UK Prime Minister May silent on war threats against Spain over Gibraltar

Julie Hyland 

Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May has refused to condemn the comments by Michael Howard that her government would be prepared to go to war with Spain over Gibraltar.

Howard, a former Conservative Party leader, was responding to the European Union’s (EU) stipulation that any deal reached by the British government over the terms of its withdrawal from the EU, would not apply to Gibraltar—a British Overseas Territory—without Spain’s agreement.

Invoking Margaret Thatcher’s 1982 war against Argentina over the Malvinas/Falkland Islands—another British Overseas Territory—Howard said, “Thirty-five years ago this week another woman Prime Minister sent a taskforce half way across the world to defend the freedom of another small group of British people against another Spanish-speaking country, and I am absolutely certain our current Prime Minister will show the same resolve in standing by the people of Gibraltar.”

His statement was made just four days after May triggered Article 50, officially beginning Britain’s two years of negotiations on the terms of its withdrawal from the EU. Asked later if he was “seriously suggesting” going to war with Spain, Howard said, “Of course not,” but added, “I can see no harm in reminding them what kind of people we are.”

Upping the ante, Rear Admiral Chris Parry, a former director of operational capability at the Ministry of Defence, threatened, “We could cripple Spain in the medium term and I think the Americans would probably support us too.

“Spain should learn from history that it is never worth taking us on and that we could still singe the King of Spain’s beard.”

Gibraltar, a 6.7 square kilometre territory on the southern tip of Spain, was seized by Britain in 1704. With just 30,000 residents, it is an important military base controlling the entrance and exit to the Mediterranean and a tax haven that is home to 500 financial services companies.

At a lobby briefing Monday morning, a spokesperson for May—who was en route to Jordan for trade talks—said that while the dispatch of a British taskforce to Gibraltar “isn’t going to happen,” Howard had been trying to prove the UK’s “resolve” on the issue. Speaking to journalists later, May herself attempted to laugh off questions as to whether the UK was prepared to declare war on Spain. The UK was “sitting down and talking” to the EU about the “best possible deal” over Brexit that would apply to its overseas territories.

At the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers in Luxembourg, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson—who had said the UK would stand by Gibraltar “like a rock”—stressed again the British commitment to its “sovereignty.”

Statements by Gibraltar’s chief minister, Fabian Picardo, made clear that it is not sovereignty that is at issue, but the territory’s demand that it must not be excluded from any terms finally agreed between the EU and the UK. Writing in the pro-Brexit Daily Express, Picardo thundered that the EU’s decision to give Spain a veto over Gibraltar’s “participation in any future UK/EU trade deal is a betrayal of historic proportions…”

Spain’s Foreign Minister, Alfonso Dastis, said that the minority conservative Popular Party government was “a little surprised by the tone of comments coming out of Britain, a country known for its composure,” and that “someone in the UK is losing their cool and there’s no need for it.”

Gibraltar’s border with Spain would not be closed after Britain quit the EU, he said. Spain’s government sought only “a balanced, reasonable and thorough deal,” regarding workers’ rights and immigration. London is demanding an end to free movement as one of the terms of its divorce, under conditions in which more than 13,000 Spaniards cross Gibraltar’s border to work each day—representing 40 percent of the workforce.

The European Commission has traditionally maintained a neutral position on conflicting Spanish/UK claims to Gibraltar. However, with Britain leaving the EU a diplomat told the Guardian, “Now we are going to support the member state.”

Several Tories, including prominent supporters of the Leave campaign during the referendum have called for calm. Conservative Member of the European Parliament Daniel Hannan tweeted, “Spain is a NATO ally, for Heaven’s sake.” But a faction of the pro-Brexit campaign are pressing for an even harder line from May in the EU negotiations, using Britain’s military and intelligence capabilities as a weapon. May’s letter triggering Article 50 warned that if the UK did not get its demands, it “would mean our co-operation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened.”

Should this fail, they insist that Britain should end all negotiations with the EU. As Parry’s statements make clear, they calculate that, in doing so, they would have the support of US President Donald Trump, who backed Brexit and has spoken in favour of the EU’s break-up as a German-dominated economic competitor to the US.

