Philippine police and vigilantes kill 72 during first week of Duterte government

Joseph Santolan

In the first week of the newly-installed Philippine administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, a total of 72 people have been killed by either the police or vigilantes on accusations of alleged criminality or participation in the illegal drug trade.

Duterte took office on June 30, having campaigned on a law-and-order platform that publicly called for the large-scale, extra-judicial killing of supposed criminals.

Since his election in early May, Duterte has received the enthusiastic support of the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its front organizations. Duterte has now appointed four CPP selected candidates from its front organizations to cabinet positions in his government. The most recent appointee, Liza Maza, will head the National Anti-Poverty Center (NAPC).

On the evening of June 30, after Duterte’s inaugural address and first cabinet meeting, the CPP’s front organizations, at Duterte’s request, arranged a dinner which he attended in the working class and urban poor community of Tondo. A crowd of 500 community members were gathered.

In his speech at the event, Duterte stated to applause that he was a “leftist” and was glad to be working with the Communist Party. He concluded his speech by denouncing drug pushers, “These sons of whores are destroying our children.” He told his audience, “If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself.”

The next morning Duterte addressed the Philippine National Police (PNP) in their headquarters in Camp Crame, during the ceremony installing Director General Ronald de la Rosa as PNP head. He told the police that if “you kill one thousand persons because you were doing your duty, I will protect you.” He instructed the police to “shoot-to-kill” anyone deemed to “resisting arrest.”

The same day the police killed 12 alleged criminals, and vigilantes killed an additional two. Another 12 were killed the following day, seven by police, five by vigilantes. On July 3, 19 were reported killed.

By July 7, 72 two people had been killed in the bloody crackdown—43 by the police and 29 by vigilantes.

The details of many of the deaths are sketchy, but the overwhelming majority were executed in generally impoverished communities such as Quiapo, Muntinglupa, Baclaran and Tondo.

Those killed by vigilantes often had their corpses mutilated. Their bodies have been found hogtied and their eyes blindfolded, shot in the back of the head. Signs were left on the bodies saying “I’m a pusher, don’t imitate me.”

The police killings are likewise often being carried out execution style, with almost no effort being made to depict the victims as having “resisted arrest.” On July 6, for example, two brothers were killed by the police while in custody and handcuffed.

Duterte meanwhile is pursuing other components of his fascistic agenda. He controls a super-majority in both houses of the legislature and has called for measures to reinstate the death penalty and to lower the minimum age of criminal accountability.

Incoming Speaker of the House Pantaleon Alvarez has responded by drafting House Bill no. 1, which re-introduces the death penalty. The only significant debate that the bill currently faces in the legislature is whether the death penalty should be carried out by lethal injection or by hanging. Duterte has strongly called for the latter method of punishment, describing public hanging as “not a deterrent but retribution.” Incoming Senator Manny Pacquiao has introduced a bill in the Senate which would make death by hanging possible.

Alvarez has introduced a second bill that lowers the minimum age of criminal accountability from 15 to nine years old. If the bill—which Duterte supports—passes, second graders will be tried as adults, and could possibly face death by hanging for drug related offenses.

In a speech before the country’s top military leadership on July 1, Duterte issued a public appeal to the CPP, and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), to assist with his murderous campaign. While addressing the heads of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Duterte called on the Maoists to “use your kangaroo courts to kill them [alleged drug pushers] to speed up the solution to our problem.”

The CPP responded on July 2 with a statement entitled “Response to President Duterte’s call for anti-drug cooperation,” which opened by declaring that the party “welcomes President Duterte’s call for cooperation with the revolutionary forces against widespread drug trafficking.” The CPP stated that they “share in President Duterte’s reprehension of the illegal drug trade.”

They continued, “While the CPP does not accept his reference to the duly constituted people’s courts as ‘kangaroo courts,’ and reiterating the right to due process of criminal suspects, the CPP and the revolutionary forces accept President Duterte’s offer of anti-drug cooperation.” In the next paragraph, they wrote “The NPA is ready to give battle to those who will resist arrest with armed violence.”

Joma Sison, the CPP’s founder and head, appeared the next day in an interview on CNN, in which he announced that the party would be violently cracking down on alleged drug dealers. Asked how suspects would be accorded due process in the NPA’s courts, he stated that the “people’s prosecutor” would present prima facie evidence in the form of witness testimony before “revolutionary justice” was carried out.

The NPA has a long history of bloody show trials. In the 1980s, the party carried out internal purges in which they murdered over a thousand of the party’s own cadre in a series of witch-hunts for military agents within its ranks. Conviction, based exclusively on witness testimony and forced confessions, resulted in summary execution and burial in a mass grave.

The CPP’s front organizations have likewise lined up behind Duterte’s murderous campaign. BAYAN chairperson Carol Araullo, writing in her regular column in Business World, the country’s leading business daily, stated that “the role of politically conscious, progressive people’s organizations and the Left in general becomes clear—to arouse, organize and mobilize the people to support Mr. Duterte’s progressive policy statements, intentions and concrete actions.”

Renato Reyes, secretary general of BAYAN, declared in an interview on national television carried over ANC 5, “It is very clear that he [Duterte] defends human rights and democratic rights.” He followed this up with a statement published on July 4 addressed to those who have “misgivings or reservations about the Duterte regime.” Reyes stated “To put it plainly, he is an ally.” While he admitted that BAYAN has “differences” with Duterte, he argued that “to be immediately confrontational … every time the President said something disagreeable during the past month would have weakened the alliance.” He appealed to his readers, “We should at least give him a chance.”

As the scale of the executions and killings became clear, BAYAN issued another statement expressing “grave concern” over the “spate of extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers over the past few weeks.” BAYAN immediately stated that Duterte was committed to defending due process, then with breath-taking dishonesty, it stated that the killings, the majority of which were carried out by the police, were in fact “part of the house cleaning being done by the big criminal syndicates to avoid detection by the new regime.”

The victims of the wave of state-sanctioned vigilante and police murder being carried out in the Philippines came from the ranks of the poor and the working class. Their suppression serves the interests of capitalism. Goldman Sachs published a report in June which hailed Duterte’s “strong political will” as a key factor in their assessment that “the upcoming administration will conduct growth-oriented and business-friendly policies.”

