or are considering banning routers and other equipment from Huawei Technologies Ltd., the world's largest global maker of network gear, because it's feared that these products contain "back doors" that allow them to be secretly accessed and controlled from China. The result is that Huawei is being shut out of supplying products for the latest 5G networks.
As I've said in the past, I've spent a part of my career as a senior software engineer developing chip-level operating system software for embedded systems, so I know exactly how any chip or any electronic device can be turned into a tool for espionage. Furthermore, I can tell you that not only is it doable, it's not even particularly difficult for someone with the right skills.
Now Ken Hu, the chairman of Huawei, is challenging America and other companies to provide evidence that Huawei products are in fact security risks. He complains that the accusations stem from “ideology and geopolitics.” He warned that excluding Huawei from fifth-generation networks in Australia and other markets would hurt consumers by raising prices and slowing innovation.
According to Hu:
"There has never been any evidence that our equipment poses a security threat. ...We have never accepted complaints from any government to damage the networks or business of any of our customers."
The problem is that Huawei could develop a chipset that works exactly as described in the public specifications. The chipset could be subjected to thousands of tests, and they would all work perfectly. But what Huawei could do is install a "backdoor" into the chipset. When the chip receives, say, a secret 1024-bit code, then it will execute commands sent to it by Chinese engineers. Thus, the Chinese are then in control of any devices with Huawei chips, and it cannot be detected until it's too late.
Now, as everyone knows, I'm a very helpful kind of guy, and I want to be helpful to Chairman Hu, and tell him how he can regain the confidence of the West that his chips and devices do not contain back doors. And I offer this advice in the spirit of peace, cooperation and friendship between America and China.
Hu has the burden of proof backwards. He's asking America to prove there's a security risk. Actually, the burden is on him to do the opposite -- prove affirmatively that there's no security risk. How does he do that? Here's how:
This should not be a problem, since China already sends Chinese workers to do the same things in American companies. So Ken Hu should be quite comfortable doing this.
This will permit Ken Hu to prove that Huawei's products pose no security risks, and he can then ask that the bans to their use can be lifted.
I hope that Ken Hu will implement these suggestions, which have been offered in the spirit of peace, cooperation and friendship between the American and Chinese people, and because I would like to help him get the Huawei ban lifted. AP
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Dec-18 World View -- China hackers collect data on hundreds of millions of Americans and Westerners thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Ebola outbreak in DR Congo worsens
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is scheduled to hold a presidential election on Sunday, and this time, Joseph Kabila isn't a candidate. That's because he's already been president for two 5-year terms, and the constitution he can't run again.
Russia's president Vladimir Putin had the same problem in 2008. After serving two consecutive terms as president, Putin was no longer constitutionally allowed to run for president again in 2008. So Putin arranged for Dmitry Medvedev to win the election for president in 2008, so that Medvedev would appoint Putin as prime minister. In 2012, Putin admitted that the whole thing was a scam in order to keep himself in power, and that Medvedev was just a puppet. He ran for president again in 2012 and won, and then appointed Medvedev as prime minister.
Joseph Kabila became president in 2001 after his father, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated. He ran for reelection in 2006, and did the same in 2011. When his mandate ran out in December, 2016, he refused to step down. Instead, he pulled a breathtaking stunt by doing everything possible to prevent new elections from taking place, and then claimed that he couldn't step down because there hadn't been any elections to select a president to replace him.
The country was close to civil war, but the Catholic Church intervened and brokered an agreement: Elections would be held in December of 2017 to choose Kabila's successor, and this time Kabila would really step down. However, the agreement was a farce: It was signed by members of Kabila's government, but it wasn't even signed by Kabila himself. Kabila pulled the same stunt in December, 2017, by doing nothing to prepare for an election, then said he couldn't step down, because there hadn't been any elections.
So this time there's apparently going to be an election, but Kabila has pulled a different stunt. He's arranged for his own puppet, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a former interior minister, to run for president. Shadary was responsible for a violent, deadly crackdown on anti-Kabila protests in 2017, and so he's under sanctions by the European Union.
Corruption in DRC is rampant. Kabila and his family own, either partially or wholly, more than 80 companies and businesses in the country and abroad. He and his children own more than 71,000 hectares (175,444 acres) of farmland. His family owns diamond mines, a part of the country's largest mobile phone network, companies that mine mineral deposits, gold and limestone, a luxury hotel, stakes in an airline, a share of the country's banks, and a fast-food franchise. With tentacles reaching into so many businesses, it's not surprising that Kabila is willing to use any method -- massacres, atrocities, jailings, torture -- to stay in power.
Few people doubt Kabila's plan -- that Shadary become president for a term, so that Kabila can run again after Shadary's term ends, acting as Kabila's puppet in the same way that Medvedev served as Putin's puppet.
Shadary may lose the election. He has no charisma, and he has no experience in politics. He's a nobody. However, he's expected to win anyway because there are two major candidates running against him, and over a dozen minor candidates, and they're expected to split the opposition vote, giving Shadary (and Kabila) the victory.
Kabila has banned election rallies by the opposition. Al Jazeera and Council on Foreign Relations and Guardian (London)
Related Articles
Officials in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have now reported 549 total Ebola cases and 326 deaths. Eighty-two suspected cases are under investigation.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "The outbreak is intensifying in Butembo and Katwa, and new clusters are emerging elsewhere. Over the last 21 days (25 November to 16 December 2018), 120 confirmed and probable cases were reported from 14 health zones, the majority of which were reported from the major urban centres and towns in Katwa (27), Beni (27), Butembo (17), Komanda (16) and Mabalako (12)."
The situation in North Kivu province is the worst possible scenario. There is a major ethnic war in progress, and Ebola is now spreading in the densely populated city of Beni, which became the epicenter of the pandemic. However, the number of cases in Beni seems to have peaked, while the disease has spread to the south and Butembo may be the new epicenter.
The entire region is a war zone, and over one million people have been driven from their homes by armed rebel groups, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), fighting government troops allied with Joseph Kabila. The fighting is preventing doctors and experts from reaching infected people, in order to educate the population and do contact tracing. Without contact tracing, there is no way to stop or slow the spread of the disease.
The Ebola outbreak has been growing, but so far it's been confined to DRC. North Kivu is on the border with Uganda, and many people cross the border between Uganda and DRC each day. It's feared that Ebola will cross the border with the people, but that hasn't happened yet. According to one resident of the village of Mpondwe in Uganda, just across a bridge from the village of Lhubiriha: "I'm scared. Ebola hasn't reached our village but I hear it's coming." AFP and Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDRAP) and AP and CNN
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Dec-18 World View -- DR Congo's Kabila manipulates election to stay in power as Ebola spreads thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
The Jamal Khashoggi murder continues to affect the Yemen war
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Much to the surprise of many people, including me, both sides in the Yemen war agreed to a ceasefire to begin on Tuesday, December 18, and after one day it seems to be holding.
This follows months of heavy fighting in Yemen's seaport city of Hodeidah, in the proxy war between Yemen's official internationally-recognized government, backed by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) versus the Houthi rebels, backed by Iran. The ceasefire agreement was reached last week at UN-brokered talks in Stockhold, Sweden.
The war began in 2015, when Houthi rebels from northwest Yemen took control of the capital city Sanaa, and seized the international airport. In response, warplanes from a mostly Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia bombed Houthi rebel targets.
The war escalated substantially in November of last year, when the Houthis launched a ballistic missile, undoubtedly supplied by Iran, that reached the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, about 800 km from the Yemen border. The Saudis reacted with its own escalation, a blockade of all of Yemen's land, sea and air ports.
The Houthis increased their missile attacks on Saudi cities, and then in June of this year, Saudi Arabia and UAE launched a 'catastrophic' assault on Port Hodeidah in Yemen. The objective was to cut off supplies of Iranian weapons to the Houthis, as well as a source of income.
The Hodeidah deep sea port on the Red Sea has become a crucial asset to the Houthi's war effort. NGOs use the port to import badly need humanitarian aid, including food, water and medicines, for 8 million Yeminis. The Houthis control these imports, and charge duties that fund their war efforts. Furthermore, the Houthis use the port to import Iranian weapons for the war effort.
The blockade of the seaport may have been effective in preventing money and supplies from reaching the Houthis, but it also created the worst humanitarian disaster in the world today, since food, water and medicines could no longer reach Yemen civilians.
Tuesday's ceasefire is not a peace deal. It's a temporary ceasefire that both sides have agreed to so that humanitarian aid -- food, water and medicines -- could be imported into Yemen to alleviate the humanitarian disaster. There are international efforts to extend the ceasefire into a complete peace deal but, assuming that can't be done, the ceasefire may end as quickly as it started. PBS and Sky News and National Interest
Every we read about slaughter, torture, rapes, jailings and atrocities being perpetrated in many countries around the world, so it's still startling to see how the murder of one man on October 2, Saudi national Jamal Khashoggi, in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, is even still remembered today, over two months since it happened.
If Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had simply hired a pait hit man to shoot him dead in the street outside the embassy, it would have been an ordinary murder of the kind that leaders like MBS, Erdogan and others regularly order. Instead, MBS apparently arranged for something out of a horror movie -- kill him, dismember him, dissolve the pieces in acid, ship what's left out of the country -- and if I didn't know that atrocities like that are common these days, I would think it was impossible. But it is possible, it happened, and that's why so much of the world has turned against MBS.
There are two reasons why both sides in the Yemen war agreed to the ceasefire deal.
First is the humanitarian situation. We're used to wars where the atrocities have become unbelievably bad, and nobody cares. But in the case of Yemen, it seems that people on both sides do care -- enough to permit a few days of ceasefire and opening of the Hodeidah port to relieve at least some of the suffering.
Also, I can't prove this, but reading and listening to news reports has given me the impression that the two sides fighting the Yemen war do not have the same level of vitriolic hatred for one another as, say, the two sides in the Syrian war. I read and hear lots of news reports about battles and wars in lots of countries, and there's no question that this war has been extremely bloody, but there seems to be something lacking in the level of vitriolic hatred. As I said, this is a feeling, and I can't prove it.
The second reason is that the Khashoggi murder has motivated the Senate in Washington to pass a resolution directing president Trump to end American support for the Saudis in Yemen. The measure is purely symbolic, since it would be vetoed, but the fact that the Senate passed it has put pressure on MBS to agree to a ceasefire.
The US has a long-standing relationship with Saudi Arabia, dating back to the 1930s, where the US is committed to provide security while the Saudis are committed to providing oil. The relationship has lasted through many crises and, in the end, no one in Washington wants this to be the crisis that ends it. AP and Washington Post and Axios
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Dec-18 World View -- Ceasefire in Hodeidah seaport in Yemen war holds on the first day thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
India's 'Operation all-out' to continue as more
young Kashmiris become militants
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Indian-governed Kashmir was locked down with curfew-like restrictions for a third day on Monday, after seven civilians were killed during a shootout between militants and Indian security forces on Saturday. Armed police and paramilitary soldiers in riot gear fanned out across the region in anticipation of further anti-India protests and clashes. Shops and businesses closed in other areas with no security restrictions. Authorities stopped train services and cut cellphone internet in Srinagar and other restive towns, and reduced connection speeds in other parts of the Kashmir Valley, in order to prevent anti-India demonstrations from being organized.
Seven civilians were killed and at least 36 injured in clashes that erupted after three militants were shot dead in a gunfight in the village of Pulwama in Indian-governed Kashmir during the early hours on Saturday. Two soldiers were critically injured in the encounter, and one died.
The three slain militants were identified as being associated with Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), a home-grown indigenous militant separatist group in Kashmir (as opposed to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based terrorist group). One of the militants was Ahmad Thokar, who had deserted from the Indian army to join HM. These defections have been increasingly common recently. Tribune India and AP and Pakistan Today
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.
We're now seeing the next step in this standard template, as generations of young Muslims in Kashmir become increasingly self-radicalized, and replace the Pakistani-supplied terrorists in Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) with indigenous Kashmiris joining Hizbul Mujahideen (HM).
A major change occurred after the July 8 2016 death of HM leader Burhan Wani in a gunfight with the Indian army. This triggered a continuing series of demonstrations and riots. 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.
In this generational Crisis era, the clashes between young Kashmiris and Indian security forces is providing the motivation for young people to simply disappear and join HM. Parents, according to news reports, are forced to search jihadist social media sites to search for pictures of their sons who have disappeared.
Burhan Wani himself had joined HM after his brother Khalid was beaten up by Indian security forces. After he was killed, he was the inspiration for many others to join HM.
Indian politicians and security forces, who have no understanding of generational theory, have no idea what's going on, and are looking desperately for a way to return to the "normalcy" of twenty years ago. This is impossible, since 20 years ago there were still survivors of the 1947 Partition War who were willing to accept any compromise to prevent anything so horrible from happening again. But those survivors are gone, and the younger generations simply want revenge.