Breitbart London carried an op-ed by Ted Malloch under the heading, “Brexit Is a Fait Accompli and Europe’s Acrimonious Attitude Should Be Toned Down.” Malloch, touted as a leading candidate to be Trump’s ambassador to the EU, backed Brexit, has supported referendums in other EU countries to quit, has said the euro will collapse and, equating the bloc with the Soviet Union, described it as “another union that needs a little taming.”

Brexit “is no longer up for discussion,” he wrote, and, as Britain is a “sovereign, democratic country,” it alone should decide its future. In contrast, “The European Union is not a cohesive sovereign state. These are matters of fact, not politics.

“Transforming the current international organization known as the European Union into a proper sovereign entity is the declared aim of many figures in the European institutions … it remains to be seen whether it can garner democratic support as an idea among the countries they wish to turn into sub-sovereign entities.”

Writing in the Telegraph, Norman Tebbit, an arch Thatcherite, warned that Gibraltar is a “vital Western strategic interest” and he doubted “President Trump would see it as in the interests of the US for ‘the Rock’ to fall out of British hands. Already the Trump administration is questioning for how long it can maintain its commitment to the Nato guarantee that an attack on any one member state would be regarded as an attack on all while only the Americans and British are willing to fulfil their commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on defence. We might therefore not be without allies in this matter.”

Responding to Spain’s suggestion that it would not block Scotland’s application for membership of the EU, should a second referendum on its independence from the UK prove successful, Tebbit suggested “inviting leaders of the Catalan independence movement to London, or even to raising their desire for independence at the United Nations.” The “Catalans are different from the Spanish,” he wrote, as they “are an outward-looking Atlanticist people…”

Two years ago, Spain signed an agreement with the US making permanent its military base in the southwest of the country. The air and naval base is considered a strategic hub for NATO, and is playing a key role in Trump’s declared war against Islamic State, especially in Iraq and Libya.

Earlier this month, Spain’s defence minister, Maria Dolores de Cospedal, pledged to meet Trump’s demands that all European countries contribute to spending 2 percent of their GDP on defence. However, this would not be until 2024. A possible factor in the bellicose statements emanating from London is to thwart any possibility of Spain, following Brexit, replacing the UK as a key ally of the US in Europe.

Egyptian dictator el-Sisi welcomed to the White House

Patrick Martin

President Donald Trump welcomed the bloodstained military dictator of Egypt, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to the White House Monday, giving a public demonstration of support for a regime that has slaughtered thousands, crushing the revolutionary uprising of millions of workers and youth that inspired the world in 2011, and currently jails tens of thousands of political opponents and dissidents.

More than a thousand Egyptians are facing death sentences handed down by kangaroo courts where they could not present a defense and in which no evidence was actually submitted. Others are jailed for life, including the elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose government was overthrown by el-Sisi in a military coup in July 2013.

This bloody record did not give Trump the slightest pause, as he shook el-Sisi’s hand vigorously—in notable contrast to his refusal to make the same gesture when German Chancellor Angela Merkel was his guest last month. “We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt,” Trump said, as he stood side-by-side in the Oval Office with the chief oppressor of the Egyptian people.

“You have a great friend and ally in the United States and in me,” Trump told el-Sisi. “I just want to let everybody know that we are very much behind President el-Sisi, he has done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation.”

The Egyptian president responded with extravagant flattery of Trump, declaring, “Since we met last September, I’ve had a deep appreciation and admiration of your unique personality, especially as you are standing very strong in counterterrorism field.” The Egyptian regime has made no objection to Trump’s efforts—in the name of counterterrorism—to ban visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries, including two of Egypt’s neighbors, Libya and Sudan.

A White House statement announcing the visit of el-Sisi listed only two issues on the agenda for the meeting, terrorism and economic reform. The most important issues were unstated: The escalation of US military intervention throughout the Middle East and Washington’s efforts to mobilize its client states, military dictators and oil despots alike, in support.