Chile’s “General Never Again” arrested for Caravan of Death killings

Bill Van Auken

The former head of the Chilean Army, Juan Emilio Cheyre, has been arrested in connection with the extrajudicial executions of 15 suspected leftists in the early days of the country’s 17-year-long military dictatorship, installed through the US-backed coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet in 1973.

The detention and likely trial of Cheyre, who has continued to occupy a significant position within Chilean ruling circles after his 2002-2006 tenure as the country’s top uniformed commander, has exacerbated the political crisis gripping the government of President Michele Bachelet.

At the time the order for his arrest was announced, Cheyre was attending a meeting of the government’s council of advisors on Bolivia’s territorial challenge to Chile at The Hague. After his detention, he was forced to tender his resignation as one of the members of the country’s electoral board.

Cheyre was tapped as the chief of the army by former President Ricardo Lagos, who in 2000 became the first Socialist Party member to occupy the La Moneda Palace since Salvador Allende was killed there in the bloody coup of September 11, 1973. Bachelet, also a member of the Socialist Party, served in Lagos’ cabinet as health minister and later defense minister.

Cheyre played a prominent role in the so-called “democratic transition,” earning the nickname “General Never Again” after issuing a statement in 2003 affirming that the army was undergoing “a great transformation” and that it had “committed itself to never again committing violations of human rights.”

While touted by the ruling establishment along with the Socialist Party and the country’s president as a triumph for “truth and reconciliation,” the statement was viewed by those who had been repressed and seen their friends and families murdered under the dictatorship as part of an attempt to bury the past and assure impunity for those in the security forces who had carried out these crimes. This impunity reached up to and including Pinochet, who died in 2006 without ever being tried for initiating Chile’s nightmare of mass murder, torture and political imprisonment.

Many of these critics now see at least some vindication in the arrest of Cheyre in connection with the so-called Caravan of Death killing spree carried out by the dictatorship in the immediate aftermath of the 1973 coup.

During the period from September 30 to October 22, 1973, the “caravan” consisted of a death squad of Chilean army officers headed by Brig. Gen. Sergio Arellano Stark that traveled from the south of the country to the north aboard a Puma helicopter, going from prison to prison to ensure that suspected leftists in the military’s custody throughout Chile were dealt with in a uniformly brutal fashion. They left in their wake roughly 100 victims who were brutally tortured and summarily executed.

At the time, Cheyre was a 25-year-old lieutenant and intelligence officer of the army regiment in the northern town of La Serena. After the arrival of the Caravan death squad, 15 political prisoners held there were dragged out to the base’s firing range and shot to death by army troops without even the semblance of a trial. Their bodies were then taken to a local cemetery and dumped into a mass grave.

In addition to Cheyre, eight other former Chilean army personnel have been charged in relation to the deaths.

While charges that Cheyre had been complicit in the killings and torture carried out by the dictatorship in La Serena had surfaced even before he was named head of the army, his reputation suffered a serious blow in 2013 as the result of an encounter on a television news program between the ex-general and Ernesto Lejderman, the son of a couple murdered by the military in La Serena in December 1973. Cheyre was implicated in handing the then-two-year-old child over to a convent with the story that his parents had committed suicide. In the course of the broadcast, he proved unable or unwilling to answer questions posed by the son of the murdered couple and the host of the program.

Amid the controversy that ensued, Lagos, the Socialist Party ex-president, came forward to insist that it was “unjust to judge him now for something he did as a 25-year-old lieutenant.” On that basis, a major share of those responsible for the crimes of the Nazis would have to be exonerated.

In addition to former members of the security forces who have testified to Cheyre’s active participation in decisions relating to the repression of that period, several of his victims have also come forward.

Nicolas Barrantes, 17 at the time he was detained and taken to the headquarters of the army regiment in La Serena, has identified Cheyre as his torturer with “100 percent certainty.”

“In an hour and a half of interrogation and torture, life passes quickly,” he told Radio Cooperativo. “There are fractions of seconds in which I see the mouth of the interrogator, and this mouth is engraved in my memory. The voice of this person is engraved in my mind. After 43 years, I can say that it is the same person.”

He said he was tortured horribly in an attempt to force him to identify the friends and comrades of his brother Marco, who had also been detained by the regiment, and to provide the location of arsenals of weapons in the area, of which there were none.

His brother was one of those summarily shot. “He was an idealist, a good man who wanted a more just Chile,” he said. “And these criminals killed him.”

Barrantes recalled seeing Cheyre nominated as commander of the army by the Socialist Party president in 2003.

“The ground went out from under my feet when Ricardo Lagos named him commander in chief, knowing that the Vicariate of Solidarity (a human rights arm of the Chilean Catholic Church) had informed the president that this man’s hands were stained with blood ... President Lagos didn’t want to listen.”

Lorena Pizarro, president of the Association of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared, said of Cheyre’s arrest: “He talked about reconciliation and now he is detained as an author of crimes against humanity. A violator of human rights was commander in chief of the army not under dictatorship, but under democracy.”

She described him as the “symbol of impunity,” an impunity that continues to exist in Chile.

Meanwhile, the present commander in chief of the army, Gen. Humberto Oviedo, responded to Cheyre’s arrest by declaring it “a concern for the institution,” adding, “we are confident in the presumption of innocence.”

British fake bomb detectors withdrawn from Iraq following terrorist attacks

Harvey Thompson

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has demanded the withdrawal of all British-made bomb detector wands that have been proven to be fake.

The decision was taken following the horrific multiple car-bomb explosions carried out July 2 by ISIS in the Karrada district of Baghdad. They killed nearly 300, making it the single bloodiest attack since the illegal 2003 US-UK led invasion of the country.

In a statement al-Abadi said, “All security forces must take away the handheld detectors from checkpoints and the (ministry of interior) must reopen the investigation for corruption in the contracts for these devices and follow all entities which participated in them.”