This led India's army in June 2017 to launch "Operation All-Out." Under this plan, the army identified 258 specific militants the would be specifically targeted and captured, thus delivering "a lethal blow to terrorism ... with a long-term plan for a listing peace."
When Operation All-Out was announced last year, the 258 militants were almost all in Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Since then, hundreds of additional militants have been identified, and this time they're indigenous youths joining Hizbul Mujahideen (HM).
However, the Kashmiris have been adapting to Operation All-Out. When Indian security forces are spotted traveling to the home of a suspected militant, the people pour out of their homes and block them.
That's what happened on Saturday. The security forces were targeting three HM militants, when local youths thronged the forces and began hurling stones. This resulted in the live fire that killed not only the militants but at least seven civilians.
Avinash Rai Khanna, a senior Indian politician, says that Operation All-Out will continue "until the last terrorist is eliminated." He blamed the deaths of the civilians on Saturday on the local youths who threw stones. According to Khanna:
"Civilian killings are unfortunate, but when people interfere in operations and try to divert the attention of the forces, mishaps are bound to happen. We can only appeal to people to let the forces do their job in eliminating terrorists and not indulge in activities like stone-throwing or cause obstruction in operations.We had come to power in the state with an agenda of peace and development, but had to back out when things started going haywire. ... We want [Kashmir] terrorism-free. Operation All-out will reach its logical end."
Khanna assumes that the "normalcy" of twenty years ago can return, but Generational Dynamics predicts that the militancy will continue to worsen until the 1947 Partition War in Kashmir is refought. Tribune India and The Kashmir Walla and Hindustan Times and Dawn (Pakistan)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Dec-18 World View -- Kashmir locked down after Indian security forces kill seven civilians thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Japan-Korea relations worsen over 'comfort women' issue
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
On Monday, the Trump administration announced new sanctions against three senior North Korean officials for for human rights abuses and censorship in the country. The new sanctions were in honor of the Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old American college student who died after being released from North Korean custody in June 2017.
According to Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin:
"Treasury is sanctioning senior North Korean officials who direct departments that perpetrate the regime’s brutal state-sponsored censorship activities, human rights violations and abuses, and other abuses in order to suppress and control the population. These sanctions demonstrate the United States’ ongoing support for freedom of expression, and opposition to endemic censorship and human rights abuses. The United States has consistently condemned the North Korean regime for its flagrant and egregious abuses of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and this Administration will continue to take action against human rights abusers around the globe."
The sanctions are for human rights abuses by North Korean organizations that "conduct warrantless searches for unapproved foreign media or content, inspect and confiscate computer content, including external storage devices, and even kidnap defectors or foreign citizens who support human rights in North Korea." ABC News and US Treasury
North Korea on Sunday harshly condemned the U.S. administration for stepping up sanctions and pressure. and warned of a return to “exchanges of fire” and that the denuclearization process could be blocked forever.
According to the North Korean statement, published by the North Korean news service KCNA:
"Now, the international society is unanimous in welcoming the proactive denuclearization steps taken by the DPRK [North Korea] and urging the U.S. to respond to these steps in a corresponding manner. And president Trump avails himself of every possible occasion to state his willingness to improve DPRK-U.S. relations.Far from the statements of the president, the State Department is instead bent on bringing the DPRK-U.S. relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire. I cannot help but throw doubt on the ulterior motive of the State Department.
If they are a sort of diplomats of "only superpower", they should at least realize from the past record of the DPRK-U.S. relations that sanctions and pressure would not work against the DPRK.
The United States will not be unaware of the self-evident fact that its threat, blackmail and pressure against the other side cannot be a solution under the relations of pent-up confrontation, mistrust and hostility between the DPRK and the U.S. and deterioration of the situation that might be incurred by these hostile actions would not be beneficial for peace and security of the Korean peninsula and beyond.
Since we know too well that the deep-rooted hostility between the DPRK and the U.S. cannot be redressed overnight, we have been proposing that the DPRK-U.S. relations be improved on a step-by-step approach of resolving what is feasible one by one, by giving priority to confidence building.
If the high-ranking politicians within the U.S. administration including the State Department had calculated that they could drive us into giving up nuclear weapons by way of increasing the anti-DPRK sanctions and pressure and human rights racket to an unprecedented level, which has nothing to do with confidence building, it will count as greatest miscalculation, and it will block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever - a result desired by no one.
The U.S. should realize before it is too late that "maximum pressure" would not work against us and take a sincere approach to implementing the Singapore DPRK-U.S. Joint Statement."
North Korea gave this statement a great deal of publicity, and so they wanted it to be noticed. And indeed, the international networks all carried it prominently.
An interesting thing about the statement is that it blames the State Dept., and praises president Trump. This is part of the game and the "charm offensive" that's been going on. This way, the North Koreans can threaten the United States, but encourage Trump to make more concessions.
The statement refers to "the proactive denuclearization steps taken by the DPRK." Actually, there have been no such steps that aren't easily reversible. The one big "step" was blowing up the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, but recent satellite imagery indicates that the site is still usable, and that several dozen personnel are still working there.
The one major step that the US has requested was a list of all of North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles development sites, but North Korea has refused to provide this list.
The US has also taken a reversible "proactive step" -- namely canceling all joint military drills with the South Koreans. However, since no progress was being made down the denuclearization path, the US and South Korea resumed some military drills last month.
As I've been saying since the start of the year, when North Korea's "charm offensive" began, the North Koreans have absolutely no intention of denuclearizing. President Trump has been saying that he's in no hurry to conclude a deal, knowing that the sanctions remain on North Korea, and hoping that the sanctions might pressure them to agree to denuclearization. However, as the KCNA statement says, "The U.S. should realize before it is too late that "maximum pressure" would not work against us."
It's worth pointing out that North Korea has been evading sanctions by transferring oil at sea, despite active surveillance and enforcement by an eight-nation coalition, including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, deploying warships and aircraft to better spot sanctions violations.
As before, it's pretty clear to everyone (except the news media and the general public) that the charm offensive was all a show -- that North Korea would never denuclearize, and that Trump would never agree to reduce the sanctions. But all sides kept it up because it solve their immediate political problems by "kicking the can down the road" -- that is, masking and hiding problems and postponing them until later.
In the meantime, North Korea now has completed a year more nuclear and missile development than it had as of a year ago, with the only restriction that they haven't been able to publicly test their latest weapons. It remains to be seen how long this can go on. Reuters and KCNA and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul) and NBC News
Related Articles:
The question of Korean "comfort women" used by Japanese soldiers during World War II is reaching a boiling point again.
On October 30, South Korea's supreme court awarded compensation to four Korean citizens forced to work for the Japanese during World War II. The Japanese claim that all such awards were already paid in a settlement concluded in a 1965 treaty.
This has opened up the "comfort women" issue again. In 2015, Japan and Korean concluded a bilateral agrfeement which was intended at the time as the “final and irreversible” resolution of the comfort women issue. However, South Korea is now saying that demands from the victims is causing the agreement to "wither."
I have witnessed an extremely vitriolic disagreement between two people who, fortunately, were disagreeing online and were not in the same room. The disagreement stems from a 1944 US Army report, based on interrogation of "20 Korean Comfort Girls," which indicates that the girls volunteered for these roles, and they were well-treated by the Japanese soldiers. This issue is certain to be raised again. Japan Today and Diplomat and US Army report (1-Oct-1944)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Dec-18 World View -- North Korea threatens US with 'exchanges of fire' over new human rights sanctions thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Cambodia is becoming increasingly Chinese and military
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Cambodia's prime minister Hun Sen has been forced repeatedly to deny that China was building a military naval base in Koh Kong province on the Gulf of Thailand. A naval base in that location would give China commanding control of the southern part of the South China Sea, which it currently is occupying in violation of international law.
China has long been Cambodia's top provider of military equipment. For years, there has been a Chinese-built $3.8 billion land project in Koh Kong province in Cambodia, along the Gulf of Thailand. The project was begun a decade ago, operating under a 99-year lease granted to China. The land project contains a deep-water port which is said to be deep enough to potentially accommodate not just container ships, but Chinese navy frigates and destroyers as well.
A report last month in Asia Times said that the naval base was already under construction, forcing Hun Sen to make a denial:
"I also received a letter from U.S. Vice President Mike Pence raising concerns of the possible presence of a Chinese naval base in Cambodia in the future.“I want to make clear to our compatriots and foreign friends that Cambodia will not violate its own constitution. Cambodia’s Constitution prohibits the presence of foreign armies or military bases inside the country ... Cambodia will not permit any foreign military base for a navy, army or air force.
That Hun Sen is unwilling to violate Cambodia's constitution is laughable. Earlier this year, his party won a national parliamentary election, taking all 125 parliamentary seats that were up for election. He accomplished that amazing feat by jailing or assassinating political opponents, taking control of all of the media, closed all radio stations critical of the government, and ordered the complete dissolution of the opposition political party -- all of that, presumably, in violation of the constitution.
The size of land granted to China under the 99 year lease is reported to be another violation of the constitution. The grant is 45,000 hectares, while Cambodial law limits such concessions to 10,000 hectares.
So, just like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Bashar al-Assad and other leaders, we can assume that anything that Hun Sen says is a complete lie, except by accident. At any rate his assurances to Mike Pence that China is not building a naval base are completely meaningless. Asia Times and Radio Free Asia and Khmer Times
Sihanoukville, which is in Preah Sihanouk province on the southern border of Koh Kong province, used to be a premier seaside resort and tourist attraction, but has now turned into a Chinese enclave. It's a visible example of the China's rising domination of Cambodia's economy. Hun Sen's critics claim that Hun Sen has enabled China's de facto "colonization" of Cambodia.
Whether or not the Koh Kong deep water seaport will be a Chinese military base, there's little doubt of China's increasing military presence in Cambodia. Cambodia is a key country within Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the seaport has taken on increasing significance. China has pledged $100 million in military grants for training and equipment for the Cambodian military. Sihanoukville has given itself over entirely to Chinese investment, with a $1.1 billion investment from China in just the past year. The key complaint for many in Sihanoukville is that even though Chinese investment brings wealth, it is mainly kept within their own community.
Cambodia appears to be another victim of China's "debt trap diplomacy." About half of Cambodia's $6 in foreign debt is owed to China, and as usual, it's China that has benefited from the infrastructure projects, leaving Cambodia with little more than a pile of debt which it will never be able to pay back.
As happened with Sri Lanka's Hambantota seaport, this could give China complete control over Cambodia's Koh Kong port, and China could use it as a military naval base whether doing so violates Cambodia's constitution or not. Asia Times and Reuters (19-Jun) and Asia Times and Diplomat
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Dec-18 World View -- Cambodia denies major China-funded seaport project is a military base thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Military tensions between Ukraine and Russia are increasing
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the leader of the the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), has sent a letter to the pope and a number of other world leaders urging them to protect bishops and clergy of the ROC in Ukraine, who are under pressure to change allegiance to the Kiev Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the biggest Orthodox Christian Church in Ukraine, and is subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, the Church was also split, with a separate Kiev Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
In October, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the "first among equals" leader of all Orthodox Christian churches and of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians, announced that he was reversing a 330 year old policy, and would make the Kiev Patriarchate a separate Church, independent of the Moscow Patriarchate.
This infuriated the Russians, who promised revenge. This has led to pressure in Ukraine for clergy and bishops in Ukraine belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate to switch allegiance to the Kiev Patriarchate.
According to Kirill:
"Recently, the intervention of the leaders of the secular Ukrainian state in church affairs has acquired the character of gross pressure on the episcopate and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which allows us to speak about the beginning of full-scale persecutions."
Kirill also accused Ukraine's government of a kind of identity theft:
"The state-run media continues a massive company to discredit the Ukrainian Church. In violation of the right to privacy and the prohibition of the use of personal data, personal information about the bishops and clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, available to the state, is published. In particular, the personal data of a significant part of the episcopate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were published on the Peacemaker website along with comments that incited religious hatred,[The Peacemaker website exists with the direct support of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine], and has previously become notorious for publishing information about Ukrainian, American and European journalists, after which they were threatened, beaten and even deprived of life."
Kirill's plea was sent to numerous world leaders, including Pope Francis, the head of the Anglican Community to the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the Secretary General of the World Council of Churches O. Fuxse Tveit, and the UN Secretary General A. Guterres, Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe T. Gremymhramhym, the President of France E. Macron and the German Chancellor A. Merkel as heads of states of the Normandy Four.
Kirill appealed to religious and state leaders, leaders of intergovernmental organizations to make every effort to protect the bishops, clergy and believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from discrimination and pressure from the Ukrainian authorities, to defend the freedom of conscience and religion enshrined in international law. Moscow Times and Russian Orthodox Church (Trans) and AP and Moscow Times
The dispute over the Orthodox Church in Ukraine comes four years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and at a time when military tensions are rising again.
