Behind the Flynn resignation and Trump crisis: A bitter conflict over imperialist policy

Patrick Martin

The Trump administration is facing an escalating political crisis following the Monday evening resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. There are growing calls from the media and sections of the political establishment for congressional investigations into Flynn’s contacts with Russia prior to Trump’s inauguration, and demands that Trump explain what he knew about the contacts and whether Flynn was operating with his knowledge and approval.

On Tuesday afternoon, it was reported that the FBI interviewed Flynn soon after Trump’s inauguration about his telephone conversation with the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, on December 29, 2016. The call was secretly monitored and recorded by the National Security Agency.

The Washington Post revealed that Justice Department officials informed the White House several weeks ago that Flynn had discussed US sanctions on Russia with the ambassador, and that his repeated denials of that fact were false. A transcript of the Flynn-Kislyak conversation is reportedly circulating at the highest levels of official Washington.

In the corporate-controlled media, a series of commentators, serving as conduits for material provided by the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, have begun to raise the specter of impeachment or a Nixon-style forced resignation.

A raging conflict within the US ruling elite has erupted to the surface of American political life. The battle involves the major institutions of the capitalist state—the White House, CIA, NSA, FBI and Pentagon—as well as the leaderships of both the Democratic and Republican parties. At the center of this conflict are divisions over foreign policy and concerns within the military-intelligence apparatus that the Trump administration is not taking a sufficiently aggressive line against Russia.

The campaign against Trump is no less reactionary and militaristic than the new administration itself. It has a definite logic, leading to an escalation of the political and military confrontation with Russia, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire world.

This campaign is the central preoccupation of the Democratic Party. Throughout the final months of the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton repeatedly attacked Trump as a political stooge of Russian President Vladimir Putin, while presenting herself as the more reliable defender of American imperialism.

The issue was raised again during the post-election transition, with claims that “Russian hacking” was responsible for Trump’s surprise victory. Following Trump’s inauguration, the theme has been taken up once more, with congressional Democrats and a section of Senate Republicans acting as the political spearhead of the CIA and Pentagon.

Congressional Democrats seized on Flynn’s resignation to raise the Watergate-era question, “What did the president know and when did he know it?” Their contention is that when Flynn telephoned Kislyak on December 29, the same day President Obama imposed new sanctions on Russia, Flynn was conveying assurances from Trump that those sanctions would be relaxed or discarded outright once Trump entered the White House.

The most strident comments came from Eric Swalwell of California, a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, who declared that Trump aides “have improper relationships with Russia” and that Trump himself was implicated. “The Republicans may have the majorities in Congress and their candidate may have won the White House, but [the Democrats] are not helpless,” he said. “We have the American people, and the American people will not be satisfied until they know whether the president is with us or with Russia.”

Swalwell would have been more truthful if he had said the Democrats “are not helpless” because they have the CIA, the NSA and much of the Pentagon behind them, powerful sections of the state apparatus that have made an enormous strategic investment in preparing for war with Russia.

The Democratic Party oozes complacency and passivity when it comes to Trump’s cabinet nominations and his issuance of antidemocratic and unconstitutional executive orders. This is because, whatever their tactical criticisms of these elements of Trump’s policy, they are in line with the interests of the corporate and financial aristocracy that both parties represent. But when given the chance to wage a McCarthy-style campaign claiming that Trump is a Russian stooge, they charge into battle frothing at the mouth.

It is significant that sections of congressional Republicans, as well as Democrats, have distanced themselves from Trump over this issue. It is not just warmongers like John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The Senate Republican leadership has agreed to investigate alleged Russian interference in the US elections and to include Flynn’s contacts with Russia within the scope of the inquiry.

US imperialism seeks to counter its declining world economic position by exploiting its unchallenged global military dominance. It sees as the principal roadblocks to its hegemonic aims the growing economic and military power of China and the still-considerable strength of Russia, possessor of the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal, the largest reserves of oil and gas, and a critical geographical position at the center of the Eurasian land mass.

Trump’s opponents within the ruling class insist that US foreign policy must target Russia, with the aim of weakening the Putin regime or overthrowing it. This is deemed a prerequisite for taking on the challenge posed by China.

Numerous Washington think tanks have developed scenarios for military conflicts with Russian forces in the Middle East, in Ukraine, in the Baltic States and in cyberspace. The national security elite is not prepared to accept a shift in orientation away from the policy of direct confrontation with Russia along the lines proposed by Trump, who would like for the present to lower tensions with Russia in order to focus first on China.

Even as the struggle rages within the ruling class and the capitalist state, the Trump administration’s attacks on democratic rights are provoking an unprecedented outpouring of popular opposition. Millions of working people and youth, native-born and immigrant, have taken part in protests against the new government. But this broad social movement has, as yet, neither a clear political program articulating the independent interests of the working class nor a revolutionary socialist leadership.

This situation poses grave dangers. The intelligence agencies, acting primarily through the Democratic Party, are seeking to hijack the mass opposition to Trump and redirect it behind their war plans, whether directed against Russia or China, using supposed external enemies as lightning rods for rising social and economic distress.