Egypt is the second-largest recipient of US military and economic aid in the region, trailing only Israel. However, despite huge weapons purchases, including fighter jets, armored vehicles and advanced weaponry, there are no Egyptian warplanes taking part in the US-led bombing of Iraq and Syria. Egypt has also rejected requests from Saudi Arabia to back the coalition of Gulf monarchies waging war in Yemen against Houthi rebels who overthrew the Saudi-backed regime of President Abdrabbuh Mansur al-Hadi.

Egyptian officials have resisted the pressure for such military contributions because of security crises on both the eastern and western borders: Islamist guerrilla attacks in the Sinai peninsula, and the civil war in neighboring Libya. Even more significant is the continuing fear of a social explosion at home, six years after the mass movement that brought down the military regime of President Hosni Mubarak. The most critical function of the massive Egyptian military apparatus, funded by $77 billion in US aid over three decades, is to police a population of 90 million, by far the largest in the Arab world.

Trump has ostentatiously discarded the occasional human rights rhetoric of the Obama and Bush administrations. However, he has not yet rescinded some of the restrictions imposed on Egyptian military purchases during the period after el-Sisi’s coup. At the time, Obama felt compelled to posture as a critic of the most violent acts of repression, even while maintaining security ties with Cairo, including $1.3 billion in annual military aid.

In particular, el-Sisi is seeking the restoration of “cash-flow financing,” a particularly favorable method of military assistance that allows Egypt to buy US military equipment on easy, long-term credit terms. Observers in the Egyptian media—all subject to state censorship—suggested that expanded Egyptian cooperation with US military efforts against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria might be the price to be paid for restoration of the long-term credits.

Despite Trump’s enthusiastic embrace of el-Sisi, both as a candidate and as president, his initial budget request to Congress included sharp cuts in foreign aid that would have devastating consequences for the bankrupt Egyptian economy. On military aid, the Trump budget guaranteed continued funding for Israel but not for Egypt, which was said to be still under evaluation.

The official unemployment rate in Egypt is 12.7 percent, compared to 9 percent in 2011, when discontent over the economy was a driving force in the revolution that overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship. Youth unemployment is estimated at more than 30 percent.

President el-Sisi met with his financial paymasters at the World Bank even before visiting Trump at the White House. He also met with Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, and was to meet later in the week with officials of the International Monetary Fund. At each stop, including the White House, el-Sisi pledged to continue his program of “economic reform,” which involves slashing subsidies for consumer goods like bread and further opening the Egyptian economy to foreign investment.

Last month the cut in subsidies for bread, demanded by the IMF, triggered riots in many cities. In a commentary in Foreign Policy magazine, Zeinab Abul-Magd of Oberlin College wrote, “The riots reveal that, underneath this tranquility, a war is raging between the country’s domineering army and its civilian poor,” adding, “The stability of Egypt’s military regime is not guaranteed to last.”

El-Sisi has devoted himself to shoring up his support within the military establishment, lavishly funding state investments in enterprises run by military officers. Last month his regime engineered the release from prison of the former dictator, Hosni Mubarak, quashing his conviction on corruption charges.

Trump’s meeting with el-Sisi is part of a US foreign policy offensive throughout the Middle East. Later in the week Jordan’s King Abdullah visits the White House—another US-backed despot who is under mounting pressure to contribute more to the military campaign in Iraq and Syria.

Last weekend Trump dispatched his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to Iraq, accompanying General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and White House counterterrorism adviser Thomas Bossert. He is participating in talks with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad and getting a first-hand look at the Iraqi military siege of Mosul, where US warplanes have slaughtered hundreds of civilians in relentless bombing.

The 36-year-old Kushner, scion of a billion-dollar real estate family, has no foreign policy experience, but has a growing portfolio, including China, Mexico and the Middle East, which stamps him as the “crown prince” of an increasingly dynastic regime.

The Dunford-Kushner mission follows press reports that the Pentagon will no longer announce or confirm the movement of troops into or out of Iraq and Syria, following orders from Trump’s National Security Council. A Pentagon official told the Los Angeles Times that the purpose was “to maintain tactical surprise, ensure operational security and force protection.”