The problem with Kirill's plea is that Kirill is following the policies of Russia's president Vladimir Putin, and Putin lies about everything. These include lying about Russian soldiers in Ukraine, lying after Russians shot down a passenger plane with a Buk missile, lying about not invading Crimea, lying about whether Russia is going to annex Crimea, and then annexing Crimea. There are lots more lies related to Bashar al-Assad's use of Sarin gas and chlorine gas.
So we have to assume that Kirill is just as much a liar as Putin is. Maybe bishops and clergy are being targeted with "full-scale persecutions," and maybe they aren't -- we can't conclude anything from anything that Kirill says.
On the other hand, Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, is claiming that Russians in east Ukraine are organizing church marches in numerous cities across Ukraine on Sunday, in order to disrupt a meeting of the unification council of Ukrainian Orthodox Church. We'll see if these church marches actually take place tomorrow (Sunday). Unfortunately, no one can exclude the possibility that Moscow may launch more serious military actions this weekend with the same purpose.
What is apparent is that military tensions are purposely increasing on both sides. The original Ukraine war that started four years ago has not been in the news much, but it's still continuing at a low level, with both Russians and Ukrainians being killed every week.
On November 25, Russia conducted an act of war by firing on Ukrainian navy ships in the Black Sea, boarding and seizing the ships, and blockading Ukraine's ports at the Kerch Strait. Russia abducted the crew of 24, and apparently tortured some of them in order to create a video and forcing them to confess to crimes they didn't commit.
Russia continues to hold and bury the 24 Ukrainian sailors, possibly in retaliation for the Orthodox Church issue, just as the Chinese have abducted and buried two Canadian journalists, in apparent retaliation for the arrest in Canada of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, after an multi-year investigation revealed massive bank fraud by Huawei in order to violate US sanctions against Iran.
On November 26, in retaliation for the Kerch Strait seizure, Ukraine's parliament voted to implement Martial Law in ten regions of Ukraine for 30 days, in preparation for a possible new invasion by Russia.
Then, on November 30, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine prohibited Russian men aged 16-60 from entering Ukraine. The reason given was to prevent Russia from sending in troops to form private armies, but the restriction played havoc with men who cross the border every day for work.
On December 1, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (UAF) announced short-term, 15-day training courses for reservists and members of the territorial defense forces. Window on Eurasia and Reuters and Jamestown and RFE/RL (Trans)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Dec-18 World View -- Russian Orthodox Church asks world leaders to protect it from Ukrainian persecution thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
The unraveling of Cuba's Socialist economy
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
In the face of popular demand from artists and entrepreneurs, the government of Cuba has backed down on plans to implement harsh new restrictions on the private sector.
In July, Cuba announced the harsh controls on private businesses, to take effect on December 7, claiming that the opening up of some free markets has fueled wealth inequality, tax evasion and the black market.
Since 2010, when it became legal to run certain small businesses, life has been transformed for many people. Around 13% of Cuba's overall workforce is now self-employed, in areas like tourism and transport.
However, the rapid growth of small businesses was apparently threatening to Cuba, and in 2017, it began freezing issuing licenses for some popular business categories.
It appears that Cuba's government is struggling to avoid a total economic disaster as in Socialist Venezuela, at the same time pretending to maintain a Socialist façade in its economy. Thus the government wants people to earn money self-employed in private businesses, but the government wants to forbid a person from making money in two private businesses, since then me might make too much money. Therefore, the government announced in July that it would be illegal for a person to own more than one business license.
So for example, a person renting out a room in his home while driving a private taxi during the day would be making too much money, and would be forced, under the new regulations, to give up one source of income or the other.
So it was a shock that, after years of unyielding authoritarian government under Fidel and Raúl Castro, the new president Miguel Diaz-Canel suddenly reversed some of the worst rules on December 6, just a day before they were to take effect.
The biggest reversal is that Cubans will be permitted to work in two or more self-employment activities simultaneously.
Another abolished rule had set a limit of 50 seats for private bars, restaurants and cafeterias. A law requiring many businesses to maintain bank accounts with a minimum deposit of three months taxes, a requirement that would have put many people out of business, was softened to require only two months taxes.
Artists are applauding the delay in implementing another new law. The law, announced in July, requires prior government approval for artists, musicians, writers and performers who want to present their work in any spaces open to the public, including private homes and businesses. Implementation of the law will be delayed following protests and social media campaigns by many Cuban artists that it was another layer of censorship and control over artistic expression. Miami Herald and Reuters and AP and Miami Herald
There's a certain amusing irony that Xinhua, the official news service the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in a country that is still officially Socialist (but "with Chinese characteristics"), congratulated Cuba on rolling back some of the restrictions on the private sector: "Cuba's government has taken new regulations that will spur the island's fledgling private sector to ensure it continues to expand and create jobs, local media said on Thursday."
Indeed Cuba is in the process of abandoning its Socialist economy and turning to capitalistic free markets, just as China did decades ago, and just as one Socialist country after another had to do in the last 60 years, in order to avoid catastrophic economic meltdowns. Two Socialist countries -- Venezuela and North Korea -- did NOT make that transition, and the disastrous self-destructive results are there for all to see.
From the point of view of Generation Dynamics, Cuba is in the midst of a generational Unraveling era, when the harsh rules set up after the last generational crisis war, in this case the 1960 Cuban Revolution, unravel because younger generations no longer are willing to tolerate them. America's last generational Unraveling era occurred in the 1990s, when the country dismantled the post-Depression financial regulations and opened its foreign policy to Communist countries like China and Russia.
During the last ten years, Cuba's entire Socialist economy has been unraveling, step by step.
In 2010, when Cuba's economy was in shambles, and president Raúl Castro announced the end of the Socialist economy. The government would lay off 500,000 government workers (Socialist bureaucrats) and privatize many businesses.
In particular, Marx's Socialist Principle Of Distribution ("From each according to abilities, to each according to needs") was abandoned at the time, with the announcement: We must reinvigorate the socialist principle of distribution, to pay to each according to the quantity and quality of work provided."
Within two years of the 2010 announcement, the size of the state payroll had been reduced by 20%, and more than 200,000 people had moved into private enterprise. For the first time, Havana was populated with street stalls selling everything from pirate DVDs to kitchen implements. There were still many restrictions on private businesses, but these restrictions are being removed, one by one.
Unfortunately, ending a Socialist economy does not mean ending the dictatorship. Like Nazi Germany and China, a dictatorship with free markets is Fascist. Whether Cuba's dictatorship will also unravel and turn into a democratic government remains to be seen. Xinhua and Reuters
Another sign that Cuba's hardline control over business is unraveling is the availability of internet access to mobile phones across the country. Previously, internet access was limited to state-run internet cafes and public wi-fi hot spots.
Cuba will offer packages of data data ranging from 600 MB for 7 convertible Cuban pesos ($7) to 4 GB for 30 Cuban pesos ($30). The average monthly salary for a Cuban is $30 per month, meaning that few Cubans will be able to afford the service, except for Cubans in the wealthy élite. CNBC and Al Jazeera
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Dec-18 World View -- Cuba eases economic restrictions, continuing on path from Socialism to free markets thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Google CEO Sundar Pichai evades questions about helping China's military
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
As we reported yesterday, China arrested a Canadian journalist and former diplomat Michael Korvig with no charges or justification. ( "12-Dec-18 World View -- China jails Canadian journalist Michael Kovrig in apparent retaliation for Canada arrest of Meng Wanzhou")
On Wednesday, Canada said that a second Canadian, Michael Spavor, has been arrested. He was initially questioned by Chinese police, and then contacted the Canadian government. After that, he disappeared.
The international hostility to China has been growing palpably in the last year. It isn't just the Trump administration that has been critical of China's theft of intellectual property and violation of international trade rules. According to analysts I've heard, politicians in Canada and Europe and Japan are increasingly "fed up" with trying to deal with China.
The Chinese are also growing angrier at the West, but it goes beyond that.
At the same time, China increasingly gives the impression of a country in societal meltdown. The crackdown on Christianity has become more vitriolic, and the policy of sending a million Uighurs to "re-education camps" where they can be beaten, tortured, raped or killed for not reciting the party line is one of the most insane policies in the history of mankind. The number of "mass incidents" in China was increasing exponentially for years, until China stopped reporting the official statistics, and jailed reporters who did so unofficially. It's believed that an economic recession in China could trigger widespread protests or a civil war, as happened with Mao's Communist Revolution (1934-49) or the Taiping Rebellion (1852-64).
Arresting another Canadian for the second day in a row is extremely reckless, because it's going to cause panic among all Western diplomats and executives in China. Even worse, it suggests that China's government no longer cares how bad it looks, and is losing control of its foreign policy.
As long-time readers know, Generational Dynamics has been predicting for years that China and the West are headed for World War III in this generational Crisis era. Things appear to moving quickly now, as relations deteriorate. China Digital Times and Bloomberg and Guardian (London)
Related Articles:
US government investigators blame hackers working for China's spy agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), for a cyberattack on the Marriott Hotel chain that collected personal details of roughly 500 million guests between 2014 and 2018.
The stolen data contains names, addresses, telephone numbers, credit card numbers, passport numbers, birthdates, passport photos, hotel arrival and departure dates, and information on where people traveled and with whom.
Other data breaches attributed to China's MSS include a 2017 Equifax hack that collected detailed credit information on 145 million people, a 2013 Target breach that exposed payment card and contact information for 60 million customers, and a 2015 hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that collected detailed personal information on more than 20 million government employees, family members and applicants. There were other breaches of health-care institutions, including Anthem and CareFirst, that provided health data.
It's believed that China's MSS has created a large database of hundreds of millions of Americans, merging data from all these sources. This data can be used for spying, extortion, identity theft, and so forth.
Taking this a step further, the Chinese company Huawei Technologies is the second largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, behind Samsung. It's believed that Huawei phones and devices can be accessed remotely by China's military, as I described in detail last week, with the result that numerous Western companies are banning Huawei from supplying equipment for their networks.
Huawei phones, like all smartphones, keep track of locations and calling data for its users. This data could be accessed from China and merged with the master data base described above to accumulate detailed personal information and activities of tens of millions of Americans.
China is already doing this for its citizens in China. China's military collects massive amounts of data on online activities and uses street cameras and facial recognition algorithms to track the locations of millions of Chinese citizens in real time. This is particularly true in Xinjiang province, where Uighurs are constantly monitored for suspicious activity, and a million Uighurs have been sent to "re-education camps." Washington Post and AP (3-Dec) and New York Times
In a related matter, Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. He was questioned about the massive amount of data that Google collects about Americans, though not nearly as much as the Chinese are collecting on the Chinese -- or on Americans.
Pichai completely evaded answering questions about Project Dragonfly, the massive project to use search engine technology in China to collect data about search requests and add it to China's huge database of tens of millions of its citizens, where it could be used, for example, to identify "suspicious" activity. Pichai said that the project was under active development, but that there were "no plans" to deploy it in China at this time.
However, Pichai was not asked about the state of the art Artificial Intelligence development center that Google is opening in Shanghai, to supply advanced AI technology to China's government and military, while Google refuses to work with the American military for even defensive purposes. Google apparently plans to help out the Chinese when China and the US are at war, just as IBM helped out the Nazis at the beginning of World War II. The Street
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Dec-18 World View -- China recklessly arrests a second Canadian without justification thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Canada releases Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on bail
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Michael Kovrig, a Canadian journalist and analyst working as a China expert for the International Crisis Group, has suddenly disappeared while in China. Kovrig is also a former Canadian diplomat.
It's assumed the Kovrig was arrested by China's security forces. According to one analyst, the Chinese will hold someone for 37 days before he's given access to a lawyer.
Many people additionally believe that Kovrig was arrested, without charges or justification, in retaliation for Canada's arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested after a multi-year investigation alleging that Meng conducted massive counts of bank fraud in order to violate US sanctions against Iran.
The fact that Meng was charged with multiple real crimes, while Kovrig was arrested without any justification is just one of the differences between the two cases.
A second difference is the Meng was immediately given access to her family and a lawyer, and was told what the charges were. Kovrig has completely disappeared, and is given access to no one.
Third, Meng was tried in a real court, where her lawyer could defend her. If Kovrig's case is typical, he'll be thrown into jail, tortured, and forced to confess to a crime he knows nothing about.
China is just being consistent as a criminal nation. Meng is being tried in a fair court procedure. China's abduction of Kovrig is criminal. China's activities in the South China Sea are criminal. China's theft of other countries' intellectual property is criminal. China's repeated violation of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules is criminal. China's repeated destruction of Christian churches is criminal. China's incredible actions sending a million Uighurs to "re-education camps" where they can be beaten, tortured, raped or killed for not reciting the party line is not only criminal, it's one of the stupidest and most insane policies in the history of mankind. And China is being led by president Xi Jinping who is terrified by Winnie the Pooh because they look the same. Can you imagine Donald Trump or any other world leading being terrified by a cartoon like Winnie the Pooh?