Workers and young people must not line up behind either faction of the ruling elite. Both are preparing for new military bloodbaths to safeguard the profits of American corporations. They are fighting over tactics and the sequence of targets, not over whether to send American youth to kill or be killed in imperialist wars.

The struggle against the Trump administration poses the need for a complete break with the Democrats and Republicans, the twin parties of big business, and the building of a mass independent political movement of working people, based on a socialist and internationalist program.

India-UAE: An Emerging Special Relationship

Ranjit Gupta

In December 1999, a hijacked Indian Airlines aircraft that had been diverted from Kathmandu to fly to Kandahar, which had deadly Pakistani terrorists on board, had been on the tarmac in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) for over five hours. No Indian official was allowed access to the airport and an Indian request for permission to raid the aircraft was summarily turned down. The UAE was the only country other in addition to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which was a strong supporter of - and had diplomatic relations with - the extremely anti-India Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

As Pakistan continued its descent into internal and cross-border terrorism against Afghanistan and India, the UAE finally recognised that such Pakistani-sponsored terrorism posed grave dangers to the entire region. Deeply alarmed by the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the UAE government despatched a high level security team to Mumbai within 24 hours for detailed discussions with relevant Indian agencies. Since then, the UAE has been providing India the best anti-terrorism cooperation of any country in the world. It has been repatriating most of those India wanted for terrorist activity within India despite Pakistan's intensive efforts to prevent such repatriations, including going to the extent of often claiming that those persons were Pakistani nationals. 

Trajectory of Bilateral Relations

Encouraged by this and the burgeoning socio-economic bilateral relationship, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided that West Asia needs special attention. He visited the UAE in August 2015, 34 years after former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited the country, becoming only the second Indian prime minister to do so. Again demonstrating his now well well-known international reputation of establishing great personal rapport with foreign leaders even in their first meetings, he invited the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi to visit India, who did so in February 2016 - in less than six months after Prime Minister Modi’s visit. This was the highest level visit from the country since UAE President Sheikh Zayed’s 1975 visit to India. 

In their Joint Statement issued in February 2016, the two leaders had said that it is “the responsibility of all states to control the activities of the so-called ‘non-state actors’, and to cut all support to terrorists operating and perpetrating terrorism from their territories against other states.” 

Greatly encouraged by this, the exceedingly satisfying bilateral discussions, and the Crown Prince’s numerous gestures of high personal regard for the prime minister and friendship for India, Prime Minister Modi accorded the Crown Prince a singular honour by inviting him as Chief Guest at India's Republic Day celebrations. An announcement in this regard is almost invariably made in December or even January but this time it was done in September 2016, and exceedingly significantly, in the immediate aftermath of India’s surgical strikes in response to attacks by Pakistani terrorists on a military camp in Uri in India's Jammu and Kashmir state. The morning after this terrorist attack, the UAE in a statement had said that it “stand(s) against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and expressed… solidarity with the Republic of India and support to all actions it may take to confront and eradicate terrorism.” 

The Crown Prince, UAE’s de facto head of state, has visited India twice in less than 12 months and the two leaders have met three times in less than 18 months. Such frequency is unique in India’s bilateral relations with any country and indeed unprecedented in international relations. 

Continuing concern related to terrorism was expressed in all three joint statements and eloquently reflected in the two leaders joint op ed in the Times of India and the Khaleej Times on 26 January 2017: “We have denounced and opposed terrorism in all forms and manifestations, wherever committed and by whomever, calling on all states to reject and abandon the use of terrorism against other countries, dismantle terrorism infrastructures where they exist, and bring perpetrators of terrorism to justice. We believe that this approach is crucial for fostering an environment of peace, stability and prosperity in our region.”

Status of India-UAE Relations

Some other notable facts about the current bilateral relationship deserve attention:

1. The UAE supports India’s proposal for the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism and India's Permanent Membership of the UN Security Council.

 

2. Internal security in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries was always accorded the highest priority. Given the multiple wars raging in West Asia since 2011, this has become a far greater concern than it did earlier. In this context, that 2.8 million Indians live and work in the UAE - more than double the number of locals - and being by far the largest expatriate group in the country, and with the number increasing every year, represents an enormous vote of confidence in Indians and India. 

 

3. From a mere $180 million in 1971, India was UAE’s 8th ranked trading partner from 1990-91 till 2000-2001; the ranking began rising rapidly thereafter and in the past decade, the UAE has invariably been amongst India’s top three trading partners and amongst India’s top two export destinations, and in both cases, more than once being number one.

 

4. Indians have invested $55 billion in the UAE. During Prime Minister Modi’s 2015 visit, the UAE agreed to invest $75 billion to upgrade India’s infrastructure, particularly in strategically important projects.

 

5. During the Crown Prince’s January 2017 visit, the Chief Executive Officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company invited India to explore investments in upstream oil and gas exploration and downstream in refining and petrochemicals; and to store 6 million tonnes of oil in an Indian Strategic Oil Reserve facility - both a first from a GCC country. Since its independence in 1971, the UAE has always been among the top seven oil suppliers to India. 