For almost a decade, at checkpoints across the country, Iraq’s security forces have been attempting to thwart car bombs with bomb detector wands that have proven to have no effective value. Thousands of Iraqis have died as a result of car and truck bombs since 2006, when the fake devices first came into use at checkpoints in Baghdad and Basra. Since 2007, the majority of bombs that have killed and maimed at least 4,000 people have been driven past police or soldiers using the devices at checkpoints.

The devices, believed to be based on a golf ball detector, are essentially hand-held aerials fixed to plastic hinges. The instructions state that a small amount of the substance the user wishes to detect--such as explosives--is placed in a Kilner jar along with a sticker that purportedly absorbs the “vapours” of the substance. A card with a sticker attached is read by a card reader and inserted into the device. While pacing up and down, the user would then hold the device, which has no working electronics, and the swivelling antenna was meant to indicate the location of the sought-for substance.

In 2013, UK businessman James McCormick, who sold the devices and amassed enormous profits, received a 10-year jail sentence for fraud. He is thought to have made £50 million from the sale of more than 7,000 of the fake devices to several countries, including Iraq. The device was also sold in Georgia, Romania, Niger, Thailand and Saudi Arabia. The court was shown one invoice recording sales of £38 million over three years to Iraq.

Deaths occurred as the result of the device being used, said prosecuting QC Richard Whittam. He stated that the justice and foreign affairs ministries in Baghdad were hit by truck bombs that were driven through checkpoints where the useless devices were in operation. Whittam said the "inescapable conclusion" was that Iraqis died because of their use.

In a statement outside the courtroom, Superintendent Nigel Rock of Somerset and Avon Police said, “McCormick is a fraudster who over the last 10 years has made, manufactured and sold a device that is completely incapable of detecting explosives, drugs, or any other substance,” adding, “There are no working parts in that device. It is empty.”

Due to the corrupt nature of the US-backed Iraqi state, a previous investigation into the sale of the devices from 2007-10 was shelved by the interior ministry, and the devices continued to be used at checkpoints.

The Iraqi government spent over £55 million on the fake bomb detectors, some of which was paid as bribes to senior figures, including General Jihad al-Jabiri, head of the Baghdad bomb squad who helped McCormick to receive the contract. Jabiri and two other Iraqi officials are now serving jail terms for corruption.

The BBC’s Newsnight programme conducted an investigation into the devices sold by McCormick’s company, resulting in a UK government ban on their sale in Iraq and Afghanistan in January 2010. A whistleblower told the programme he had confronted McCormick, saying he did not want to be any part of the business if the devices did not work. McCormick is said to have responded, “It does exactly what it's designed to. It makes money.”

It is not credible that the fraudulent character of McCormick’s devices would have gone unchecked without official assistance. That the regime knew all about the bogus nature of the wand is evidenced by a statement from a senior Iraqi interior ministry official who told the Guardian this week ,“Sometimes it is better to pretend. To say that these don’t work says that we don’t have anything better. The people need some sort of reassurance.”

The Guardian noted, “Some security officials were slow to respond to the order [to withdraw the fake devices], still holding wands on Monday [July 4] at approaches to the central city and along roads to the airport and the north. The reluctance to acknowledge them as useless was in part centred in having to acknowledge that there are few alternatives to keeping bombers away from Iraq’s towns and cities.”

A rising tide of anger and hostility has been building up towards the Baghdad regime, expressed in the incursions into the government Green Zone and culminating in the sharp outburst of rage and bitterness towards al-Abadi when he sought to visit the site of the Karrada district.

Attuned to this rising anger and unable to shelter behind his US-paymasters, al-Abadi has sought to make a pose of being “anti-corruption”--making much of resistance from members of parliament and senior bureaucrats. The interior ministry, which was responsible for the procurement of most of McCormick’s devices, is ostensibly in the prime minister’s firing-line.

McCormick, who publicly boasted in the press of his lavish lifestyle, resulting from the sale of the fake devices, is far from a lone war profiteer. The convicted fraudster forms a relatively small part of a multi-billion dollar industry composed of construction companies, arms dealers and private security firms that have made huge sums of money from the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.

McCormick’s criminal profiteering is a war crime against the Iraqi masses, but is one among many committed by the imperialist powers in this devastated country. It would not have been possible without the ultimate war crime: the illegal 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.

US unemployment rate rises despite rebound in new jobs

Tom Hall

The US Department of Labor released its monthly jobs report on Friday, showing that the American economy added 287,000 jobs in June. This was a marked increase from May’s figure of 38,000, the lowest in five years, and significantly higher than the 175,000 predicted by analysts. (The May jobs figure was downwardly revised to 11,000 in Friday’s report.)

Wall Street reacted strongly, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 1.4 percent (250 points) to close well above 18,000. The enthusiastic response on Wall Street was likely due, at least in part, to the fact that alongside the higher-than-expected payroll number, which would seem to diminish the likelihood of a recession, the Labor Department reported a rise in the official jobless rate to 4.9 percent from May’s level of 4.7 percent. The rise in the jobless rate, reflecting underlying stagnation in the real economy, points to increased confidence in the financial markets that the Federal Reserve would not raise interest rates for many months to come.

The number of people counted as unemployed actually increased by 347,000, a higher figure than the number of jobs added, for an overall total of 7.8 million. The figure for people who lost jobs or completed temporary jobs also rose, increasing by 203,000 to reach 3.8 million.

The level of long-term unemployment, defined as lasting 27 weeks or more, was little changed from previous reports, remaining at more than 25 percent of total unemployment, an extraordinarily high figure for a period of nominal economic recovery.

A major feature of the American jobs market in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis has been a sharp fall in the labor force participation rate, which includes those working or actively looking for work, as millions discouraged by poor job prospects have stopped looking for work and fallen out of the labor force. At 62.7 percent for June, the labor force participation rate remained mired at near-record lows.

The percentage of the working-age population currently employed was 59.6 percent. While this figure has increased somewhat since the official end of the recession in 2009, it is still at the lowest levels since the mid-1980s.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) provides a monthly tally of “missing workers”—those who, “because of weak job opportunities, are neither employed nor actively seeking a job” and are not counted in the official unemployment rate. For June, the EPI reported 2.63 million such workers. If these workers were counted as part of the labor force, the official unemployment rate would rise from 4.9 percent to 6.4 percent.