The real purpose, however, is to conceal from the American people, and from world public opinion, the ongoing escalation of US military operations in the region, which includes recent deployments of 400 Marines into northern Syria and 300 paratroopers to reinforce the Iraqi onslaught on Mosul.

The Trump administration has also approved the sale of F-16 warplanes to Bahrain’s monarchy, suspended for years because of savage repression of the Shi’ite majority in that country. King Hamad responded with an intensification of the repression, approving a constitutional amendment Monday allowing military courts to try civilians for offenses against the state of emergency which has been in effect since 2011.

Forecast 2017: Nepal

Pramod Jaiswal

2016 began with difficult start for Nepal. Shortly after the massive earthquake and the disaster that followed, there was a shortage of fuel and essential supplies due to the ‘economic blockade’ imposed by Madhesis to pressurise the government to address their demands related to the newly promulgated constitution. To add to the woes, the 'economic blockade' took place during the winter months when the country was struggling to recover from the earthquake that had claimed thousands of lives. Despite this, the then Prime Minister of Nepal, KP Oli, refused to address the demands of Madhesis, Janajatis and Tharus through amendments in the constitution. 

 

With the prime minister's reluctance to pay heed to the demands, the blockade was lifted after the 134 days long protest, without any result. The first quarter of 2016 was also a period of despair as Nepal lost its former Prime Minister and senior Nepali Congress leader, Sushil Koirala. It was also around the time when India-Nepal relations were at a low because the KP Oli-led government had accused India of supporting the ‘economic blockade’ imposed by the Madhesis. 

 

To improve the New Delhi-Kathmandu relationship, Oli was invited for a six-day visit to India. However, nothing remarkable was achieved through his visit. Within few weeks, Oli paid a week-long visit to China. He tried to challenge India by signing an agreement on trade and transit with Beijing. However, the Oli-led government could not last long. It collapsed within 10 months, following the withdrawal of support by the Maoists as the Oli government had failed to address the demands of the Madhesis, Tharus and Janajatis. Subsequently, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, Chairman, Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center) became Nepal's prime minister for the second time with the support of Nepali Congress, the largest party in the parliament. Both the Nepali Congress and the Maoists agreed to equally share the remaining 18-month term between themselves. Prime Minister Dahal was able to garner the support of the Madhesi parties as well, because he assured them that he would address their demands. 

 

While 2016 was a mixed bag, 2017 comes with several challenges. Nepal has to implement the newly promulgated constitution by taking the Madhesis on board by addressing their demands. The government also needs to hold the three-tier elections (local, provincial and federal) by January 2018, as mentioned in the constitution. Delivering on these would be a herculean task for both the incumbent and the upcoming government led by Nepali Congress in 2017. Failing to address these challenges will plunge Nepal into crisis.

 

Prachanda's Promise

Prachanda promised the Madhesis, Janajatis and Tharus that their demands will be addressed through a constitutional amendment as he was in need of their support to become the prime minister for the second time. However, despite his attempts, he has failed to do so. Though he tabled the amendment proposal in the parliament, he could not garner the two-third majority required for the amendment. Moreover, under the pressure of the main opposition, the Communist Party of Nepal [Unified Marxist Leninist] (CPN-UML), he announced that local elections will be held on 14 May.

 

The newly promulgated constitution requires holding of three-tier elections by January 2018. In this context, the Election Commission of Nepal had asked the government to agree on election dates at the earliest to facilitate conducting all three elections within the stipulated time. Following the strong reaction and warning of withdrawing support to the Maoists' government, Prachanda reiterated that he would address the demands of the Madhesis, Janajatis and Tharus through amendments before the local polls.

 

Local Elections

If the local body election takes place on the announced date - May 14 - Nepal will have a democratically elected local body after two decades. But the Madhesi political parties are agitating and have demanded that the government should first address their concerns regarding Madhesis, Janajatis and Tharus through constitutional amendments and then announce the poll dates. Meanwhile, the CPN-UML had demanded that the government should hold the elections and had rejected the proposition of constitutional amendments. 