 

6. The three Joint Statements deserve to be read very carefully as they exhibit the vast depth and breadth of the across-the-spectrum comprehensiveness of bilateral cooperation including new emphasis on security and defence cooperation including in defence co-production. 

 

7. Though there are sharply different perceptions regarding the current conflicts in West Asia between India and the UAE, the two leaders have consciously decided not to allow this to affect the growing excellent bilateral relations.

All this eloquently demonstrates that India's relations with the UAE are clearly on the trajectory of becoming a ‘particularly special relationship’, one of a kind for both countries.

Harnessing the Relationship

Ultimately, it is exceedingly close socio-economic interdependence that will provide the ballast for a true strategic partnership between the two countries. India must get its act together - a quick resolution of past UAE investment legacy issues; and quick identification of potential UAE investment projects that must have time bound implementation flow charts. 17 months have passed since the UAE agreed to make a $75 billion investment in India in the August 2015 Joint Statement but an agreement on the modalities of its utilisation has not yet been signed, putting India’s credibility at stake.

Once exceedingly special, the UAE’s relations with Pakistan are under severe strain. India should desist from pushing the envelope in this regard in the public domain because it could be counter-productive.

Forecast 2017: Carnage Ahead?

Vijay Shankar

Donald Trump in his inaugural speech, vowed “…this American carnage must stop here.” What preceded his vow suggested, with more intensity and less clarity, what the “carnage” was. Presumably he implied a host of current circumstances whose balm included the advent of an era marked by mass mobilisation, bellicism, end of idealism, a blow out of the liberal left, abrogation of the spoils of the political and power elites, imposition of a draconian immigration policy, discarding multilateral alliances in favour of the bilateral, a baleful threat to eradicate radical Islamic terror, and a promise to ease the agonising ‘reality of the citizen’s state.’ His prescriptive mantra was simplistic; nationalism, protectionism, a menacing portent of a war on radical Islam, and the nebulous abstraction of “America First” (an odd declaration; were not US interests always first?). And yet coming from the mouth of a democratically elected leader of the planet’s sole super power, it must indeed set the stage for serious debate of what foreshadows the immediate future. It is his mantra that will disproportionately influence any strategic prognostication.

 

Global events such as Brexit and the rise of the far right in Europe, Russia and other parts of the world are symptomatic and a precursor of the geopolitical trends that Donald Trump articulated.

 

Clearly the challenges are complex, and in an intertwined world of global economic and security networks, the need for reconciling competing and often conflicting perspectives through empathy and compromise is on a collision course with insular politics. Given events that disparage (often correctly) established leadership as corrupt and the quest for mutuality involving far-reaching alliances as acknowledgement of frailty; nationalism has been ignited to mould malevolent distinctiveness that threatens to derange the integrative forces that have brought north and south together in a beneficial embrace. All this has been fuelled by the rapidity of technological changes and the inability of leadership to fully come to grips with the reach of the individual, which extends far beyond the ambit of the nation-state. And yet, at a point in the evolution of a world order which begs for robust international institutions that manage and regulate current global shifts, the world is faced with forces that unhinge existing systems. 

 

Nationalism, as one such unhinging force, conventionally, snatches control from the ‘gilt-edged’ and sets into motion undercurrents that progressively redistribute power. However, nationalism in the context of the masses damning ruling elites and challenging the beneficiaries of privilege has historically been double-edged.

 

While being a powerful dynamic of change, the history of the twentieth century has shown that it is invariably accompanied by anarchy in the absence of systems that serve to provide social solidity. Russia, China and Europe in the run-up to the First World War and in the frenzied interregnum between the two wars are all precedents that cannot be easily set aside. But the 21st century citizens’ voluntary and non-violent electing for chauvinistic administration is different. It is not only an indication of deep-seated frustration that targets the statusquo, but is also an expression of ‘disruptive discontent’, that is, a conception of the crisis without either the competence or the wherewithal to direct events. Paradoxically, it remains at odds with the gains of order, inclusive economics and globalisation. And because of the unique temper of contemporary times dominated by a cult of popular power laced liberally with nationalism, collaborative structures, both economic and security, that were hitherto evolving, are severely undermined.