Almost every day something new happens that makes China appear to be a country falling apart at the seams. This is not good, as it will lead to a great deal of bloodshed and a world war. Toronto Star and South China Morning Post and Canadian Broadcasting
Michael Kovrig's arrest without charges or justification, apparently in retaliation for Canada's arrest of Meng, has raised alarm that any Westerner in China is now subject to arbitrary arrest without charges or justification.
There are reports that the US State Department is considering toughening its travel warning for people considering travel to China. However, the State Dept's existing travel warning is already pretty tough, and shows that Kovrig's unjustified rest is pretty common in China:
"Chinese authorities have the broad ability to prohibit travelers from leaving China (also known as ‘exit bans’); exit bans have been imposed to compel U.S. citizens to resolve business disputes, force settlement of court orders, or facilitate government investigations. Individuals not involved in legal proceedings or suspected of wrongdoing have also be subjected to lengthy exit bans in order to compel their family members or colleagues to cooperate with Chinese courts or investigators.U.S. citizens visiting or residing in China have been arbitrarily interrogated or detained for reasons related to “state security.” Security personnel have detained and/or deported U.S. citizens for sending private electronic messages critical of the Chinese government."
It's pretty clear from this State Dept. warning that things like arresting and burying Michael Kovrig are a fairly common occurrence in China. US State Dept.
Michael Kovrig is a fluent Mandarin speaker and an analyst for the International Crisis Group. I was curious to see what he's written, and I found his most recent article on the ICG web site, "China Expands Its Peace and Security Footprint in Africa." It's a lengthy article, and here are some excerpts:
"[O]fficials from 53 African countries and the African Union (AU) [came] to Beijing for meetings that culminated in a resolution to continue strengthening ties and a renewed pledge of billions of dollars in Chinese loans, grants and investments. Over the past decade China’s role in peace and security has also grown rapidly through arms sales, military cooperation and peacekeeping deployments in Africa. ...A more controversial sign of China’s military footprint is the 36-hectare Djibouti facility that the PLA established in 2017 with a ten-year lease at $20 million annually. The PLA describes it as a support base for naval anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, peacekeeping in South Sudan and humanitarian and other cooperation in the Horn of Africa, but has also used it to conduct live-fire military exercises. ...
Less noticeable to outsiders but broader in impact is China’s direct defence and security cooperation with African counterparts. This takes place through a growing number of joint exercises, naval patrols and exchanges. In the first half of 2018 alone, the PLA Navy’s 27th and 28th anti-piracy escort task forces reportedly visited ports in Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana and Nigeria, while PLA units conducted drills in the same countries, and its medical teams did work in Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Zambia. Mere months after Burkina Faso’s May decision to switch diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, the PLA is already working to develop military ties that will likely emphasize counter-terrorism cooperation. ...
The political and defence relationships fostered by these programs grease the wheels for weapons sales. Data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that China has become the top supplier of arms to sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 27 per cent of the region’s imports over the four year period from 2013-2017, an increase of 55 per cent over 2008-2012. Some 22 countries in the region have procured major arms from Chinese suppliers in recent years, key among them Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia. In June, China’s State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence reported that Beijing now has defence industry, science and technology ties with 45 African countries. ...
China’s own expanding economic interests are a further driver. Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009, China increasingly counts on the continent for natural resources and markets to maintain its own growth and social stability. ...
Moreover, roughly a million Chinese are estimated to live and work in Africa, and China’s leaders have a domestic political imperative to ensure their safety. Beijing has already contended with evacuations from Libya, South Sudan and Yemen, and incidents of violence and property damage elsewhere. The 2017 Chinese blockbuster action movie Wolf Warrior II brought home a Rambo-esque fantasy version of these concerns. Set in a nameless African country that descends into chaos, it closes with the hubristic message that China’s government will protect its citizens wherever they go."
China's politicians are people that become infuriated by Winnie the Pooh, so it's not surprising that this criminal nation would be infuriated by this kind of analysis. It's quite possible that they've been planning to arrest and bury Michael Kovrig for some time, and the arrest of Meng Wanzhou provided the perfect opportunity. International Crisis Group (24-Oct)
There was a burst of applause on Tuesday afternoon in the Vancouver Supreme Court courtroom when the court granted bail to Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.
Meng is not scheduled to appear in court again until February 6, at which time a hearing will be held to determine whether Meng should be extradited to the United States for a setting up a complex international financial system, defrauding banks in several countries, in order to violate US sanctions laws with regard to Iran.
The judge said that Meng's husband Liu Xiaozong would pledge a total of $15 million — including the value of two Vancouver homes and $7 million in cash — and live with her to ensure she obeys court conditions. Meng must also report to a bail supervisor, maintain good behavior, live at a house owned by her husband, and stay in that house between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. She must also surrender her passports, wear an electronic monitoring bracelet on her ankle and live under surveillance 24/7.
However, these people are billionaires, and this money means nothing to them. I don't believe anyone will be too surprised if Meng doesn't show up at the February 6 court hearing, and investigation shows that she eluded the police by wearing a turban, a long fake beard, and a Sikh chola, carrying a pair of swords.
Apparently what convinced the judge is that four other friends were willing to guarantee that she would not skip bail. He told the courtroom he believed "the risk of her non-attendance in court can be reduced to an acceptable level" under the bail conditions.
There is an unconfirmed suspicion that the arrest of Michael Kovrig in the criminal nation China was a factor, since not granting bail to Meng could mean torture and additional detention for Kovrig. Even with bail, the suspicion is that the fate of Kovrig is directly dependent on the fate of Meng in the Vancouver courtroom. Toronto Star and Canadian Broadcasting
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Dec-18 World View -- China jails Canadian journalist Michael Kovrig in apparent retaliation for Canada arrest of Meng Wanzhou thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Uganda and South Sudan vaccinate health workers against Ebola
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is now the second-largest in history. The current outbreak, that was declared on August 1, has 471 identified cases, of which 423 are confirmed, including 225 confirmed deaths. However, that's nowhere near the size of the 2014-2016 outbreak that killed more than 11,300 people.
The big difference between the current outbreak and the 2014 outbreak is that an experimental vaccine is available this time, and it seems to be working. Teams of health workers from Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) have vaccinated more than 41,000 people so far. It's estimated that without the vaccine, there would already be more than 10,000 Ebola cases in the current outbreak.
The vaccine is used in conjunction with contact tracing. When an Ebola case is suspected, health workers identify the patient's contacts and their contacts, and all those people are given the vaccine, in case they've been infected.
The current epidemic is centered around the city of Beni in North Kivu province, which is in the middle of a war zone with a population of 400,000. Militias have attacked health workers, making it almost impossible to do the contact tracing necessary to stop the progress of the disease, so it may be 6-12 more months before the current epidemic can be stopped completely.
More worrisome is that the outbreak has been spreading southward, and there are now identified cases in the city of Butembo, which has one million residents. Furthermore, new cases are increasing quickly in the eastern suburbs and outlying, isolated districts. In some cases, not all residents of hard-to-reach communities have received the vaccines. Public and private health centers with inadequate infection prevention and control (IPC) practices continue to be major source of amplification of the outbreak.
The greatest concern now is that it will spread further south to the city of Goma, a major population center and regional hub for transportation -- air, road, truck -- with a population of two million, including the suburbs. No cases of Ebola have been identified in Goma yet.
There may not be enough of the experimental vaccine to service the huge populations in Beni, Butembo and Goma. The current stockpile is 300,000 doses. Merck has a supply of the vaccine, but Merck says that it takes about a year, start to finish, to produce a batch of the vaccine. World Health Organization (WHO) and Australian AP and STAT News
As the Ebola epidemic spreads southward, it has so far remained with DRC. But North Kivu province is on the border with Uganda and South Sudan, and tens of thousands of people cross these borders in both directions every day, so it's possible that the disease will spread into those two countries. If it spreads into a transportation hub like Goma, then it may spread even farther into other countries.
Uganda last month announced plans to roll out vaccinations to 3,000 frontline health workers. According to Uganda's health minister, "We have not waited for the first case to arrive. The vaccination is continuing."
About 2,160 doses of the Ebola vaccine have been allocated to South Sudan and will be administered to healthcare and frontline workers. The country is on high alert and no confirmed case has been detected as of December 8. World Health Organization (WHO) and New Vision (Uganda)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Dec-18 World View -- Ebola in DR Congo spreads southward to large cities thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Analyzing the generational history of an insular Japan
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
In the predawn hours on Saturday, Japan enacted controversial new legislation that will permit 345,000 low-skilled foreign workers to receive labor shortages, especially in such areas as farming, nursing care and construction.
From April 1, a new residency permit category will allow foreigners who have completed some skills training and passed a Japanese-language test to work in Japan for up to five years in 14 industries.
The passage of the new law is almost an act of desperation, as Japan has a low birth rate and an aging population, and needs workers who can build build buildings, and support the elderly and the factories.
However, there is a great deal of opposition to the measure for several reasons.
Foreign workers in Japan have been forced to work at almost slave wages in jobs where they can be abused and exploited.
Labor leaders object to a program that brings in low-wage workers that will take the jobs of Japanese workers.
But most of the objections refer to the Japanese culture. Throughout its history, Japan has been an island shut off from the rest of the world, with its unique shared customs and shared culture, and foreign workers would not fit into that. Furthermore, Japan has a history that a small number of Japanese treat any foreigners as subhuman.
For that reason, the new legislation is including a package of measures to provide skills training, language training, and to ensure decent working conditions. Japan Today and Nikkei and Washington Post and Japan Times
The insular, isolated culture of Japan has presented unique problems in trying to understand its history from the point of view of Generational Dynamics theory.
For the past few centuries, we can divide Japanese history into four distinct periods:
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics theory, the problem occurs in the analyzing the 250 year Tokugawa era. Going 250 years without a major war is not possible. Populations grow exponentially and use up land and water resources, and after a few decades there isn't enough food for everyone, so there has to be a war to restore the balance. So if there were generational crisis wars during that 250 year period, then how come we aren't seeing them?
To put it another way, let's assume that Japan had crisis wars in the 1600-1868 period like every other country. How would those wars be different from crisis wars in other countries?
Xenophobia and nationalism are often defined in terms of things like race, skin color, appearance, language, geography and religion, things that are set at birth and cannot be easily changed. What makes Japan unique is because of its insularity and homogeneity, there is little difference among groups of Japanese in terms of of race, skin color, appearance, language, geography and religion. The only thing that separates one group of Japanese from another would be political beliefs, things that can be easily fudged or even changed.
When historians write about wars during a period, how do they describe the wars? Usually it's "North vs South" or "dark-skinned vs light-skinned" or "Protestants vs Catholics" or "English-speaking vs French-speaking," or something like that. How would a historian describe a war in Japan? In the "Warring Period," it was one warlord versus another.
But in the Tokugawa period, there's apparently no obvious way. There must have been wars, because the population growth would have exceeded the demand for food, land, water and other resources, but how these wars manifested themselves is little understood in the West. This is an area that requires additional research. Japan Times and Columbia University and History.com
Related Articles
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Dec-18 World View -- Japan invites hundreds of thousands of foreigners to work in Japan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Brief generational history of South Sudan and Dinka-Nuer clashes
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
There's an old saying, "Peace is that brief, glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading." That saying may apply to South Sudan, after a peace agreement was signed in September.
The peace agreement was signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on September 12. It was signed by Salva Kiir, the leader of Dinka tribe, and president of South Sudan. The other signer was Riek Machar, the leader of the Nuer tribe, and vice president of South Sudan until 2013, when he was sacked by Kiir.
The sacking led to extremely bloody and violent clashes between Dinka and Nuer militias. The conflict killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, displaced an estimated one-quarter of the population of 12 million, and ruined the economy, which depends heavily on crude oil production.
This was the second or third peace agreement signed since 2013. It calls for an immediate ceasefire. It calls for an end to recruitment of soldiers on both sides, it calls for an end to the trafficking of young girls, and it calls for a power-sharing agreement with the return of Machar to be vice president again in May.
Although low-level violence has been a constant since South Sudan became independent of Sudan in 2011, there were major clashes that began in December 2013. ( "29-Dec-2013 World View -- Conflicts grow in South Sudan and Central African Republic") There followed 21 months of atrocities, until they were supposedly ended by a peace treaty that was signed by both sides in August 2015. By mid-2016, the fight was fully engaged again.
There are concerns that this peace agreement won't last either.
There's news emerging that in the last ten days of November, 150 girls and women were raped near the town of Bentiu. The situation is still being investigated.