 

Following the announcement of the election date, Madhesi parties announced a series of protests in Madhes. They declared that they would not partake in the election and would instead foil the process unless their demands are addressed via a constitutional amendment. With this declaration, unfortunately, five Madhesis became the target of brutal extra judicial killing by the security forces in eastern Nepal when the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) cadres tried to disrupt the CPN-UML's Mechi-Mahakali campaign.

 

Conducting the election without the participation of Madhesi parties is not possible and neither does it serve any purpose. It will further increase the rift between the Madhesi parties and the government, which will further complicate the existing issue. There are also chances of serious clashes between people of different communities in Madhes, which could spiral into instances of large-scale ethno-centric violence that will worsen the situation. As experienced in the past, it has the potential to escalate further with the mobilisation of security forces and the Nepal Army. The possibility of another ‘economic blockade’ at the India-Nepal border and similar implications cannot be ruled out. Frustration among the Madhesis, Tharus and Janajatis is already rising. The radicalised Madhesi youth, may raise a demand for a separate Madhes, like CK Raut’s group. Together, all these issues might create an environment for the formulation and organisation of armed insurgents like it did in the past. Under such circumstances, conducting the election is possible only if the government strikes a deal with the Madhesi parties, addresses their demands, and brings them on board for holding the election in a timely manner. 

 

Economy

Nepal has faced an acute power crisis for over a decade. Nepalese people were subjected to power cuts that lasted as long as 18 hours a day during peak seasons. This impacted the economy and normal lives severely. However, with electricity imported from India and the increment in domestic electricity production and some strong bureaucratic action, the power crisis has almost been resolved. Hence, it is highly probable that in 2017, Nepal's economy will thrive.

 

India-Nepal Relations

India and Nepal share deep historical, political, geographic, economic and socio-cultural ties. The two countries share an 1850-kilometre long open border and cross-border marriages are common. Under the provisions of the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship, citizens of both countries enjoy special privileges.

 

Given this level of engagement between the two countries, any change in government or policy in Nepal or India cannot negatively impact the relations heavily. Yet, the bilateral has witnessed ups and downs at times. The tension in the Nepal-India relationship during the Oli government tenure was rectified as soon as Prachanda took over. Though Nepalese president Bidhya Devi Bhandari's India visit could not take place during Oli’s tenure, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee paid a three-day visit to Nepal - the first by an Indian president to Nepal in 18 years. Additionally, there were several other high level visits between leaders of the two countries. 

 

India is Nepal’s largest trading partner and contributes significantly in the country's development. New Delhi has played a crucial role in Nepal's major political transitions, be it the overthrow of the autocratic Rana regime; introduction of democracy; restoration of democracy in 1990; abolition of Monarchy; or mainstreaming the Maoists. It will continue to play an important role in days to come. 

 

However, with the thumping victory of Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh - an Indian state that shares borders with Nepal - there are apprehensions in Nepal that India might impose ‘Hinduism’ on secular Nepal or might attempt to revive monarchy. But, these are highly unlikely in the present context. Even if India plans for such adventurism, it will not succeed; instead, it would be counterproductive and would have lasting implications for India-Nepal relations. India should pay special attention in Nepal to consolidate its influence, as there are speculations that China would have proactive diplomacy and engagement in Nepal in days to come. New Delhi was already alarmed since Oli tried to bring China to counterbalance India. Hence, in 2017, India must pay special emphasis on improving connectivity; bringing the political parties together to resolve their internal differences in the constitution for peace and stability; and support Nepal in improving and consolidating its economy.

 

Overview

2017 is full of challenges for Nepal's government as well as the political parties. The first and major challenge is to address the demands of Madhesis, Janajatis, Tharus and other marginalised groups. This will create an environment conducive for free, fair and credible elections. It will also pave way for implementing the constitution, which will gradually create peace and stability in Nepal. Failing to conduct all the three elections by January 2018 will lead the nation into another constitutional crisis and prolong the transition. Prime Minister Dahal also has to hand over the prime ministerial role to the Nepali Congress after the local election, to meet the terms of the agreement. If the political parties fail to overcome these challenges, Nepal is bound to face a series of protests, violence and demands for a separate Madhes, and the constitutional gains of the past would be at stake. Any instability and chaos in Madhes will impact the security of its neighbouring regions, especially India.