 

A quick geopolitical scan will be helpful in putting the dangerous pall of instability in perspective. Russia, over the last quarter of a century since the end of the Cold War and disintegration of the Soviet Union, has emerged out of strategic limbo and again transformed into a major global player. It is today expanding and assimilating the western confines of what was the erstwhile Czarist empire and has, with relatively more success than the US and NATO, established its influence in West Asia. Eastward, it is building bridges with Communist China. While China, on a winning march of influence over East Asia and the South China Sea, is yet to reconcile its autocratic rule with the aspirations of its people, leaving it a trifle inadequate to don the mantle of global or even regional leadership. Unfortunately, the tide of history is turning towards these authoritarian states. In the meantime, the promise of an Arab awakening in West Asia and North Africa has been belied. The stalled transformation has given way to implosions within and the rise of a host of medieval ‘jihadist ideologies’ bent on re-establishing a Caliphate through the instruments of terror and radical Islam. In what is historically an awkward irony, the very destruction of Saddam’s Iraq has paved the way for fragmentation of the Sykes-Picot borders and the tri-furcation of Iraq into a Kurdish enclave in the northeast, a Shia enclave in the south and the Islamic State (IS) running riot in the centre and in Syria. The delusion that a new West Asia was in the build flies in the face of the current situation. In the interim, radical Islam has spread its tentacles from Pakistan through Afghanistan, into the Levant, Yemen, Somalia and all of the Maghreb. The IS has swept from Syria into Iraq in a maelstrom of destruction. No political Islam or civilisational impulse here, just rabid intolerance.

 

In its wake it has disrupted the correlation of political forces in the region as the US seeks a quick blocking entente with Iran; Syria sees in the situation an opportunity to settle scores with the insurgency raging within; Shia organisations find common cause to offset the IS; Sunni states carry a cloaked bias towards the IS to the extent that recent reports suggest funding by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar; and terror organisations in Afghanistan and Pakistan welcome the new leadership that has displaced al Qaeda. As the fanatical outburst of xenophobia stretches south, west and eastward the IS’ influence has manifested in the fertile jihadist breeding grounds of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many perceptive analysts have noted that Pakistan today represents a very dangerous condition as its establishment nurtures fundamentalist and terrorist organisations as instruments of their misshapen policies in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The essence of Pakistan’s rogue links will unmistakably seduce the IS, underscoring the distressing probability of extending its reach into a nuclear arsenal. These anarchic conditions have set into motion a refugee crisis that, unfortunately, no nation is willing to provide permanent relief to or even recognise. 

 

The linkage between extreme nationalism, protectionism and authoritarian government is historically unassailable and its impact on the world as a rising force of global disarray is unmistakable. Civil society in Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and elsewhere is in retreat, greatly pressured by governments fearful of an empowered citizenry and liberal thinking amongst them (the question is will the US take a slant in this direction?).  Disinformation is now galvanised by the use of social media and international relations are marred by large scale cyber-attacks. States, quite openly, ‘loan’ tens of millions of dollars to nationalist parties in countries such as France, Hungary, Romania, etc to dislocate politics through electoral means.

 

Arbitrary laws constrain foreign entities into narrower channels of activity under increasing pressure. Misperceptions commonly provide the controllable framework not only for public discourse but also, as recent history in Iraq and Afghanistan has demonstrated, for intelligence services to weave “alternate facts."

 

With the quickening of changed power relations, already apparent in the larger context of Brexit and the growing bonhomie between the US and Russia, the pulling away from multilateral alliances and the potential for new strategic orientation would appear to be the new norm. The strategic unleashing of Japan and its ramifications for stability in the Asia-Pacific could well redefine the power balance in the region. And lurking in the shadows is the real possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of radical Islamic terrorists, which along with the only comparable danger, in terms of scale of destruction, is environmental catastrophe; both must be seen for what they are, and perhaps, provide the imperative for unified response.

 

All the while what appeared to be an accepted ‘post-internet globalised world view’ is rapidly confronted by an absolutist conception of national sovereignty. The shaping influence of this complex of events that have so far been deliberated deliberated has just begun to loom large over the new century. More than anything else, it separates the world of the 20th century from the 21st. Efforts to cope with this globe splitting xenophobic embrace, particularly for a large developing nation such as India, is not just to rapidly advance its internal pattern of growth, development, demand and consumption but also to ensure that its security is in no way jeopardised through either appeasement or due lack of preparation. This will remain an abiding balancing act to master in the remaining years of this century.

WMG Excellence Masters Scholarships at University of Warwick for International Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 20th May 2017.

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): UK

About the Award: WMG (formally Warwick Manufacturing Group) is one of the largest academic departments at the University of Warwick, located in the Faculty of Science. The department provides inspiring and industry relevant Masters education in fields related to Management, Technology, and Innovation. WMG is nationally and internationally renowned for collaborative R&D with global companies

Type: Masters

Eligibility: 

• Applicants should have received an offer to study on a WMG Full-time MSc course that runs in the UK, starting October 2017, before applying for the WMG Excellence Scholarship.
• Applicants should have an excellent academic track-record. The WMG Scholarship committee will be reviewing both the academic achievement (usually the equivalent of a British 1st Class Honours Degree) and Scholarship Statement when awarding.
• For conditional offer-holders, scholarship awards will also be conditional on achieving the awardee’s final predicted grade.
• WMG Excellence Scholarships are for self-funded students only. NB: students with partial bursaries on scholarship-loan schemes or partially funded by an external organisation may be considered. Awardees should inform the scholarship committee if they are in receipt of another scholarship or are later awarded other funding.
• WMG Excellence Scholarships are awarded for study on UK Full-time MSc Programmes only.
• WMG Excellence Scholarships are paid towards tuition fees only and cannot be paid in cash or towards accommodation or maintenance costs.
• WMG will award WMG Excellence Scholarships across all WMG Full-time MSc Programmes to maximize nationality and gender diversity.
• In order to maximise your chances of success, we recommend you submit your MSc application as early as possible.