And a new report by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan says that both sides are continuing to recruit fighters, many of them just boys.
The problem with the peace agreement is that it was signed by politicians. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, it's the people rather than the politicians who make this kind of decision. The people who are doing the fighting are the members of the Dinka and Nuer tribes, and they hate each other, irrespective of any peace agreement between the politicians.
There has been a letup in the violence since the peace agreement was signed in September, but it remains to be seen whether it will last, or whether it was just a brief, glorious moment when both the Dinkas and the Nuers spent the time reloading. Al Jazeera (12-Sep) and Reuters (12-Sep) and Council on Foreign Relations (26-Sep) and Sudan Tribune and AFP
The Dinka and the Nuer tribes have had conflicts over land for centuries. In numerous other countries, I've described how ethnic wars grow over farmers versus herders. But in South Sudan, both the Dinkas and Nuers are herder communities. The conflict over land is the same, however. Clashes begin during dry periods, when both sides compete for the same land.
Sudan was ruled by the Ottoman empire, and later by an arrangement by an arrangement of Egyptian and British control. When Sudan became independent of Britain in 1956, the north was largely Muslim, Arabic speaking, while the southern population mostly followed tribal religions. The Khartoum government in the north launched a program to "Arabize and Islamize the South." This triggered a reaction from Christian evangelists, mostly from the US, to come to Sudan and convert the South to Christianity.
There was immediately a north-south war of independence, but there was also a generational crisis civil war between the Nuer and Dinka tribes. This was climaxed on November 15, 1991, when the "Bor Massacre" began. Over the next three months, 2,000 civilians were killed, thousands more wounded, at least 100,000 people fled the area. Famine followed the massacre, as looters burnt villages and raided cattle, resulting in the deaths of 25,000 more from starvation.
The nightmare scenario is that the new clashes will spiral into a repeat of the 1991 Bor Massacre. But from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, South Sudan is in a generational Awakening era, so a historic massacre of this type will not occur, despite the enormous ethnic hatred between the Nuers and the Dinkas. Sudan Tribune (24-Nov-2018) and National Geographic (30-Sep-2014) and Vox (9-Jan-2017) and Nyamile (31-Mar-2016)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Dec-18 World View -- Latest South Sudan peace agreement appears close to collapse thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
The story of Stern Hu, an employee of Australian mining company Rio Tinto
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
As we described yesterday, Huawei Technologies chief financial officer (CFO) Ms. Meng Wanzhou was arrested by Canadian police on Saturday, while changing planes in Vancouver. Meng is the daughter of of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, who was previously an officer and engineer in China's People's Liberation Army (PLA). ( "7-Dec-18 World View -- Canada arrests the chief financial officer of China powerhouse Huawei")
Meng appeared in a Vancouver court on Friday, where the allegations were laid out:
If convicted on all these charges, Meng faces up to 30 years in jail in the United States.
The Chinese government has called for Meng’s immediate release, saying that arresting her violates her "human rights."
Meng's lawyers are requesting bail, saying that she's not a flight risk because she would not risk embarrassing her father or her country by fleeing before her extradition hearing. However, Canadian prosecuters say that Meng is the daughter of the company’s billionaire founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a flight risk because of her wealth and the fact that she could face three decades in prison. Washington Post and Reuters (31-Jan-2013)
For reasons that I described in detail in yesterday's article, we have to assume that it is absolutely certain that any Huawei networking device can be controlled remotely by China's military and used for espionage, and that it's impossible to detect this.
On Friday, Japan's government said that it will exclude Chinese telecommunication equipment-makers Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. from public procurement because of security concerns.
Japan joins the United States, Australia and New Zealand in implementing such a ban. Canada, Britain and the European Union are investigating security issues, although Germany's interior ministry opposes banning Huawei. Japan Times and BBC
An example of how Meng Wanzhou might be treated is the tale of Stern Hu, an executive in Australian firm Rio Tinto who was jailed in 2009 and only freed four months ago.
Hu was apparently one of the millions of peaceful student protesters in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that Chinese authorities ended on June 4, 1989, with a bloody massacre that killed thousands of students.
Hu used to work for China International Trust and Investment Co, until a photo surfaced in a magazine showing him participating in the Tiananmen Square protests, at which time he was fired. He traveled to Australia, became an Australian citizen, and in 1996 joined a company that went on to become the international mining giant Rio Tinto. Hu becamse head of Rio Tinto's iron ore business in China.
In 2010, Hu and three other Rio Tinto executives were given hefty jail sentences on charges of corruption and bribery for bribing executives from Chinese steel companies to sign contracts with Rio Tinto. Hu was given a ten-year jail sentence, but he was released in July of this year for good behavior.
The incarceration of Hu Stern can provide precedents for how the case of Meng Wanzhou should be resolved. Telegraph (London, 28-Jul-2009) and Australian Broadcasting (5-Aug-2010) and Mining.com and Washington Post
In yesterday's article, I speculated that the Trump administration will decide to de-escalate this situation quickly by returning Meng to China as soon as possible, in order to avoid risking the current "ceasefire" in the trade war between the US and China.
However, some analysts point out that the opposite may be true, because otherwise our allies may not continue to support us. ZTE is another Chinese company that was severely sanctioned for making illegal sales to Iran. The Trump administration heavily sanctioned ZTE, but the sanctions were reversed as the result of a personal plea by Xi Jinping to Donald Trump. This reversal, according to analysts, confused our allies, who wonder how serious the Trump administration is about enforcing the sanctions against Iran.
Furthermore, Meng went far beyond simply violating US sanctions laws. She set up a complex international system, defrauding banks in several countries, and therefore violating several countries' laws, and so Meng can't be excused unless these other countries agree. (Paragraph added, 8-Dec)
This reasoning indicates that the Trump administration is going to have to follow a hard line in the case of Meng, including giving her a jail sentence, as in the case of the Rio Tinto executive.
At the same time, the Chinese are becoming increasingly infuriated by Meng's arrest. Huawei is perhaps the most respected company in China, and many Chinese people are viewing the arrest of Meng and the banning of Huawei products as part of a policy to contain China.
Chinese people, including Xi Jinping, claim that China has been repeatedly humiliated by countries of the West, starting with the Opium Wars in the 1840s. ( "21-Mar-18 World View -- Xi Jinping invokes the 1840s Opium Wars to justify military action for China's 'rejuvenation'")
Some Chinese are saying that the campaign against Huawei is a continuation of the West's policy of humiliating China and containing China.
I've been writing for years how, as the world goes deeper into a generational Crisis era, countries of the world are becoming increasingly xenophobic and nationalistic, and that eventually this leads to a new generational crisis war. Generational Dynamics predicts that China and the US are headed for a new world war. The Huawei situation has resulted an increase in xenophobia and nationalism in both countries, bringing us one step closer to that world war. Al Jazeera
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Dec-18 World View -- Arrest of Meng Wanzhou of China's Huawei has increasingly serious implications thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
English-speaking 'Five Eyes' countries are banning Huawei products
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
At the request of the United States, Canadian police arrested Ms. Meng Wanzhou (Sabrina Meng), the chief financial officer (CFO) China's telecom powerhouse Huawei (WHA way) Technologies, which was founded by her father Ren Zhengfei. Before founding Huawei, Ren was an officer and engineer in China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).
According to the US Justice Department:
"She is sought for extradition by the United States, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday. As there is a publication ban in effect, we cannot provide any further detail at this time. The ban was sought by Ms. Meng."
Reports indicate that Huawei is alleged to have used the global banking system to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran. In particular, it's believed that Huawei used HSBC Holdings Plc to conduct illegal transactions involving Iran. As CFO, Meng would be intimately familiar with any such illegal transactions.
HSBC Bank plc is a London-based international banking and financial services company. In 2012, HSBC paid a $1.92 billion fine for violating US sanctions and money-laundering laws. HSBC is apparently not under investigation in the Huawei allegations.
Meng was arrested on Saturday in Vancouver airport, as she was changing planes. The arrest occurred at the same time that president Donald Trump and China's president Xi Jinping were having a dinner meeting that led to an agreement for a 90-day "ceasefire" in the "trade war" between the two countries.
Since the arrest occurred shortly before the dinner meeting, there is speculation that Trump timed the arrest to send a message to China and to Xi. However, the dinner meeting was planned well in advance of the arrest, and there would have been no way of predicting that Meng would be changing planes in Vancouver at exactly that time. National security advisor John Bolton says that he knew before the dinner that Meng was being arrested, but said that he didn't brief Trump. Meng may have been put onto a list of people subject to arrest at Canadian airports months ago, but the fact that she happened to change planes in Vancouver on Saturday appears to be purely happenstance.
ZTE is another Chinese company that has been severely sanctioned for making illegal sales to Iran. The Trump administration heavily sanctioned ZTE, to the extent that ZTE would have gone out of business, costing hundreds of thousands of jobs in China, but Trump relented after a personal plea from Xi.
Mainstream media and other politicians are almost universally baffled by Trump's foreign policy actions, as I've pointed out many times. But the policies all make complete sense when you understand that Trump believes (correctly) that the US and China are headed for a world war, and he's adopting policies that he believes will prevent that outcome, even though Generational Dynamics predicts that a world war will happen with 100% certainty, no matter what Trump does.
In the case of the "trade war" policy, Trump has described its purpose as saving American jobs, which is true, but it also has the purpose of throwing China off its game of relentless militarization and preparation for war. However, it's an extremely risky policy because it may actually trigger war if the Chinese panic. The 90-day freeze gives the Chinese some breathing room, and keeps them from panicking.
For that reason, the happenstance arrest of Meng is actually a risk to the ceasefire, since it could infuriate the Chinese to the point of triggering an unwanted reaction, including the arrest of American executives in China. It's possible that the Trump administration will decide to de-escalate this situation quickly by returning Meng to China as soon as possible. Globe and Mail (Toronto) and Reuters and Wired
China's foreign ministry has demanded the Canadians and Americans "immediately clarify the reason for the detention and release the detainee, and earnestly protect the legal and legitimate rights and interests of the person involved."
China's embassy in Canada posted the following:
"At the request of the US side, the Canadian side arrested a Chinese citizen not violating any American or Canadian law. The Chinese side firmly opposes and strongly protests over such kind of actions which seriously harmed the human rights of the victim. The Chinese side has lodged stern representations with the US and Canadian side, and urged them to immediately correct the wrongdoing and restore the personal freedom of Ms. Meng Wanzhou. We will closely follow the development of the issue and take all measures to resolutely protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens."
It's always laughable when China talks about international law or human rights, two things that the Chinese believe don't apply to them, since they consider themselves superior to everyone else. My guess is that Ms. Meng is being held in the equivalent of a suite in a five star hotel. On the other hand, China is a country that kidnaps children, harvests the organs of political prisoners, and has a million ethnic Uighurs locked up in forced reeducation prisons, where they can be tortured raped and killed for saying the wrong thing. I doubt that Ms. Meng is in danger of suffering any of those "human rights" violations. China Foreign Ministry and China's Canadian Embassy
Huawei Technologies is the world’s largest telecommunications equipment provider, and it is the second largest mobile phone manufacturer. It is a pillar of the Chinese economy. Its founder Ren Zhengfei is a former military officer in the People Liberation Army (PLA). Meng Wanzhou is his daughter.
Huawei has been promoting itself worldwide to sell routers and other equipment for the latest technology advance, 5G networks, in countries around the world. Back in August, Australia banned Huawei from supplying equipment for its 5G networks. The United States has done the same, and last week New Zealand did the same.
The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are members of the "Five Eyes" alliance that shares intelligence to combat espionage, terrorism and global crime. Three of these countries have banned Huawei because of a security threat.
As I've said in the past, I've spent a part of my career as a senior software engineer developing chip-level operating system software for embedded systems, so I know exactly how any chip or any electronic device can be turned into a tool for espionage. Furthermore, I can tell you that not only is it doable, it's not even particularly difficult for someone with the right skills.
Huawei could develop a chipset that works exactly as described in the public specifications. The chipset could be subjected to thousands of tests, and they would all work perfectly.
But what Huawei could do is install a "backdoor" into the chipset. When the chip receives, say, a secret 1024-bit code, then it will execute commands sent to it by Chinese engineers. Thus, the Chinese are then in control of any devices with Huawei chips.
As I said, this is not only doable, it's easy to do. The "backdoor" could not be detected until an attack had been launched, and then it would be too late. And since it CAN be done, it's certain that it HAS been done. China has been preparing for war with the West in every possible way, and has conducted cybercrime and espionage on a massive scale. Installing a secret backdoor in its chips would be one of the easiest ways to prepare for war, so there's no doubt that they've done it.