An alternate statistic compiled by the government, commonly referred to as the “real unemployment rate,” which also counts those “marginally attached” to the labor force and those working part-time because they are unable to obtain full-time work, puts the unemployment rate at 9.6 percent.

Almost 90 percent of the jobs created in June were in the low-paying service sector. Average weekly earnings in the service sector in June were $842.82, compared to $1,084.07 in the mining, construction, logging and manufacturing sectors.

The leisure and hospitality and retail industries together accounted for roughly 89,000 new jobs, almost a third of the total. Average hourly earnings in these industries were $14.84 and $17.82, respectively. The mining industry lost approximately 6,400 jobs last month, including 2,200 in the oil and gas industries, which have been hit particularly hard by the collapse in global fuel prices.

Manufacturing showed a modest rise of 14,000, with only 3,000 new jobs in the higher-paying durable goods sector. The telecommunications industry “added” 28,100 jobs in June, due almost entirely to the return to work of tens of thousands of Verizon workers after their month-long strike was wound up and betrayed by the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers unions.

These figures are in keeping with long-term trends in the aftermath of the recession. A study published earlier in the year by Princeton University and the RAND Corporation found that all job growth over the past 10 years was accounted for by “alternative work arrangements,” a category that includes temps, independent contractors and on-call workers. A 2014 report by the National Employment Law Project found that a majority of the jobs created after the recession paid low wages.

Predictably, the Obama administration responded to the report with a complacent and self-congratulatory statement touting the supposed success of its economic policies. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said, “The US economy demonstrated is resilience once again.”

Canada’s elite rattled by Brexit vote

Roger Jordan & Keith Jones

The United Kingdom’s referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU) has provoked widespread apprehension and alarm in Canada’s ruling elite, and for a host of reasons.

These include: the adverse impact of the pro-Brexit vote and Britain’s impending exit from the EU on the world economy and on Canadian big business’s substantial European interests, the threat the unravelling of the EU poses to NATO and the system of multilateral alliances through which the Canadian bourgeoisie has traditionally asserted its global interests, and the potential boost Brexit could give to the forces pushing for Quebec’s secession from the Canadian federal state.

Although most of the political establishment and media have deplored the outcome of the Brexit referendum, there are elements—most notably the pro-Quebec independence Parti Quebecois (PQ), several prominent Conservative Party politicians, and the neo-conservative National Post and rightwing populist Toronto Sun—that have welcomed the anti-EU vote as an assertion of “national sovereignty.”

In the run-up to the June 23 Brexit referendum, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau spoke out forcefully in favour of Britain remaining part of the 28-state bloc.

On June 24, as stock markets plunged and the Canadian dollar was hit by a global surge in demand for US dollars, Trudeau announced his government was “monitoring the situation closely” and would be “working with our partners around the world in order to maintain stability and create economic growth.”

As elsewhere, Canadian stock markets have staged a comeback since the massive sell-off triggered by the Brexit vote. But economic analysts remain concerned about the impact of Brexit on a Canadian economy that has already been battered by the plummet in oil and other commodity prices and which faces major domestic threats from a housing bubble fuelled by record-low interest rates and high-levels of consumer debt. Canada’s household debt to income ratio is the highest in the G-7 and among the highest in the OECD.

Canada’s exports to Britain are valued at more than $10 billion annually, trailing only those to the US and China. Canadian businesses and investors have some $70 billion worth of direct investments in Britain, making it the third largest destination for Canadian FDI, behind only the US and the principal Canadian tax haven, Barbados.

Earlier this week, Toronto-based Canada Life announced it was joining at least a half dozen other firms in suspending redemption of funds that specialize in British commercial real estate due to plunging property values and surging redemption requests. A subsidiary of the Desmarais family-controlled Power Corporation, Canada Life has, or at least had, half a billion pounds invested in British real estate.

As is the case in the US, Canada’s political and military-security establishments are concerned about the impact the UK’s leaving the EU will have on the NATO alliance and its war drive against Russia. Less than a week after the referendum vote and in a bid to demonstrate NATO’s resolve in pursuing confrontation with Moscow, the Liberal government confirmed that Canada will assume leadership of one of the four battalions that will comprise NATO’s new “high-readiness” force on Russia’s borders.

Canada, which remains part of the Commonwealth and emerged as an independent nation-state and imperialist power by using close ties to Britain to counter US pressure, has long used its links to London as a means of exerting influence in Europe. With Britain withdrawing from the EU, this stratagem clearly will no longer pay the same dividends or be applicable in the same way.

The broader concern is that increasing divisions in Europe, along with a turn to economic protectionism, including on the part of the US, will undermine the system of alliances through which the Canadian bourgeoisie exerts power on the global stage. While Canadian imperialist interests are bound up with US global hegemony, the Canadian elite has championed multilateral institutions as a means of limiting US power and retaining maximum freedom of action.

An immediate major concern for the Canadian bourgeoisie is the impact of the Brexit vote and the crisis it has precipitated in the EU on the adoption of the “Canada-EU: Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement” (CETA).

Britain played a major role in winning the EU’s support for CETA, which Ottawa was anxious to complete before the US and EU begin serious negotiations on their own free trade deal, fearing that otherwise it would have to accept whatever the two much larger entities negotiate.

Not only does the finalization of CETA risk being disrupted by the impending bitter struggle between Britain and the EU over the terms of Brexit. To placate opposition in the other 27 states to Brussels’ authority, the European Commission announced Tuesday that CETA will have to be ratified by each member state individually. In the days following the Brexit referendum, EU Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker was sharply criticized by a number of EU governments for saying CETA could come into effect with the endorsement of just the common EU institutions.

In the wake of Tuesday’s European Commission announcement there has been vexed commentary in the European press that the new ratification process all but ensures CETA will fail to pass and that this sets an ominous precedent for resolving the terms of Britain’s departure from the EU.

Another major concern for the Canadian elite is the impact of the Brexit vote and Brexit on its federal state.