Selection Criteria: WMG Excellence Scholarships are available on a competitive basis. Awards will be based on past academic achievement, previous experience, extracurricular activities, reasons for study, and your vision for the future.

Value and Number of Scholarships: Up to a total of 50 WMG Excellence Scholarships will be awarded on a % discount of the tuition fees. Awards will range from 25% to 50% fee discount.

Duration of Scholarship: 

How to Apply: Students must complete a Scholarship Statement in order to be considered for the WMG Excellence Scholarships.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details 

Award Provider: University of Warwick

Bungling in Yemen: Trump and the Cult of the Action Hero

Binoy Kampmark

“Rather than advancing a political solution that almost everyone agrees is the only way to solve the conflict, it seems the Trump administration’s actions are just adding fuel to the fire.”

Adam Baron, European Council on Foreign Relations, Feb 7, 2016

The seething bickering in Washington has been going on for over a week. Was the first authorised international raid by the Trump administration, supposedly made over dinner, a success?  There was little denying that the  bells and blood Yemen mission in Bayda province last month was spectacularly deadly, costing the life of a US serviceman, twenty five civilians including nine children and eight women – in addition to al-Qaeda operatives.

The leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Qassim al-Rimi, did not suffer the same fate, but was happy to chortle that President Donald Trump was the “White House’s new fool.”  The foolishness was compounded by revelations that a US citizen, an eight-year old girl and daughter of Anwar al-Awlaqi, was also killed.

The cleric Al-Awlaqi was slain in 2011 by a drone strike on the grounds that he was a key recruiter for al-Qaeda, making him the first US citizen to be killed by his own government without trial since the Civil War.

Even a Yemeni tribal leader was baffled at the sheer muscularity of the raid, featuring Reaper drones, helicopter gunships and elite personnel, suggesting that it would have been easier to simply bomb the place – “but it looks like Trump is trying to say ‘I’m a man of action’.”  It was evident that the president had been addled by a diet of “Steven Seagal movies.”

Networks were drawing up their scorecards on the mission.  NPR came up with its own list, among them the death of US Navy Seal, Ryan Owens, the civilians already mentioned, and a $90 million tilt-rotor aircraft known as an Osprey, destroyed on crash landing.  “The operation, the first authorized by the Trump presidency, also raises serious questions about the planning and decision-making of the current occupant in the Oval-Office, as well as the truthfulness of information coming out of the White House” (NPR, Feb 10).

The technique of such truthfulness – the alt-fact world of tinkering, adjustments and readjustments – was as much a matter of deflection than anything else. White House press secretary Sean Spicer is fast becoming the spinner of the deflected tale and inflated ruse: instead of focusing on the mission’s heroic efforts, critics, he charged, were rubbishing the exploits of a fallen Navy Seal.

“The life of Chief Ryan Owens was done in service to his country and we owe him and his family a great debt for the information that we received during that raid.  I think any suggestion otherwise is a disservice to his courageous life and the actions that he just took.  Full stop.”

Impoverished Yemen has already become a pool of blood, a civil war in large part exacerbated by the continued US support for the Saudi Arabian-led operation against the Shia Houthi rebels.  That particular bombing campaign has been vicious, making a point of targeting critical infrastructure (schools, roads, hospitals) along with a generous spread of holy sites.

Some 10,000 people have perished (the number is derived from an August 2016 estimate by the United Nations); millions have been displaced, joining the humanitarian queues in a global supply of refugees.  Famine risks stalking the land, afflicting up to 19 million Yemenis who are said by officials to require humanitarian assistance.

Senator John McCain certainly saw few good signs in the operation, deeming it a failure.  The International Crisis Group saw a gun-crazed buffoon stumbling into conflict.  “The first military actions by the Trump administration in Yemen bode poorly for the prospect of smartly and effectively countering AQAP.”  Even Yemen’s government-in-exile emitted mixed signals regarding the Yakla engagement, wishing to conduct a “reassessment” of the raid.

This reassessment was already taking place moments with the blood still drying.  The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) painted a less than rosy picture despite celebrating the killing of al-Qaeda militants.  “A team designated by the operational task force commander has concluded regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely to have been killed in the midst of a firefight during a raid in Yemen on January 29.  Casualties may include children.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, initial reports that Yemeni officials had withdrawn their support for such operations was subsequently repudiated. What was needed in the future, rather, was “more coordination with Yemeni authorities before any operation and there needs to be consideration for our sovereignty.”

The ingredients for a deepening of conflict exist.  Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, insists that the Houthis are an Iranian proxy front, and a terrorist one, no less.  The Houthis, whilst denying the full bloom link with Teheran, take issue with the US support for the Saudi operations to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Add to this a range of Islamist groups of various persuasions, including the Islah Party, with deep Muslim Brotherhood links, and we have a convulsed mess that will need more than an action hero to sort out.  The White House resident, imbued with the brutish spirit of Steven Seagal, will be the perfect recruitment figure for the very organisations Washington wishes to neutralise.