Huawei has been aggressively selling routers and other infrastructure equipment to companies and governments around the world. China could spy on transmissions over these networks or, in the worst case scenario, completely shut down all commercial and government networks during a war. For that reason, Huawei devices are considered to be a security threat. Globe and Mail (Toronto) and AFP and Wired and Guardian (London)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Dec-18 World View -- Canada arrests the chief financial officer of China powerhouse Huawei thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
DJIA plunges 800 points on Tuesday
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
According to Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the incoming head of the US Central Command, the death rate among Afghan government security forces is unsustainable. He said he doesn’t know how long it will take to develop an Afghan force capable of defending its own country.
Speaking at a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, McKenzie said that the war is currently stalemated:
"They’re not there yet. If we left precipitously right now, they would not be able to successfully defend their country.Their losses have been very high. They are fighting hard, but their losses are not going to be sustainable unless we correct this problem."
However, he did not spell out what changes are necessary to correct this problem. Also, he said he doesn't know know how long it will take to develop an Afghan force capable of defending its own country.
Long-time readers will not be surprised by this at all. In 2009, when president Barack Obama announced a "surge" of troops into Afghanistan, mimicking president George Bush's successful troop surge into Iraq, I wrote that the Afghanistan troop surge would not be as successful as the Iraq troop surge. The Iraq troop surge was to eject foreign jihadists from Iraq, and it was successful because the Iraq Sunnis also wanted to eject foreign jihadists from Iraq. ("Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq (01-Apr-2007)")
But the Taliban are not foreign fighters. As I've explained many times, Afghanistan's last generational crisis war was the extremely bloody Afghan crisis civil war, 1991-96, which mostly pitted the ethnic Pashtuns, who are Sunni Muslims and later formed the Taliban, versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. Now, twenty years later, Afghanistan is in a generational Awakening era, and a new young generation of Pashtuns is coming of age, raised on stories their parents told them about the atrocities committed by the Northern Alliance, and they're looking for revenge.
But you don't have to know anything about generational history to understand what's going on. You just have to understand that there was an extremely bloody, violent civil war in 1991-96, pitting the Pashtuns versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. And you have to know that the Taliban are Pashtuns, and that young Pashtuns are looking for revenge for atrocities committed in the 1990s.
That's why the government cannot possibly control the Taliban, and why trying "peace talks" with the Taliban doesn't even make sense. Even if the Taliban leaders agreed to some settlement, it would not satisfy their sons and daughters, who are not going to be deterred in their search for revenge. That's the way the world works.
The Taliban have repeatedly and consistently said that they will not agree to any peace deal until after the Nato troops have withdrawn.
There are some 16,000 American and Nato troops in Afghanistan, acting in a support role to the Afghan army. McKenzie said the U.S. and its allies need to keep helping the Afghans recruit and train forces to fight the Taliban’s estimated 60,000 troops. The 60,000 figure is considerably higher than previous estimates, which were around 20,000. Military Times and AP
At the Senate hearing, an angry Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich, said:
"We’ve been at it 17 years, 17 years is a long time. What are we doing differently when it comes to the Afghan security forces that we haven’t done for 17 years while being focused on this?"
McKenzie said that it's different this time because we have a key, new strategy in Afghanistan: peace talks with the Taliban. I guess he's forgotten numerous attempts at peace talks in the past, all of which have failed for the reasons that I just gave. McKenzie said:
"I don’t know how long it will take. I do know that we’re working it very hard. I do know that they are making improvements. I do know that today it would be very difficult for them to survive without our and our coalition partners’ assistance. And we should remember that NATO and other nations are with us on the ground in Afghanistan."
That last point is true. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says that the Nato countries have reaffirmed their commitment to Afghanistan's "long-term security and stability" despite mounting Afghan casualties.
"Sometimes there is an uptick, an increase in violence because different parties try to gain the best possible position at the negotiating table. So it may actually become worse before it becomes better."
What this obscure statement apparently means is that the "uptick" in violence is a GOOD thing because it means that the Taliban want to gain an advantage before they negotiate peace.
As I've written in the past, there may be a dynamic going on. President Donald Trump's foreign policy is totally baffling to the mainstream media and most politicians, but as a I keep pointing out, everything makes perfect sense once you understand that he believes (correctly) that the US is headed for a world war against China and Pakistan. So there's undoubtedly a larger purpose in not withdrawing from Afghanistan. As war with China and Pakistan approaches, president Trump wants to keep American troops active in Afghanistan, and to continue to maintain several American military bases in Afghanistan, including two air bases in Bagram and Kandahar International Airport. These bases will be valuable in any future war with China. Under these circumstances, having troops in Afghanistan is what matters, whether the Taliban are defeated or not. Stars and Stripes and RFE/RL and Foreign Policy
Related Articles:
 |
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) plunged 800 points on Tuesday. The S&P and Nasdaq indexes fell by equivalent amounts. Undoubtedly many people are like the person whose tweet is shown above who lost his own life savings, but also the life savings of his parents in a single day.
As I'm writing this on Wednesday evening, the Dow Futures Index are down -250 points. Although it may recover in time for the market opening on Thursday morning, this once again reminds us that a full-scale stock market crash is not just possible -- it's absolutely certain. It may happen this week, next month, next year, or thereafter, but it's going to happen.
The S&P 500 price/earnings ratio is around 20, down from 25 a year ago. The historical average for the P/E ratio is 14, meaning that the stock market is in a huge bubble, and this huge bubble will have to pop. The P/E ratio fell to the range of 5-6 three times in the last century, in 1919, 1949 and 1982, and it's overdue to do so again. When that happens, the DJIA will fall to around the 3000 range.
And let's not forget Bitcoin, which was the darling, trendy, highly stylish investment of about a year ago. Bitcoin is an asset with nothing backing it but hot air, and it could well become totally worthless in the next few months.
In the time it's taken me to write that last two paragraphs, the Dow Futures index has fallen further to -360. That's not to say that it won't pop up again, and may even go positive by morning. But what happened on Tuesday is very real, and it could happen to you or to anyone. ZeroHedge
Related Articles
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Dec-18 World View -- New head of US Central Command says Afghanistan war is unsustainable thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Russia 'partially unblocks' Ukraine's ports
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Ukraine said on Tuesday that Russia had "partially unblocked" access to its blockaded Berdyanks and Mariupol ports on the Sea of Azov. As of Monday, ships were allowed to move in both directions through the Kerch Strai separating the Azov and Black Seas, although Russia stops all ships and inspects them.
Russia blockaded access to the Ukrainian ports on November 25, when Russia rammed, fired on, boarded and seized three Ukrainian navy vessels, accusing them of traveling through territorial waters of occupied Crimea, which Russia had invaded and annexed in 2015.
Legal experts point out that under international law, the "innocent passage" of the three ships should have been permitted, even if they were within Crimean or Russian territorial waters.
Analysis of photos of the Ukrainian ships after the incident shows that they were rammed four times by the Russian warship, and that the Russian live fire was aimed to injure or kill the Ukrainian sailors, rather than to disable their ships.
Russia seized 24 crew members in the incident, and charged them with illegal border crossing. The Russians released videos of confessions by two of the Ukrainians. The confessions appear to have been coerced. The 24 crew members have been incarcerated in Moscow.
Observers fear that Russia intends a further invasion of Ukraine after completely blockading the Sea of Azov. Russia denies this, but Russia denied invading east Ukraine when it was invading east Ukraine, Russia denied invading Crimea when it was invading Crimea, Russia denied that it would annex Crimea days before it annexed Crimea, so the denial of further invasion plans is part of the same pattern. Bloomberg and Defense News and Bellingcat and RFE/RL
Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea struck at both Ukraine and Turkey. Crimea is part of Ukraine's sovereign territory, and the population of Crimea prior to the Russian invasion is most Tatars, a Turkic race ethnically related to the population of Turkey. In fact, Russia and Turkey have fought centuries of Crimean Wars.
Last month on November 3-4, prior to the Kerch Strait seizures, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko visited Turkey to meet with Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They discussed issues falling into three main “baskets”: the military, economics, and Turkish arbitration in Ukraine’s relations with Russia -- in particular, concerning the situation of the Tatars in occupied Crimea. This was the latest in Ukrainian-Turkish initiatives to cooperate in the military sphere, including joint development of weapons systems.
The growing military cooperation between Turkey and Ukraine is, at the very least, an annoyance to Russia. Beyond that, particularly with Turkey as a member of Nato, the cooperation limits Russia's hand in the Black Sea.
Since the Kerch Strait incident on November 25, Turkey has offered to play a "mediator" role between Ukraine and Russia to resolve the crisis. Ukraine has made two requests for protection from further aggression by Russia.
First, Ukraine has asked Nato to conduct "Freedom of Navigation Operations" (FONOPS) through the Kerch Strait, just as the US Navy warships conduct FONOPS through the South China Sea. It's unlikely that Nato will grant this request.
Second, Ukraine has asked Turkey to invoke the Montreux Convention, to shut down the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, in order to block passage of Russia's ships between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Once again, it's unlikely that this request will be granted. Jamestown and Anadolu and AFP and UNIAN (Ukraine)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Dec-18 World View -- Ukraine and Turkey develop closer relationship amid Russia's aggression thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
The split deepens between Saudi Arabia and Qatar
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Qatar announced that on January 1 it would withdraw from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
OPEC was founded in September 1960 with five founding members: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Qatar joined in 1961. It consisted of the countries of the world that produced most of the oil, and so it was a cartel that, to some extent, was able to control total global oil supplies, and thereby control prices. As of 2016, the additional members are: Indonesia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Gabon and Angola.
Most Americans had never heard of OPEC and weren't aware of its existence until October, 1973, when they were shocked by OPEC's announcement of an international oil embargo, triggered by US support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war against Egypt. This caused the gasoline (petrol) shortages in the United States, resulting in long lines at gas stations, and a surge in gas prices from about 30 cents per gallon to (horrors!) a dollar a gallon or more.
Qatar is the first Gulf country to withdraw from OPEC. It won't have much effect on the cartel, since Qatar provides only 2% of the cartel's oil. This meant that Qatar really had little influence of OPEC anyway. In fact, the cartel has evolved over the years, to the point where the decision makers are Saudi Arabia and Russia, the latter not even being a member of OPEC. Furthermore, it retains just a fraction of its previous ability to set oil prices, since the United States has for years been flooding the market with oil obtained from fracking.
So the withdrawal of Qatar from OPEC has little more than symbolic value. However, it is an embarrassment, since a major OPEC meeting is scheduled to be held next week.
The reason that Qatar gave for its withdrawal from OPEC is that it wants to concentrate more on liquefied natural gas (LNG). Although Qatar is a relatively small supplier of oil, it's the world's biggest LNG supplier, producing almost 30% of the world's total.
According to Qatar's energy minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi,
"The withdrawal decision reflects Qatar's desire to focus its efforts on plans to develop and increase its natural gas production from 77 million tonnes per year to 110 million tonnes in the coming years. ...We are a small player in OPEC, and I'm a businessman, it doesn't make sense for me to focus on things that are not our strength, and gas is our strength so that is why we've made this decision."
However, many observers believe that the reasons are deeper than just pure business. Reuters and Investopedia and History.com and Gulf Times (Qatar) and The National (UAE)
Although Qatar's al-Kaabi says that the withdrawal is purely a business decision, it's certainly tied into the increasingly toxic geopolitical situation in the Gulf.
Recall that in June of last year, several Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and United Arab Emirates (UAE), broke relations with Qatar and imposed an air, sea and land blockade on Qatar. Amazingly enough, that blockade is still in place. The core of the disagreement is apparently related to Arab tribal differences that go back to World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Shortly after imposing the blockade, Saudi Arabia produced a list of 13 demands that would have to be met to end the blockade. Included were demands to stop supporting terrorism, to sever ties with Iran, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood, and to shut down Al-Jazeera.
Today it seems that all the Saudi demands have backfired, especially after the October 2 gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees the Khashoggi murder as an opportunity to turn the screws on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) by gradually leaking out pieces of evidence about the murder a bit at a time. MBS was probably responsible for ordering the murder, but wants to claim that he knew nothing. Erdogan keeps pulling MBS in by releasing evidence that points to him.
Qatar-based al-Jazeera is also playing a major part in this. While other international news organizations have reduced their coverage of the Khashoggi murder as time has passed, al-Jazeera continues to devote a significant portion of each newscast to the latest on the murder, inviting one expert after another to opine on MBS's relationship to the crime.
Qatar shares the world's largest LNG field with Iran, so the two countries have to cooperate. Furthermore, in a 60 Minutes interview last year, Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said the following:
"Iran is our neighbor. And by the way, us as a country, we have lots of differences and foreign policies with Iran, more than them. But let me tell you one thing Charlie; When those countries, our brothers, blocked everything. Blocked medicine, blocked food, the only way for us to provide food and medicine for our people was through Iran. And when they talk about terrorism, absolutely not. We do not support terrorism."