There are fears that the United Kingdom could split apart, since both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain within the EU, and that this would provide a boost for the Quebec sovereignnist (separatist) movement.

The PQ and other proponents of Quebec independence were quick to note that Trudeau and his Liberal government have recognized that the 52 percent referendum “Leave” vote constitutes a mandate for Brexit, but oppose recognizing a majority “Yes” vote as sufficient to trigger Quebec’s secession.

Following the razor-thin referendum vote against Quebec’s secession in 1995, the then Chretien Liberal government developed a hardline “Plan B” strategy to prevent Quebec independence. Under the “Clarity Act,” the federal government refuses to stipulate any referendum benchmark can, with parliament’s approval, declare after the fact that the referendum question was invalid and threatens a seceding Quebec with partition.

In the wake of the Brexit vote, Trudeau and his minsters have repeatedly reasserted their support for the Clarity Act, saying that Britain’s EU membership and Quebec independence are completely different issues.

Beginning with an editorial published almost immediately after the June 23 referendum, the Globe and Mail, the traditional mouthpiece of Canada’s financial elite, has argued that the British political establishment should maneuver to set aside the pro-Brexit vote.

On the other hand, a section of the Conservative hard right has welcomed the vote for Brexit, which was spearheaded by the most right-wing British Tories and by the anti-immigrant United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).

Most prominent in this were two leading ministers in the previous Harper Conservative government, Jason Kenney and Tony Clement. “Congratulations to the British people on choosing hope over fear by embracing a confident, sovereign future, open to the world!” enthused Kenney. For his part, Clement proclaimed the vote a “magnificent exercise in democracy.”

It was nothing of the sort. As the World Socialist Web Site has consistently emphasized, the Brexit referendum was a faction fight between two right-wing sections of the British bourgeoisie over how best to pursue their imperialist interests. The reactionary campaign whipped up the most backward political sentiments, as has been shown in the rise in racist attacks and the assassination of Labour MP Jo Cox by a fascist gunman.

Joining in the exaltation of Brexit was media mogul Conrad Black. Like his business rival Rupert Murdoch, Black vilifies the EU because he wants to “free” capital of all environmental or labour regulatory restraints and wants an even closer military-security alliance between Britain and the US. In a National Post column titled “A fresh start for Europe,” Black dismissed the reaction to the vote as “absurdly exaggerated,” hailed the leaders of the Brexit campaign, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, as “broadminded, fair-minded modern Thatcherites,” and once again touted Donald Trump’s US presidential bid, claiming that both Trump and the Brexiters are right to rile against immigration and “unfair trade deals.”

There was a tactical element in the PQ’s enthusiasm for the Brexit referendum outcome, since it provided them with a means of scoring points against Trudeau and undermining popular support for the Clarity Act. But this was far from the main motivating factor in the Quebec sovereignists’ response. What they really welcomed was the assertion of “national sovereignty,” that is the triumph of an opposition to the anti-democratic, German big business-led EU from the standpoint of a neo-liberal, virulently anti-immigrant, British and English nationalism.

Speaking the day after the referendum vote, Véronique Hivon, a candidate for the PQ leadership and ex-Quebec cabinet minister, declared, “We really had, yesterday, a great democratic exercise and a clear [statement] of sovereignty, which shows that sovereignty issues are very relevant in the world today.” Noting that England and Scotland had voted differently, Hivon said this was in the natural order of things because each was voting accord to its “aspirations, values and interests.”

When it last held office in Quebec, the PQ implemented massive social spending cuts and anti-strike laws no different from its federalist rivals, while introducing a chauvinist Charter of Quebec Values. The Charter would have barred half a million public sector workers from wearing religious symbols, while making an exception for discreet crucifixes.

Australian parliamentarian calls for Iraqi war crimes trial

James Cogan

In response to the publication of the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war in the United Kingdom, former intelligence official and now independent parliamentarian Andrew Wilkie has called for the prosecution of George Bush, Tony Blair and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard in an international war crimes trial.

The Howard government played a key role in promoting the lies used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq and committed Australian military forces in defiance of international law.

Wilkie told journalists on Thursday: “Every time it [the Howard government] said that Iraq had a massive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and it was cooperating with Al Qaeda, it knew that that was not the case—that it was either clearly not the case, or at best for them, it was ambiguous.

“They took us to war on a lie. No wonder John Howard and Tony Blair and George W. Bush do stand accused of war crimes. I’d like them to see an international court. I would like them defend their position and try to prove their innocence because, all of those people who do accuse them of war crimes I think make a pretty compelling case.”

Wilkie continued: “The terror threat that we face in this country right now is a direct result of the decision by the Australian government under John Howard in 2003 to join in that invasion. Frankly, there are a number of political leaders who in my opinion have blood on their hands. The Bali bombing of 2005 would not have occurred if we hadn’t have joined in in the invasion of Iraq. The Lindt Cafe siege would not have occurred if we hadn’t helped create the circumstances for the rise of Islamic State.”

Wilkie is in a unique position to know the claim that the decision to invade Iraq was made on the “best available intelligence” was false. In 2003, he was working as a top level officer in the Office of National Assessments (ONA), a branch of Australian intelligence that reports directly to the prime minister and cabinet national security committee. On March 9, 2003, he publicly resigned from the ONA and denounced the preparations for war.

Wilkie, based on the intelligence he was privy to—the same intelligence that was available to the Bush, Blair and Howard governments—stated at the time: “Iraq does not pose a security threat to the US, or to the UK or to Australia… Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction [WMD] program is, I believe, genuinely contained… As far as I’m aware there was no hard evidence and there is still no hard evidence that there is any active cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda.”

Wilkie concluded an interview he gave to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on March 9, 2003 by saying: “I don’t believe I could stand by any longer and take no action as this coalition marches to war. I think the interests of the thousands of people, perhaps tens of thousands of people or even more who could be injured, displaced or killed in a war, I think their interests are more important.”

Thirteen years later, the consequences of the illegal Iraq invasion include the death of over one million Iraqis, millions more wounded and traumatised, the devastation of what was once a modern society and ongoing ethno-sectarian carnage. The endless wars waged by US imperialism and its allies, including Australia, have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Afghanistan, northwest Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Syria and created the greatest refugee crisis since World War II.