Softening-up the UK Public for Genetic Modification

Colin Todhunter

On the back of Brexit, the UK government is planning what could be a disastrous trade deal with the Trump administration. It would likely be worse than the secretive and undemocratic stalled Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal that the EU has been planning with the US.

As for food and agriculture, such a trade deal  on the UK abandoning standards that took years to put in place, allowing imports of US foods that were previously rejected: beef from cattle implanted with growth hormones, chlorine-washed chicken and unlabelled genetically modified (GM) foods.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Monsanto is preparing a fresh effort to try to soften up the UK public for GM food appearing on supermarket shelves and GM crops being planted in the nation’s fields. Former World Bank communications strategist and slick communicator Vance Crowe has been hired by Monsanto as its ‘Director of Millenial Engagement’ to convince younger people about the benefits of GM. And he is visiting the UK to give a series of talks.

Although Crowe will do his best, no amount of corporate spin can hide the reality: the UK public does not want GM; there is no scientific consensus on the health safety aspects of GM; there is more than sufficient information to indicate serious health dangers (for example, see this); and there are well-documented adverse environmental impacts derived from what is an over-hyped (and largely unneeded) technology. In fact, the failed GM project has to date left a trail of broken promises in its wake that are clear for all to see: no decrease in pesticide use and no increase in crop yields.

One thing in the technology’s favour, however: at least from an industry standpoint, GM allows corporations like Monsanto to secure intellectual property rights on seeds and to secure farmer dependency on proprietary inputs. In this respect, maybe the public aren’t as ignorant about the GM issue as Monsanto would like us all to think: in a recent survey in Canada, over 50% of the public who were questioned believed GM was just a way for companies to increase their profits.

Crowe is promoting a food and agriculture model based not only on a disastrously failing taxpayer-subsidised chemical treadmill but on a failing biotech treadmill too. Good for the agritech/agribusiness cartel, bad for farmers, bad the environment and bad for consumers.

But Crowe reads from a script that will try to convince everyone that the opposite is true: Monsanto is providing a service to humanity and that his company is a hapless victim of hate-filled ideologues. He is on record as saying that that critics of modern agriculture have “spread anger and fear into the system” and that:

“what we as an industry can do is to package ideas so that people can understand them and spread our ideas throughout networks making sure that what we believe spreads out to be what culture stacks up to.”

Part of the ‘cultural stack-up’ involves an attempt to depict critics of modern agriculture and GMOs as anti-science and fear-mongers who deal in ideology and emotion. These claims have been used by various pro-GM ideologues, such as Kevin Folta, Owen Paterson, Richard John Roberts and Shanthu Shantharam time and again. And these claims have been debunked time and again (see this, this and this).

The industry tactic is that if the same baseless claims are repeated as nauseam, the public and policy makers will take them at face value. The aim is to reduce the debate to a series of trivial soundbites. This manipulation is carried out by individuals with an interest in promoting a GMO techno quick-fix for world hunger and whose own self-interest compels them to side-line the social, environmental and economic impacts of this technology and the root causes of poverty, malnutrition, inequality and hunger.

Slogans and PR stunts are designed to bring the debate down to smears and emotional blackmail to sway public opinion in favour of GMOs. They are designed to denigrate critics and marginalise debate about realistic alternatives for feeding the world, which challenge the interests of the global GMO agritech sector.

The pro-GMO lobby has used such tactics as part of a well-funded, carefully thought-out strategy for dealing with critics. It has favoured public relations, deception and the co-option of public institutions over actual science.

The GMO-agritech sector has taken its cue from big tobacco, big oil and right-wing ‘free’ market fundamentalists whose only concern is to maximise profit, do away with regulations and health and safety standards and deceive the public and politicians that harmful products and practices are in the public interest. For instance, front groups like the Science Media Centre and Sense About Science have done their best to hijack the concept of ‘sound science’ and twist it in favour of industry propaganda which is based on anything but science that is ‘sound’.

Vance Crowe aside, we should also take note of other key figures who are currently jumping on the pro-GMO bandwagon and who are trying to shape the debate.

Former UK agriculture permanent secretary (i.e. a former senior civil servant) Sir Richard Packer recently penned the article ‘Brexit, Agriculture and Agricultural Policy’. He argues that anti-scientific attitudes and bureaucracy are holding back the scientific advance of agricultural production.

In the EU agricultural sector, he says:

“… opposition is especially prominent in the debates over GM crops and foods and, sometimes, on issues such as pesticides. On GM in particular, the EU has been unable to make progress despite clear scientific advice.”