Turkey also helped Qatar get through the blockade. So if MBS's intention with the blockade was to force Qatar to sever relations with Iran and Turkey, it seems to have accomplished the opposite.
Qatar, Iran and Turkey have been forced into a fellowship by the Saudi blockade. However those three countries are strange bedfellows, with not a lot in common and significant historical differences, so the fellowship may not survive once the blockade ends. Washington Post and Al-Jazeera (Qatar) and CBS News
Related Articles
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Dec-18 World View -- Qatar withdraws from Saudi Arabia-led OPEC thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Dozens of reported measles cases in Israel, New York and
New Jersey, as disease spreads
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Jewish worshippers at a Friday evening service in a temple near Jerusalem were exposed to a patient suffering from measles. Israel's government has directed those attending the service to see a doctor immediately and receive the necessary vaccinations. An outbreak of measles has been spreading in Israel since October, and it's being blamed on the failure of thousands of parents to vaccinate their children, particularly among the ultra-Orthodox communities in Jerusalem.
On average, about half of the population in these communities are not immunized. Israel's Health Ministry is considering new legislation that would penalize parents of children who are not vaccinated for measles and other contagious diseases by the age of one year.
There are 83 known cases of measles in Rockland County, New York, about 25 miles north of New York City. They were spread, among other places, at the Best Buy store in the Palisades shopping center.
There are 18 confirmed cases of measles in Ocean and Passaic counties in New Jersey. More cases are expected, since there's a 5-21 day incubation period after exposure, and a person is contagious four days before and four days after showing signs of a rash.
It's believed that the outbreak started from a man who visited Israel in late October. Asbury Park Press (NJ) and Jerusalem Post and Asbury Park Press
The number of measles-related deaths fell 80% between 2000 and 2017, and it had been hoped that measles might eventually be entirely eliminated.
But the number of reported cases of measles surged by more than 30% from 2016 to 2017. Since not all cases are reported in a timely manner, there may be many more cases -- estimated to be 6.7 million.
According to an official from the World Health Organization (WHO), "[W]e risk losing decades of progress in protecting children and communities against this devastating, but entirely preventable disease."
According to a report issued on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):
"Despite this progress, however, the 2015 global milestones have not been achieved; global [first dose vaccination] coverage has stagnated for nearly a decade; global [second dose] coverage is only at 67% despite steady increases; and [supplementary immunization activities] quality was inadequate to achieve >=95% coverage in several countries. Since 2016, measles incidence has increased globally and in five of the six WHO regions. Furthermore, as of July 2018, endemic measles has been reestablished in Venezuela because of the sustained transmission of measles virus for >12 months; the remaining 34 AMR [North/South America] countries continue to maintain their measles elimination status, but the ongoing outbreak in Venezuela has led to measles virus importations and outbreaks in bordering AMR countries. In addition, the measles resurgence in Europe has likely led to reestablished endemic measles in some EUR countries. These outbreaks highlight the fragility of gains made toward global and regional measles elimination goals."
The statement mentions that Venezuela has had its measles elimination certificate withdrawn. This means that measles is now considered to be endemic in Venezuela, where previously it was thought to be on the path to elimination. Socialist Venezuela's inflation rate is approaching one million percent, many people are no longer able to get food, medicines or medical services, allowing contagious diseases like measles to spread freely.
Measles in other Latin American countries is still on the path to elimination, but over one million refugees have fled from Venezuela to neighboring countries, and it's feared that they will rapidly spread measles in these other countries as well.
Other countries that have lost their measles elimination certificates in the last year include Germany and Russia, meaning that measles is spreading in these countries.
The surge in measles is being caused by a stalled rate of vaccination in the last few years.
World health officials are blaming the surge in measles cases on complacency, as measle rates have declined, and on misinformation being spread by the so-called "anti-vax movement," or "anti-vaxxers" -- people who are refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated.
The misinformation comes from a 1995 theory that the measles vaccine causes bowel disease and autism. This theory has long been completely discredited. The measles vaccine has been proven to be both effective and safe.
Measles is highly contagious. In one in 15 cases, measles can cause life-threatening complications including pneumonia, convulsions and encephalitis. Encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain, and can result in death or disability.
Measles can be prevented by receiving two vaccinations, the first at 13 months old and the second at three years and four months to five years old. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and NPR and WebMD and Daily Mail (London)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Dec-18 World View -- Measles outbreaks in New York, Israel blamed on 'anti-vax' movement thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
G-20 Summit meeting in Buenos Aires ends with multiple compromises
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The G-20 is a group of member nations that represent two-thirds of the world's people and 85% of its economy. The G7 member countries are the United States, Britain, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Canada. Russia was a member (of the G-8), but when expelled in 2013 when it invaded Crimea. The G-20 was formed in 1997 by adding developing nations such as Brazil, China, India, and Russia.
The G-20's primary mandate is to prevent future international financial crises. It seeks to shape the global economic agenda, by combining the perspectives of the major economies with the growing economies in Latin America and Asia. The finance ministers and central bank governors of the G-20 countries meet twice a year. They meet at the same time as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
This year's G-20 summit meeting was a masterpiece of mulitiple compromises designed to keep the summit meeting from blowing up.
A big part of the meeting was to avoid being seen with someone that you didn't want to be seen with. So start with the group picture at the beginning of this article. It was important not to stand next to the wrong person, but it was also important not to smile at the wrong person while people were going to their assigned spots:
 |
Last year's G-20 meeting didn't have a final joint communiqué from all the members because Donald Trump as advocating a protectionist trade policy and also because he had just pulled out of the Paris treaty on climate change. Trump opposed the views of the other 19 countries, so no communiqué could be drafted that they all agreed on.
So this year, they were bound and determined to get out a joint communiqué that everyone would sign onto. Apparently they negotiated all night Friday night, sometimes spending an hour on the wording of one sentence. But they finally had "a breakthrough."
Previous G-20 communiqués had contained text discouraging protectionism, but any such text this year would be clearly aimed at Trump, so would not be agreed. So they agreed to this language:
"27. International trade and investment are important engines of growth, productivity, innovation, job creation and development. We recognize the contribution that the multilateral trading system has made to that end. The system is currently falling short of its objectives and there is room for improvement. We therefore support the necessary reform of the WTO [World Trade Organization] to improve its functioning. We will review progress at our next Summit."
So the breakthrough was that the communiqué specified that the WTO had to be reformed, but did not specify what the reform would be.
That's because different groups wanted different, contradictory reforms. Trump particularly wanted a reform that change China's status from a "developing nation" to a "developed nation," so that it would be bound by the WTO rules, but China of course disagreed with that. China wanted a "win-win" situation where the WTO continues exactly as it has.
When the US helped China join the WTO in 2000, it was with the expectation that China would become an honest member of the international trading community. But the United States position during the last three administrations is that China has repeated cheated and lied, and not followed the WTO rules. Even when the WTO rules against China, China just ignores the ruling (as it has ignored the Hague Tribunal ruling that China's activities in the South China Sea are illegal), and continues to lie and cheat. So the Trump administration would not agree to continue trade rules as they have been.
So the wording of the communiqué, as shown above, will not make any difference in trade, but it did allow the communiqué to be adopted.
The other major problem area is the Paris climate change treaty. All the other 19 countries supported the treaty and wanted to say so in the communiqué, so they compromised on this text:
"20. Signatories to the Paris Agreement, who have also joined the Hamburg Action Plan, reaffirm that the Paris Agreement is irreversible and commit to its full implementation, reflecting common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances. We will continue to tackle climate change, while promoting sustainable development and economic growth.21. The United States reiterates its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and affirms its strong commitment to economic growth and energy access and security, utilizing all energy sources and technologies, while protecting the environment."
So that solved the Paris agreement problem.
Other issues were resolved in similar ways. Vladimir Putin vetoed any reference to the seizure near the Kerch Strait, and any mention of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was omitted. G-20 Final Communiqué (PDF) and Bloomberg and AP
Investors around the world are breathing a sigh of relief today, as Donald Trump and China's president Xi Jinping agreed to a 90-day moratorium on further tariffs in the so-called "trade war." The US has already imposed 10% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, and threatened to raise that rate to 25% on January 1. That change will be delayed for 90 days.
In exchange, the US will get the following:
The trade conflict, which has rattled financial markets and upended global supply chains, began this year when Trump imposed tariffs on a total of $253 billion of imported Chinese steel, industrial products and consumer goods, including handbags, furniture and appliances. Chinese officials, caught off guard by the aggressive U.S. moves, retaliated with import taxes on such American products as soybeans, automobiles and liquefied natural gas. Washington Post and Russia Today and Reuters
Related Articles
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Dec-18 World View -- Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agree to a 90 day moratorium in trade war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Al-Assad issues citizenship cards to Iranian and Hezbollah Shias
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
I've written thousands of articles on Syria since the war began in 2011. There were little bits and pieces of the story that didn't always make sense, but now they're all beginning to fit together, like a collection of jigsaw puzzle pieces fitting together to form a big picture.
The big picture now is that Christian Russia and Shia Iran have joined with the Syria's president Bashar al-Assad to bring about the extermination of Sunni Arabs and Turkmens, and repopulation of their former homes with Shias from Iran and Hezbollah, and their families.
Al-Assad has been moving through different regions of Syria. He begins by bombing peaceful protesters, particularly women and children. As soon as someone become violent in revenge, he declares the whole community or ethnic group to be "terrorists," and uses that as an excuse for full-scale genocide and ethnic cleansing. The genocide is performed with missiles, barrel bombs, chlorine gas and Sarin gas, all particularly targeting women and children, as well as schools, markets, and hospitals.
Al-Assad's ethnic cleansing policy as applied locally to different regions -- Aleppo, Ghouta, Daraa -- has been well-documented by thousands of media reports, as I've been reporting for years. It's been suspected that there's a larger picture that al-Assad was plotting to completely exterminate or cleanse Sunnis across the country. This has been denied by the Syrians and their trolls. However, evidence has been growing in the last six months that show exactly how al-Assad plans to implement his "final solution," eliminating all Sunnis in Syria.
As I reported in May, the ethnic cleansing is accomplished by making it impossible for refugees to return to their homes. Last month, Syria's government passed 'Law #10', which makes it almost impossible for refugees to return to their former homes. There are millions of Syrian refugees who have fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Europe and other countries who will not be able to return home, and are effectively stranded in the country they fled to.
On April 2, the Syrian government of the Bashar al-Assad regime passed "Law #10," a complex new property law that requires property holders in Syria to produce documentation to formally prove ownership of their private property within a period of 30 days, or face confiscation. Since millions of Arab Sunnis have fled to other countries, there is no possibility that they would be able to provide the documentation and proof of ownership. There are also reports that Arab Sunnis who do have proof of ownership are beaten and tortured when they apply to Syrian authorities to have their property restored.
This means that there are large regions of Syria that have been completely cleansed of Arab Sunnis. The only question that remained was: Who was going to occupy the regions that al-Assad had cleansed? Asharq Al-Awsat (Saudi Arabia) and Al Ahram (Egypt, 14-Dec-2016) and Mideast Forum (15-Mar-2017) and Washington Institute
Since late 2016, there have been reports of Iranians moving into the areas that al-Assad cleansed of Arab Sunnis. As reported at the time, a senior leader in Lebanon said, "Iran and the regime don’t want any Sunnis between Damascus and Homs and the Lebanese border. This represents a historic shift in populations."
Recent reports in the last few months describe how al-Assad is arranging for a massive influx of Iranian and Hezbollah Shias to move into the regions from which the Sunni Arabs have been cleansed.
Early this year, Syria announced a plan to issue new ID cards to Syrian citizens as well a new passports, invalidating the old documents.
In recent months, several web sites, mostly opposed to the al-Assad regime, have been posting documents and reporting that the region is naturalizing members of Iranian and Hezbollah militias as Syrian citizens. In combination with "Law #10," previously described, this provides for the repopulation of regions that have been cleansed of Sunni Arabs who are in foreign refugee camps with no chance of reclaiming their property.
One web site posted a Syrian government document granting citizenship to several dozen members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). According to the web site:
"These official documents indicate that the Syrian regime is systematically settling Iranians in different parts of Syria in order to change the demographics [of these areas] by granting citizenship to Shi'ite Iranians and settling them in Sunni areas whose original inhabitants have been expelled... The document presented [here] is not the only one; hundreds of thousands [of Shi'ite] have been granted [Syrian] citizenship and settled in various areas, most of them members and operatives in the Iranian IRGC... These Iranians have begun to receive Syrian citizenship, as preparation for bringing in their families and settling in the areas to which they have been assigned."