Wilkie’s call for war crimes trials have not been taken up by any section of the political establishment or the media. Instead, in an interview on the ABC’s “Lateline” program, Howard, who is living in comfortable retirement, was allowed to avoid questions over the criminality of his government’s decision to invade Iraq by blaming “flawed” intelligence advice.

The Greens have issued a mealy-mouthed statement calling for an “urgent independent inquiry into Australian involvement in the Iraq war.”

Wilkie himself has signaled he does not intend to pursue the issue, putting out a press release on Friday declaring that he will support the Coalition in forming a new government once the results of the July 2 election in Australia are finally known.

The Labor Party has consistently protected Howard and his senior ministers, including Peter Costello, Alexander Downer and Robert Hill, from being held to account for the atrocities resulting from the invasion of Iraq. It has opposed even a limited Chilcot-style inquiry into the Iraq war, which was proscribed from the outset from considering the question of criminal culpability.

Labor’s only disagreement with the 2003 war was that it was not formally sanctioned by the UN. Once the invasion was complete, the Labor opposition backed the UN endorsement of the US-led occupation and Australia’s military involvement.

In the 2007 election, Labor cynically used a promise to withdraw Australian forces from Iraq to appeal to the mass anti-war sentiment among workers and youth. Upon winning government, however, it continued Australian military operations and only withdrew the majority of troops in late 2008 and early 2009, on a timetable worked out with the Bush administration. Under both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and then Julia Gillard, Labor proceeded to substantially increase the Australian contingent in the US-led war in Afghanistan.

Labor unconditionally supports the US military alliance and during Gillard’s government, committed Australia to the US “pivot to Asia” and its preparations for war against China. In 2014, it fully backed the Coalition when it ordered Australian combat forces to Iraq and Syria.

A socialist movement of the working class will be the only social force, in Australia and internationally, that can secure justice for the millions of victims of the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.

Mexican Government Scholarships for African/International Students 2016

Application Deadline: Applications for the scholarship will be accepted from 6 June to 23 September 2016. Offered annually? Yes

Brief description: Mexican Government Scholarship Program for Foreign Students to study for Bachelors, Masters, PhD degrees

Eligible Field of Study: Scholarships are provided to study any one of the courses available at participating Mexican institutions except Business administration, Plastic surgery, accounting, marketing, dentistry and advertising.

About Scholarship

For decades, the Mexican cultural diplomacy has worked in different successful programs, such as the human capital training through scholarships for academic degrees awarding and research work performing in different areas of knowledge.

The Directorate-General for Educational and Cultural Cooperation, through the Academic Exchange Department, designs and manages the Ministry of Foreign Affairs´ Scholarship Program for Foreigners. The scholarships of the Mexican Government present two programs: the scholarship for academic studies and the scholarship for special programs.

The scholarships for academic studies are offered to take complete programs for Specialization, Master´s or PhD Degrees, and Postgraduate Researches. Likewise, the offer includes academic mobility for Bachelor´s and Postgraduate Degree. On the other hand, the scholarships for special programs are offered to take short-term fellowships addressed to Visiting Professors, Researchers in Mexico´s issues, Media Contributors, Art Production Fellowships, etc.

Scholarship Offered Since: Not specified

Scholarship Type: Scholarships for complete programs for Specialization, Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD Degrees, and Postgraduate Researches including short-term fellowships

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

The scholarships will be awarded on academic excellence.

• The scholarships for academic studies are offered to take complete programs for Specialization, Master’s or PhD Degrees, and Postgraduate Researches. Likewise, the offer includes academic mobility for Bachelor’s and Postgraduate Degree. On the other hand, the scholarships for special programs are offered Preferred to take short-term fellowships addressed to Visiting Professors, Researchers in Mexico’s issues, Media Contributors, Art Production Fellowships, etc.
• Candidates cannot be living in Mexico at the time of application.
• Except in special cases, scholarships cannot begin in November or December.
• Requests for information and all scholarship applications must be submitted to the Mexican embassy or concurrent embassy of the applicant’s country or to the designated Mexican institution. Only applications that fulfill all of the requirements will be considered.
• All documents and forms must be in Spanish or submitted with translations into Spanish.
• Candidates will be informed of the results by the corresponding Mexican embassy or designated Mexican institution.
• The scholarships are not transferable and cannot be deferred to future years.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: -Enrollment fees  and tuition
-Health Insurance
-Transportation from Mexico city to the Host Institution
-Monthly Stipend

Duration of Scholarship: Undergraduate and graduate academic mobility programs- one academic term (quarter, trimester or semester)
-Graduate research and postdoctoral fellowships-12 months (1 month minimum)
-Specialization-1 year
-Master’s degree- 2 Years
-Doctorate- 3 years
-Medical specialties and subspecialties- 3 Years

Eligible Countries

Africa: Algeria ,Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Nambia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Saharawi, Arab Rep., Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe

North America: United States, Canada and Canada / Province of Quebec

Latin America: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela)

Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico (Commonwealth), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago

Europe: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine)

Asia: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Kingdom of China, People’s Rep., India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Democratic Rep., Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Islamic Rep. of Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Kingdom of Timor – Leste, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Socialist Rep. of

Pacific: Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Independent State, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu

Middle East: Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestinian National Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen, and

Non-self Governing Territories: American Samoa, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Guam, Montserrat, New Caledonia, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Tokelau, Turks and Caicos Islands and United States Virgin Islands

To be taken at (country): Mexico

How to Apply

Visit scholarship webpage for details on how to apply and materials

Sponsors: Mexican Government

Important Notes:

Candidates will be informed of the results by the corresponding Mexican embassy or designated Mexican institution.

Korean Government Scholarships for Bachelors, Masters and PhD studies for Developing Countries 2016/2017

Application Deadline: Applicants submit their applications either to the Korean Embassies around the world or to the partering universities in Korea. The embassies and universities select the successful candidates among the applicants in the 1st round of selection. The applicants of the successful candidates will then be forwarded to NIIED.