Park Geun-hye's Impeachment and South Korean Foreign Policy

Sandip Kumar Mishra

South Korean President Park Geun-hye was impeached by the National Assembly on 9 December 2016. There were thirteen charges against her; these included bribery, influence peddling, and dereliction of duty. On 10 March 2017, the Constitutional Court of Korea unanimously upheld the impeachment, and sent Geun-hye to prison on 31 March.
In fact, the process of Park Geun-hye’s downfall began in October 2016, when it was reported that her old family friend, Choi Sun-sil, had access to government documents, took final decisions on government policy and appointments, and embezzled huge sums of money from Korean business houses by establishing various foundations. The widespread shock among South Koreans reflected in her popularity ratings, which reached a low of 4 per cent after these revelations.

Geun-hye's downfall has been perceived in South Korea as a positive moment in their democratic processes. An entirely peaceful people’s movement has shown that the South Korea polity is governed by the ‘rule of law’ and that nobody is above it. In the peaceful protests that took place across South Korea over the past five months and in which more than half of the Korean population participated, there was no report of violence, destruction of public property, or rioting. The South Korean polity, which was earlier supposed to be divided between the conservative and progressive parties, appears much more cohesive than is believed - less than 20 per cent favours conservative forces.

The impeachment, apart from having consequences for domestic politics, is also going to have some important implications for South Korea’s relations with the US, China, Japan and North Korea.

One of the most important issues for the next South Korean presidential elections scheduled for 9 May 2017 is the installation of the Terminal High Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) system in the country. South Korea's progressive parties are campaigning to review this decision. It has been alleged that Geun-hye did not allow enough public discussion on the subject and quite suddenly decided to deploy THAAD in early-2016, after North Korea's missile and nuclear tests. In the first three years of her term, Gen-hye was keen on engaging China and had annual summit meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In this period, South Korea joined the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Chinese initiative, in spite of Washington’s displeasure. Earlier, it officially denied, on multiple occasions, that they were discussing THAAD with the US. It appears South Korea did not conduct a sufficient cost-benefit analysis of the situation, as China's displeasure would have  serious implications for their bilateral economic and security exchanges.

For the same reason, the US sent its first major installment of THAAD equipment to South Korea when the process of impeachment was underway. The intention was to move forward to a point of irreversibility or no return. The tactic may work, and if the process of installation moves beyond the critical phase, it will not be easy for the next South Korean president to reverse the decision even if they undertake a review.

However, despite the unlikelihood of a reversal of the decision on technical grounds, the next progressive president may try to mend relations with China, which have deteriorated in the past year and a half owing to THAAD. Over two South Korean progressive administrations, from 1998 to 2002, the country forged close ties with China in the political and strategic domains, and this might be repeated.

Geun-hye's administration also reached a hasty ‘final deal’ with Japan in late December 2015 on the issue of comfort women. South Korea's progressive parties have been consistently critical of this deal, and the new president in all likelihood will review it. It has been alleged that in the first three  years of her presidency, Geun-hye held several South Korea-Japan bilateral exchanges hostage to  the comfort women issue, and she agreed to a less-than-satisfactory deal when this started having a negative impact on South Korea. Notwithstanding domestic contestation, Japan-South Korea relations may deteriorate if the next president tries to revise or scrap the deal.

The Geun-hye administration has been criticised by the progressive parties on the issue of North Korean missile and nuclear tests as well, and her policy to engage North Korea has been deemed a failure.  Although Geun-hye had initially proposed ‘trust politik’ with North Korea, inter-Korea relations and lines of communication worsened during her presidency. The next president may have a more genuine policy of engagement that would not demand mechanical or short-term reciprocity.

Overall, the South Korean president's impeachment will lead to a significant shift in South Korea's foreign policy orientation with implications for East Asian regional politics.