In April, a Syrian opposition web site reported that "the Passports and Immigration Department in Damascus recently issued 200,000 passports to Iranians." A Lebanon newspaper, Al-Nahar, reports that the Syrian president "has issued [Syrian] identity cards to some two million Iranians and operatives of militias belonging to the Iranian IRGC Qods Force, and to their families, as well to Hezbollah [operatives]. The [regime] does not just issue them Syrian identity cards, but helps them to settle in parts of Damascus's Ghouta and in the rural areas of Damascus, Hama, Homs and Aleppo that have been emptied of their original inhabitants." The report adds that "many members of the Iranian regime have obtained Syrian identity cards in order to evade the American sanctions." MEMRI (26-Nov-2018) and Guardian (London, 13-Jan-2017) and Syrian Observer (4-May-2018)
As I said earlier, the little bits and pieces of the war in Syria are beginning to fit together, like a collection of jigsaw puzzle pieces fitting together to form a big picture.
Most Westerners assume that once the war ends, Syria will return to some sort of balance such as existed prior to 2011. In particular, the 12 million or so Syrians who have been displaced from their homes, including the millions that have fled to neighboring countries, including Europe, would return to their homes when the war ended, according to the common wisdom.
However, we now know that this will never happen, and that this was never the intention. The millions of Syrian refugees that fled to other countries, many in refugee camps, are stranded there, and will never be permitted to return to their homes.
Many observers are comparing al-Assad's actions to those of Israel in the 1947-48 war between Jews and Arabs. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee from their homes in what is now Israel, and forced to live in Palestinian refugee camps, with descendants who will never be permitted to return to their grandparents' homes. Al-Assad expects the same thing: that Syrian refugees will be forced to remain in refugee camps, and they and their children will never be permitted to return.
One of those Palestinian refugee camps was on the outskirts of Latakia in western Syria. In August 2011, al-Assad launched a violent ethnic cleansing attack, causing tens of thousands of residents to flee. Today, that region is being repopulated by Iranian and Hezbollah Shias.
I wrote about this attack in 2011, before I understood what was really going on. Here's what I wrote at the time:
"Assad's forces have avoided the neighborhoods of Assad's Alawite sect, and instead have been targeting Sunni Muslim neighborhoods, including a large Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia's al-Ramel district. Five to ten thousand refugees were forced to flee, and their whereabouts are unknown, according to the BBC. Newspapers in the region have expressed anger about Arab states' failure to respond to events in Syria.Another report indicates that Assad's security forces began ordering residents of the Ramleh region, which includes a refugee camp housing more than 10,000 Palestinians, to go to a soccer stadium ahead of what they described as a huge military operation. After the people were herded into the stadium, security forces took away their identification cards and cellphones. At least five people were confirmed dead, according to the LA Times"
We now know that in fact this was the beginning of al-Assad's policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Al-Assad used an ethnic cleansing / genocide methodology that he's repeated many times after that. He would begin by bombing peaceful protesters, or any civilians whether protesting or not. Once there was any kind of violent counter-reaction, al-Assad would declare the entire population to be terrorists. He would then go into a full-scale extermination, using missile barrages, barrel bombs, chlorine gas and Sarin gas.
An analogy in America would be if someone from Black Lives Matter killed a white policeman, and the Trump administration retaliated by exterminating an entire population of blacks, using missiles, bombs and other weapons.
Al-Assad's use of chlorine gas was particularly effective. Al-Assad used 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.
It was never entirely clear why al-Assad attacked the Latakia Palestinian refugee camp, but it's now clear that he meant to exterminate or remove all the residents so that the area could be repopulated by Iranian and Hezbollah Shias.
The attack on the Latakia camp had another consequence. The attack was widely reported in Islamic media around the world as an attack by al-Assad's Shia army and Russia's Christian warplanes on innocent Sunni women and children. The result was that tens of thousands of young Sunni jihadists from over 80 countries came to Syria to fight against al-Assad. These were foreign fighters who, in 2014, formed the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
The relationship between al-Assad and ISIS has always been puzzling, because al-Assad and the Russians never attacked ISIS, but always seemed willing to allow them to grow and prosper as if they were al-Assad's ally. As it turned out, ISIS was al-Assad's ally. The foreign fighters in ISIS were fighting for control of territory in eastern Syria and Iraq, and they were fighting Syrian Sunni Arabs to gain that territory. In other words, al-Assad and ISIS were allies, killing the same enemy -- indigenous Sunni Arabs.
ISIS was launching terrorist attacks in Europe, which al-Assad and Vladimir Putin were apparently very pleased about. This justified, and continues to justify, an American military presence in Syria, whether Bashar al-Assad likes it or not. It was only the Americans that were determined to eliminate ISIS. The mainly Kurdish YPG forces, backed by American warplanes and logistics, finally defeated ISIS in their Caliphate capital city, Raqqa.
Idlib is the province in northwest Syria, along the border with Turkey.
As the Syrian regime, along with the Christian Russians and Shia Iranians, conducted ethnic cleansing and genocide in one region after another, Bashar al-Assad always agreed to a "humanitarian" solution, as requested by a series of credulous United Nations envoys, who were all useful idiots. The solution was that any Sunni Arabs that hadn't been killed would be permitted to leave the region and flee to Idlib province.
It now turns out that this was just another part of the jigsaw puzzle that forms the entire picture. Al-Assad has arranged for much of Syria to be demographically changed, with Iranian and Hezbollah Shias and their families to live in areas that have been cleansed of Arab Sunnis. The Arab Sunnis and Turkmens have been gathered into Idlib province in the northwest, where their security is supposedly guaranteed by Turkey, although Turkey seems to be overwhelmed.
So now al-Assad and Iran are in control of western and southern Syria, where they present a continuing threat to Israel. But what's the future of Idlib?
There are three million people in Idlib, and half of them are displaced people who fled al-Assad's violence in other regions. Of the three million civilians, there are an estimated 60,000 or so anti-Assad rebels in Idlib. No one doubts that al-Assad would be happy to kill all three million people in Idlib, using the anti-Assad rebels as an excuse.
Some observers believe that al-Assad will just let Idlib be, even though those anti-Assad rebels could launch attacks at any time on the regime.
Bashar al-Assad is a psychopathic monster, the worst war criminal so far this century. Al-Assad has gotten this far in ethnic cleansing large areas and repopulating the cleansed areas with Iranian and Hezbollah Shias. He is not going to stop at Idlib, even if attacking Idlib creates millions more refugees and the greatest humanitarian disaster so far this century.
For Iran, the goal would be completion of the "Shia Crescent": Support the Houthis to defeat the Saudis in Yemen; continue taking control of the government in Baghdad; repopulate the Arab Sunni areas of Syria with Iranian and Hezbollah Shias; continue to support Hezbollah in Lebanon to attack Israel, and wipe it off the map.
For Christian Russia and Shia Iran, this would be the greatest genocidal victory so far this century.
As I've written many times, Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major regional war refighting the 1948 war between Jews and Arabs that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. The war will also pit Sunnis versus Shias, and various ethnic groups against each other. Iran is controlled by an ancient generation of hardliners whose policies are strongly opposed by the growing population of younger generations. Generational Dynamics predicts that in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, the "axis" of China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will be pitted against the "allies," the US, India, Russia and Iran. AFP (25-May-2018) and Orient News (Syria/UAE, 4-Sep-2016) and MEMRI (26-Nov)
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Dec-18 World View -- Evidence grows of Assad's 'final solution', extermination of Arab Sunnis in Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Dec-2018)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Web Log Summary - 2019
Web Log Summary - 2018
Web Log Summary - 2017
Web Log Summary - 2016
Web Log Summary - 2015
Web Log Summary - 2014
Web Log Summary - 2013
Web Log Summary - 2012
Web Log Summary - 2011
Web Log Summary - 2010
Web Log Summary - 2009
Web Log Summary - 2008
Web Log Summary - 2007
Web Log Summary - 2006
Web Log Summary - 2005
Web Log Summary - 2004
Web Log - December, 2019
Web Log - November, 2019
Web Log - October, 2019
Web Log - September, 2019
Web Log - August, 2019
Web Log - July, 2019
Web Log - June, 2019
Web Log - May, 2019
Web Log - April, 2019
Web Log - March, 2019
Web Log - February, 2019
Web Log - January, 2019
Web Log - December, 2018
Web Log - November, 2018
Web Log - October, 2018
Web Log - September, 2018
Web Log - August, 2018
Web Log - July, 2018
Web Log - June, 2018
Web Log - May, 2018
Web Log - April, 2018
Web Log - March, 2018
Web Log - February, 2018
Web Log - January, 2018
Web Log - December, 2017
Web Log - November, 2017
Web Log - October, 2017
Web Log - September, 2017
Web Log - August, 2017
Web Log - July, 2017
Web Log - June, 2017
Web Log - May, 2017
Web Log - April, 2017
Web Log - March, 2017
Web Log - February, 2017
Web Log - January, 2017
Web Log - December, 2016
Web Log - November, 2016
Web Log - October, 2016
Web Log - September, 2016
Web Log - August, 2016
Web Log - July, 2016
Web Log - June, 2016
Web Log - May, 2016
Web Log - April, 2016
Web Log - March, 2016
Web Log - February, 2016
Web Log - January, 2016
Web Log - December, 2015
Web Log - November, 2015
Web Log - October, 2015
Web Log - September, 2015
Web Log - August, 2015
Web Log - July, 2015
Web Log - June, 2015
Web Log - May, 2015
Web Log - April, 2015
Web Log - March, 2015
Web Log - February, 2015
Web Log - January, 2015
Web Log - December, 2014
Web Log - November, 2014
Web Log - October, 2014
Web Log - September, 2014
Web Log - August, 2014
Web Log - July, 2014
Web Log - June, 2014
Web Log - May, 2014
Web Log - April, 2014
Web Log - March, 2014
Web Log - February, 2014
Web Log - January, 2014
Web Log - December, 2013
Web Log - November, 2013
Web Log - October, 2013
Web Log - September, 2013
Web Log - August, 2013
Web Log - July, 2013
Web Log - June, 2013
Web Log - May, 2013
Web Log - April, 2013
Web Log - March, 2013
Web Log - February, 2013
Web Log - January, 2013
Web Log - December, 2012
Web Log - November, 2012
Web Log - October, 2012
Web Log - September, 2012
Web Log - August, 2012
Web Log - July, 2012
Web Log - June, 2012
Web Log - May, 2012
Web Log - April, 2012
Web Log - March, 2012
Web Log - February, 2012
Web Log - January, 2012
Web Log - December, 2011
Web Log - November, 2011
Web Log - October, 2011
Web Log - September, 2011
Web Log - August, 2011
Web Log - July, 2011
Web Log - June, 2011
Web Log - May, 2011
Web Log - April, 2011
Web Log - March, 2011
Web Log - February, 2011
Web Log - January, 2011
Web Log - December, 2010
Web Log - November, 2010
Web Log - October, 2010
Web Log - September, 2010
Web Log - August, 2010
Web Log - July, 2010
Web Log - June, 2010
Web Log - May, 2010
Web Log - April, 2010
Web Log - March, 2010
Web Log - February, 2010
Web Log - January, 2010
Web Log - December, 2009
Web Log - November, 2009
Web Log - October, 2009
Web Log - September, 2009
Web Log - August, 2009
Web Log - July, 2009
Web Log - June, 2009
Web Log - May, 2009
Web Log - April, 2009
Web Log - March, 2009
Web Log - February, 2009
Web Log - January, 2009
Web Log - December, 2008
Web Log - November, 2008
Web Log - October, 2008
Web Log - September, 2008
Web Log - August, 2008
Web Log - July, 2008
Web Log - June, 2008
Web Log - May, 2008
Web Log - April, 2008
Web Log - March, 2008
Web Log - February, 2008
Web Log - January, 2008
Web Log - December, 2007
Web Log - November, 2007
Web Log - October, 2007
Web Log - September, 2007
Web Log - August, 2007
Web Log - July, 2007
Web Log - June, 2007
Web Log - May, 2007
Web Log - April, 2007
Web Log - March, 2007
Web Log - February, 2007
Web Log - January, 2007
Web Log - December, 2006
Web Log - November, 2006
Web Log - October, 2006
Web Log - September, 2006
Web Log - August, 2006
Web Log - July, 2006
Web Log - June, 2006
Web Log - May, 2006
Web Log - April, 2006
Web Log - March, 2006
Web Log - February, 2006
Web Log - January, 2006
Web Log - December, 2005
Web Log - November, 2005
Web Log - October, 2005
Web Log - September, 2005
Web Log - August, 2005
Web Log - July, 2005
Web Log - June, 2005
Web Log - May, 2005
Web Log - April, 2005
Web Log - March, 2005
Web Log - February, 2005
Web Log - January, 2005
Web Log - December, 2004
Web Log - November, 2004
Web Log - October, 2004
Web Log - September, 2004
Web Log - August, 2004
Web Log - July, 2004
Web Log - June, 2004