Recommendations (Embassy, University) are expected from:

October 2016 to November 2016 – Undergraduate

March 2017 to  April 2017 – Graduate

Offered annually? Yes

Brief description: The Korean Government offers Bachelors, Masters and PhD Scholarships for International Students to study at various Korean Universities and Higher Institutions 2016/2017

Accepted Subject Areas: Courses offered at one of the 60 participating Korean higher institutions

Eligible Countries

The scholarships are open to students from the following countries:

China, Japan, Russia, Cambodia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Chinese Taipei, Uzbekistan, Turkey, USA,Ethiopia, Colombia, Nepal, Senegal, Bangladesh, Ukraine, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Azerbaijan, El Salvador, Egypt, Tanzania, Germany, France, Dominica, Chile, Iran, Canada,Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Pakistan, Gabon, Romania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Czech, Guatemala, Ecuador, Algeria, Yemen, Uganda, Belize, Honduras, Italy, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Poland, Ghana, Georgia, Greece, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, NIGERIA, Republic of South Africa, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, Rwanda, Libya, Lithuania, Moldavia, Bahrain, Barbados, Bahamas, Venezuela, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Brazil, Brunei, Serbia, Seychelles, Sudan, Sweden, Slovenia, Armenia, Argentina, Haïti, Ireland, Afghanistan, Angola, Oman, Austria, Uruguay, Iraq, Israel, Zambia, Cameroon, Qatar, Kenya, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Croatia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Panama, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Fiji, Hungary, Australia, Jordan

About Scholarship: The Korean Government Scholarship Program (KGSP) is offered to international students who want to pursue Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees in Korean Universities. The scholarship is aimed to provide international students with an opportunity to conduct advanced studies at higher educational institutions in Korea, to develop global leaders and strengthen Korea-friendly networks worldwide.

Scholarship Offered Since: Not specified

Eligibility

Undergraduate program

Prospective applicants must meet the following qualification criteria;

1. Must be a citizen of the country to which the scholarship is offered, which also applies to the applicants’ parents
2. Have graduated or will be scheduled to graduate from high school as of March 1st of the invitation year
3. Must possess above 80% (out of 100%) cumulative grade point average (CGPA), or must be within the top 20% (out of 100%) in rank in high school.

Graduate program

1. The applicant and his/her parents must hold foreign citizenships.
   * Applicants who hold Korean citizenship are not permitted to apply for this program.
2. Applicants must be under 40 years of age as of Sep. 1st, 2013 (born after Sep. 1st, 1973).
3. Applicants must hold a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree as of September 1st of the selection year.
   * Applicants who have enrolled in or graduated from a university in Korea are not eligible for the KGSP program. Specifically, applicants who have previously enrolled in or graduated from an undergraduate program, a master’s program, or a doctoral program in Korea cannot apply for this program.
4. Applicants must maintain a grade point average (GPA) of at least 2.64 on a 4.0 scale, 2.80 on a 4.3 scale, 2.91 on a 4.5 scale, or grades/marks/score of 80% or higher from the previously attended institution. If the applicant does not satisfy the above GPA requirements, he/she will be ineligible to apply to this program.

How Many Scholarships are available? 170 persons (undergraduate course), 700 persons (graduate course) will be awarded.

What are the benefits?

Undergraduate Program

• Airfare: A round-trip economy class ticket
• Monthly Allowance: 800,000 won per month
• Relocation (Settlement) Allowance: 200,000 won upon arrival
• Repatriation Allowance: 100,000 won upon completion of studies
• Language Training Fee : The full costs up to 1 year
• Tuition: All admission fees are waived by the host institution (university). The tuition is covered by NIIED and the university
• Medical Insurance: 20,000 KRW per month (partial coverage)
• Korean Proficiency Grants: 100,000 KRW per month for scholars with TOPIK Level 5 or 6

Graduate Program

• Airfare: A round-trip economy class ticket
• Monthly Allowance: 900,000 won per month
• Relocation (Settlement) Allowance: 200,000 won upon arrival
• Language Training Fee : The full costs up to 1 year
• Tuition: All admission fees are waived by the host institution. The full tuition is paid by NIIED and the University.
• Medical Insurance: 20,000 won per month(limited insurance coverage) will be provided to the university for students.
• Research Allowance: 210,000 won for students in humanities and social sciences; 240,000 won for students in natural and mechanic sciences per semester
• Dissertation Printing Costs: 500,000 ~ 800,000 won for the costs related to a printing dissertation
• Korean Proficiency Grants: 100,000 KRW per month for scholars with TOPIK Level 5 or 6

Selection Criteria: 

1st Selection: Applicants submit their applications either to the Korean Embassies around the world or to the partering universities in Korea. The embassies and universities select the successful candidates among the applicants in the 1st round of selection. The applicants of the successful candidates will then be forwarded to NIIED

2nd Selection: The NIIED selection committee selects the successful candidates among those who passed the 1st round.

3rd Selection: Among the successful candidates who have passed the 2nd round, the applicants of those who applied through the Korean Embassies will be reviewed by universities for admission. Successful candidates must get admission from at least one of the universities.

How long will sponsorship last?

Undergraduate course: 1 year Korean language course + 4 year bachelors course

Master’s course: 1 year Korean language course+ 2 years of Master’s course

Doctoral course: 1 year Korean language course + 3 years of Doctoral course

To be taken at: Korean Universities.

How can I Apply?

Applicants can only apply for the scholarships through the Korean Embassy in their home country or a participating Korean University. See list of Contact Information of Korean Embassies and Universities in this PDF document

Visit Scholarship Webpage and here for more details about this scholarship

Sponsors: The Korean Governement, National Institute for International Education

The End of Exceptionalism?

Vijay Prashad

On June 22, France’s outspoken ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud, said: “The next President will face a multipolar world where the U.S. will be the main but not the only power. Realism is the only possible agenda.” It is unusual for such a close ally of the U.S. to make this statement. After all, it has been one of the pillars of the U.S.’ self-identification that it is the major force in the world. Political leaders in the U.S. routinely speak of the country as the greatest in the world, the only country with truly global ambitions and with global reach. U.S. military bases litter the continents of the world, and U.S. warships move from ocean to ocean, bearing terrifying arsenals. When the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed in 1991, it became self-evident that the U.S. was the sole remaining superpower. Unipolarity defined the world order. So what is it that makes the French ambassador speak of a multipolar world?