Packer argues that the EU debate on GM foods was for a considerable period hijacked by “anti-scientific forces”:

“If, as many believe, GM has a significant role to play in meeting future food supply sustainability, it would be sensible to make rapid progress on the matter, for the benefit of future generations…. As in the EU, there are also groups in the UK opposed to GM as a matter of principle who would not therefore be persuadable as to its benefits. But it is to be hoped the scientific view would prevail and there would be an opportunity to ensure it did.”

He adds that after Brexit there will be scope for ‘improvement’ in the present arrangements:

“Post-Brexit there will also be scope for adopting a more rigorous scientific attitude on matters such as pesticides and biotechnology including GM. We cannot afford the luxury of ignoring scientific advance because Luddites shout louder than the rest of us. But the basic system suits us quite well.”

It is interesting to note that his piece was originally published on the website of the pro-privatisation, pro-deregulation right-wing Centre for Policy Studies lobby group. His views are based on little more than standard industry-type public relations. There is the usual hint of emotional blackmail that suggests future generations will lose out on the perceived benefits of GM thanks to a bunch of anti-science ideologues (future generations that will no doubt also lose out on the ‘benefits’ of more health-destroying pesticides from an agrochemicals industry in dire need of more deregulation). Of course, the tiresome Luddite smear is thrown in for good measure.

Isn’t it about time that people in Parker’s position stood up and held the likes of Monsanto and its claims to account instead of acting as cheerleaders? By buying into industry PR and attacks on critics, does Parker think he comes across as credible and objective?

Despite the spin and deception, the public is not as gullible or misinformed about the GM issue as the likes of Parker or Crowe would like to think.

Is This How the World Ends?

David Macaray

Many observers—including such disparate voices as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Noam Chomsky, Hillary Clinton, Thomas Friedman, Pope Francis, and CounterPunch’s own Conn Hallinan—have described the North Indian province of Kashmir (and the surrounding area) as “the most dangerous place on earth.”

As extravagant or melodramatic as that statement may appear at first blush, it is nonetheless true. Having once lived in Punjab, India, and traveled to parts of Kashmir, I can attest that relations between India and Pakistan are unbelievably poisonous, and that the northwest region is regarded as so dangerously unstable, it’s a miracle it hasn’t exploded.

Here are some factors to consider.

* Ever since India (which is predominately Hindu) and Pakistan (which is overwhelmingly Muslim) became independent countries—via Partition, in 1947—they have been avowed enemies. That’s 70 years of simmering hostility.

* Directly bordering each other—just as the U.S. borders Canada and Mexico—India and Pakistan have already fought four “official” wars and engaged in numerous military skirmishes.

* India’s army is the third largest in the world, bigger than North Korea’s or Russia’s.

* Pakistan’s army is half the size of India’s.

* Both countries now have nuclear weapons.

* India is the world’s largest democracy.

* Pakistan is part quasi-military dictatorship, part theocracy.

* Both countries believe in an Afterlife.

* Pakistan is paranoid and frazzled, and always seems desperate.

* India is buoyantly self-confident, always ready to assert itself.

* Pakistan fears that the U.S. will install a pro-West, pro-Indian government in Afghanistan, resulting in Pakistan being squeezed between two enemies.

* India has a sizeable arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons.

* Pakistan has a modest supply of strategic warheads, but a large supply of tactical nuclear weapons.

And therein lies the rub. Tactical nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s access to tactical nukes is what makes everyone so nervous.

Whereas strategic nuclear weapons are the ones we’ve all learned to fear—the ones that would have been part of the worldwide, “duck and cover” thermonuclear war between the U.S. and USSR—tactical nukes are weapons designed specifically to be used on the field of the battle. They’re nuclear, but they’re limited.

Why has Pakistan developed so many of them? Why have they put so much effort into amassing an arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons? Answer: They see tactical nukes as the only deterrent to India invading and overrunning them in a conventional war. The Indian army is simply too big and well-equipped. It would be a rout.

This is the dreaded scenario: Fed up with Pakistan’s persistent meddling and incursions into Kashmir, and ignoring the pleas of the U.S. and the rest of the world, India unleashes its long awaited invasion of Pakistan. The mighty Indian army crosses the border in Punjab and proceeds to wipe the floor with outmanned and outgunned Pakistani soldiers.

To the horror of everyone, we find out that the rumors were true, that Pakistani field officers with the rank of full colonel or general have been given the authority to use tactical nukes at their own discretion—to use them in the face of “overwhelming and superior forces.” And use them they do.

Of course, once India realizes it’s under attack from nuclear weapons, they go ape-shit. They instantly retaliate with nukes of their own, but instead of the “benign” battlefield variety, they bring out the big boys. They launch a full-scale strategic nuclear attack against Pakistan’s major cities and military installations.

Left with no choice, Pakistan fires every nuclear warhead in its arsenal, convinced that, win, lose or draw, once the smoke clears, multitudes of faithful Muslims will be reunited with Allah.

As a consequence of this conflagration (a cumulative blast one million times more powerful than that of Hiroshima), the atmosphere is poisoned, the earth experiences Nuclear Winter, and life as we know it perishes.

And that’s how the world ends. With nuclear Hindus and nuclear Muslims destroying each other and taking the rest us with them. The notion of Armageddon coming in the form of Capitalism vs. Communism seems almost quaint by comparison.

Worst Joke Ever? U.S. Spy Chief Gives Saudi Prince Highest Award for “Fighting Terrorism”

MIKE WHITNEY

On Friday, the Director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, used his first trip abroad to present Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef with the CIA’s highest award for fighting terrorism, the George Tenet Medal.  Although the ceremony wasn’t covered by any of the major media, it was picked up on various blogsites where the news was greeted with predictable howls of outrage.  Not surprisingly, most American’s still see Saudi Arabia as the epicenter of global terrorism, a point which was underlined in a recent article at The Atlantic titled “Where America’s Terrorists Actually Come From”.  Here’s an excerpt:

“…after sifting through databases, media reports, court documents, and other sources, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, has arrived at a striking finding: Nationals of the seven countries singled out by Trump have killed zero people in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and 2015.

Zero…

Nowrasteh has listed foreign-born individuals who committed or were convicted of attempting to commit a terrorist attack on U.S. soil by their country of origin and the number of people they killed. … the countries at the top of the list, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are not included in Trump’s ban…

The 9/11 attacks were carried out by 19 men—from Saudi Arabia (15), the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt (1), and Lebanon (1). The incident remains influential in how Americans think about the nature of terrorism.” (“Where America’s Terrorists Actually Come From“, The Atlantic)

While it’s true that 9-11 has shaped the way that Americans think about terrorism, it’s also true that most people are unaware of the deeper operational relationship between the CIA and the Saudis that dates back to the funding of the Mujahidin in Afghanistan in the 1970’s. This is where bin Laden and al Qaida first burst onto the scene, which is to say, that the sketchy CIA-Saudi connection created the seedbed for the War on Terror. Unfortunately,  even now– 16 years after the attacks of 9-11–  the relationship between the notorious intel agency and its Middle East allies remains as foggy as ever.  As a result, the Saudis are typically fingered as the main source of the problem while the CIA’s role is conveniently swept under the rug. For example, take a look at this clip from an article in the Independent:

“Saudi Arabia is the single biggest contributor to the funding of Islamic extremism and is unwilling to cut off the money supply, according to a leaked note from Hillary Clinton.

The US Secretary of State says in a secret memorandum that donors in the kingdom still “constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide” and that “it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority”…

Saudi Arabia is accused, along with Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, of failing to prevent some of its richest citizens financing the insurgency against Nato troops in Afghanistan. Fund-raisers from the Taliban regularly travel to UAE to take advantage of its weak borders and financial regulation to launder money.

However, it is Saudi Arabia that receives the harshest assessment. The country from which Osama bin Laden and most of the 9/11 terrorists originated, according to Mrs Clinton, “a critical financial support base for al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during the Haj and Ramadan”.

(“Saudi Arabia is ‘biggest funder of terrorists“, Independent)

Then there’s this gem from ex-Vice President Joe Biden:

“Biden said that “our biggest problem is our allies” who are engaged in a proxy Sunni-Shiite war against Syrian President Bashar Assad. He specifically named Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“What did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad – except that the people who were being supplied were (Jabhat) Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world,” Mr Biden said.” (“Joe Biden forced to apologize to UAE and Turkey over Syria remarks“, Telegraph)

The evidence against Saudi Arabia is overwhelming and damning, and that’s what makes Pompeo’s performance in Riyadh so confusing. Why is the head of the CIA bestowing an award on a man who could undoubtedly identify some of the world’s biggest terrorist donors, unless, of course, the CIA derives some benefit from the arrangement?

Is that it? Is there is a quid pro quo between Washington and the Saudis that no one knows about but from which Washington reaps tangible geopolitical benefits?

It’s certainly within the realm of possibility.

Is it too far-fetched to think that the Saudis are actually a franchise that acts as Langley’s primary subcontractor carrying out operations deemed too sensitive for its own agents while obscuring the Company’s role behind a cloak of plausible deniability? Isn’t that what Friday’s freakishly Orwellian awards ceremony really suggests, that the skullduggery is much darker, deeper and more complicated than anyone would care to imagine?

Washington’s support for the Mujahidin helped to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan which is why the Brzezinski crowd thought it was a success story.  If that’s the case, then isn’t it logical to assume that subsequent administrations might have used the same model elsewhere,   like Kosovo, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan?

Isn’t it at least worth investigating?

And, another thing:  Is it possible to uncover the root of terror by capturing and interrogating individual terrorists to find out what they know?

No, it’s not possible, because the individual cogs have never revealed the source of the funding-streams which originate from within the deep state. Every effort has been made to distance the authors from their illicit handiwork, to remove the tracks and erase the fingerprints. Once again, it’s all about plausible deniability and preventing the public from identifying the real perpetrators. Which means the only way to end this madness is by shedding light on the shadowy goings on between the Intel agencies and their Middle East proxies. There’s no other way.

One thing is certain, you’re not going to win the war on terror by handing out medals to the prime suspects.