Araud is not alone in his realism. Some years ago, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger alerted the political elite against its belligerent rhetoric about China. In his 2011 book On China, Kissinger wrote of the need for the U.S. and China to form a partnership which would be “essential to global stability and peace”. Confrontations over the shipping lanes in the South China Sea and disputes over currency manipulation dangerously flirt with the language of war. “Relations between China and the United States need not—and should not —become a zero-sum game,” wrote Kissinger. China had become too important for the U.S. to indulge in Cold War theatrics. It was far more important, Kissinger noted, for the two powers to come to an understanding on how to confront global imbalances—whether economic or political.

The Republican nominee for President, Donald Trump, not known for his political sobriety, is running on a campaign slogan that admits to today’s reality. “Make America Great Again!” says the slogan, which acknowledges the weaknesses of the U.S. at this present time. At least Trump admits to this, although he hastily suggests that somehow his presidency, miraculously, will transform the vulnerabilities of the U.S. into strengths. Trump blames the presidency of Barack Obama for the collapse of the country’s strength. He condenses the right-wing antipathy to Obama in his belief that it is Obama who has brought the U.S. into disrepute. Racism feeds into this rhetoric, but so does masculinity. Obama is too dark and too feminine to keep the U.S. great. It requires the machismo of Trump to do the job. What Trump does not see, but what Araud and Kissinger recognise, is that the current weakness of the U.S. is not somehow because of the policies of Obama.

Trump would like to channel Ronald Reagan, who said during his presidency in the 1980s: “Let’s reject the nonsense that America is doomed to decline, the world is sliding toward disaster no matter what we do.” But Reagan came to power in a different era. Then the USSR had been deeply weakened by economic crises, China had not yet emerged as a serious economic powerhouse and few other “rivals” threatened American supremacy. Reagan could afford to junk the “false prophets of decline”. The U.S. could take advantage of its financial power to reshape world affairs in its image. But times have changed. No longer does the U.S. have the economic and political power to thrust its “tremendous heritage of idealism” (as Reagan put it in 1981) onto the world. It is not the U.S. culture and character that produced its supremacy in the 1980s. It is not enough, as Trump does, to lean on culture and character for another thrust towards world leadership.

Reagan could pillory President Jimmy Carter, a soft-spoken Democrat, for the weakness of the U.S. Machismo came easily to Reagan. He had played enough cowboys in the movies. Obama is not Carter. He has been President for eight years, during which he has found that U.S. power has been depleted. What has led to this “decline of America”?

First, the great social process of globalisation allowed U.S. firms to move their production sites around the world. The “global commodity chain” provided benefits to the owners of ideas and capital. This “1 per cent”, as the Occupy movement called them, was able to earn ferocious returns on investment, while the workers of the U.S. found themselves unemployed, underemployed and certainly underpaid. Income inequality increased and access to basic social goods declined for the bulk of society. Bank credit allowed the workers to take enormous loans so as to manufacture a life along the grain of the American Dream. What these workers received was not “credit” but “debt”—debt rates on home mortgages, credit card, and college tuition rose astronomically. The bursting of the home mortgage balloon in 2007 set off the global credit crisis, which is one of the great indicators of the fragility of U.S. power.

Second, at the same time as the U.S. struggled with its financial crisis and its military overextensions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Western alliance system frayed. The most important emergence, under the shadow of the Western alliance system, was the rapid growth of the German economy, which essentially absorbed major gains from European unity. German banks dominated the continent, as German firms took advantage of labour costs and its technological advancement to make the most of the common market. Southern Europe, from Portugal to Greece, suffered from the German success. European unity was threatened by this disparity.

At the same time, France made a dash to reclaim its central role amongst its old colonies, particularly in Africa. French military intervention in West Africa came alongside attempts to undermine the growth of a new African currency, the Afric. It was Araud, after all, who persuaded U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to pursue the war against Libya in 2011. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom wheezed itself into isolation from the European Union, as the Conservatives became churlish about the utility of Brussels. Brexit indicates the end of “European unity” as a dream, a major partner of the U.S. The old Western alliance system—the G7 and NATO—might well become collateral damage in this debate around “Europe” and in the rise of the old European imperial powers towards illusions of greatness.

Third, as Europe implodes, China’s rise seems secured by a crafty new relationship with a defensive Russia. The attempt by the West to encage both Russia and China seems to have failed. Europe’s gambit in Ukraine will fall apart as its own energy needs imperil a reconsideration of the sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, on the eastern flank, China’s economic dominance has broken into the Western alliance system, with countries from Japan to Australia eager for trade with China rather than to remain as ramparts for a Western military project. Economic and military arrangements between Russia and China seem to increase as each month goes by. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) expansion into becoming a major Asian bloc, now including India and Pakistan, is an indicator of regionalism that has kept the West out. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), created in 2010, pioneered this approach, since it actively saw itself as an alternative to the Organisation of American States, which was a U.S.-driven regional body. Both the SCO and CELAC have kept the U.S. and its major allies outside their decision-making process. It is a sign of the emergence of global multipolarity.

Raised on a diet of “American exceptionalism”, the U.S. public was unprepared for the compromises essential to Obama’s presidency. The deal with Iran and the inability to pursue regime change in Syria are two graphic indications of Obama’s sobriety. The Russian intervention in Syria, the first major one since the Soviet entry into Afghanistan and the Cuban entry into Angola, demonstrated the limitations of U.S. power. In February, two aid workers corralled U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting in Istanbul. They wanted to know why the U.S. had not been more robust against the government of Bashar al-Assad. Kerry, irritated, replied: “What do you want me to do? Go to war with Russia?” These are important questions, a measure of the reality faced by the Obama team. A frazzled West and a defensive Russia-China alliance provide a new balance to the world order. The days of cowboy diplomacy are long gone. That is what Gérard Araud implies with his message.