Ayad al-Jumaili And Islamic State’s Command Structure

Nauman Sadiq

Islamic State’s second-in-command, Ayad al-Jumaili, has been killed in an airstrike in al-Qaim region on Iraq’s border with Syria. The most important fact to note in al-Jumaili’s biography is that was the head of the terror group’s internal security unit and that he had previously served as an intelligence officer in Iraq’s Baathist army until 2003.

Excluding al-Baghdadi who was radicalized in Camp Bucca, the rest of Islamic State’s top leadership is comprised of Saddam era military and intelligence officials. According to an informative Associated Press report, hundreds of ex-Baathists constitute the top and mid-tier command structure of the Islamic State who plan all the operations and direct its military strategy.

The only feature that differentiates Islamic State from all other insurgent groups is its command structure which is comprised of professional ex-Baathists and its state-of-the-art weaponry that has been provided to all the Sunni Arab militant outfits that are fighting in Syria by the intelligence agencies of the Western powers, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf states.

Moreover, it is an indisputable fact that morale and ideology plays an important role in battle, and well informed readers must also be aware that the Takfiri brand of most jihadists these days has directly been inspired by the puritanical Wahhabi-Salafi ideology of Saudi Arabia, but ideology alone is not sufficient to succeed in battle.

Looking at the Islamic State’s astounding gains in Syria and Iraq in 2014, a question arises that where does its recruits get all the training and state-of-the-art weapons that are imperative not only for hit-and-run guerrilla warfare but also for capturing and holding large swathes of territory?

The Syria experts of foreign policy think tanks also seem to be quite “worried” these days that where do the Islamic State’s jihadists get all the sophisticated weapons and especially those fancy Toyota pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns at the back, colloquially known as “the Technicals” among jihadists?

I think I might have serendipitously discovered the answer to this riddle in an unusual December 2013 news report from a website affiliated with the UAE government which supports the Syrian opposition: it is clearly mentioned that along with AK-47s, RPGs and other military gear, the Saudi regime also provides machine gun-mounted Toyota pick-up trucks to every batch of five jihadists who have completed their training in the training camps located at the border regions of Jordan. Once those militants cross over to Daraa and Quneitra in southern Syria from the Jordan-Syria border, then those Toyota pick-up trucks can easily travel all the way to Raqqa and Deir al-Zor and thence to Mosul in Iraq.

Apart from training and arms which have been provided to the militants in the training camps located on the Turkish and Jordanian border regions adjacent to Syria by the CIA in collaboration with Turkish, Jordanian and Saudi intelligence agencies, another factor which has contributed to the stellar success of the Islamic State is that its top cadres are comprised of former Baathist military and intelligence officers from the Saddam era, as I have already described.

However, a number of Islamic State affiliates have recently sprung up all over the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia regions that have no organizational and operational association, whatsoever, with Islamic State proper in Syria and Iraq, such as the Islamic State affiliates in Afghanistan, Libya and even Boko Haram in Nigeria now falls under the rubric of the Islamic State.

It is understandable for laymen to conflate such local militant outfits for Islamic State proper, but how come the policy analysts of think tanks and the corporate media’s terrorism experts, who are fully aware of this not-so-subtle distinction, have fallen for such a ruse? Can we classify any ragtag militant outfit as the Islamic State merely on the basis of ideological affinity and “a letter of accreditation” from Abu Bakr al Baghdadi without the Islamic State’s Baathist command structure and superior weaponry that has been bankrolled by the Gulf’s petro-dollars?

To further elucidate this farce by way of an analogy, if a local fast food chain names itself McDonald’s or KFC without the latter’s food recipes and quality control, would the corporate media recognize such bogus fast food chains as the official branches of McDonald’s and KFC? Similarly, if a regional NGO names itself as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch without any organizational control of the latter, would the mainstream media acknowledge such phony NGOs as the official franchises of AI and HRW?

The Western political establishments and their mouthpiece, the mainstream media, deliberately and knowingly fall for such stratagems because it serves the scaremongering agenda of vested interests. Before acknowledging the Islamic State’s affiliates in the region, the Western mainstream media also similarly and “naively” acknowledged al Qaeda’s affiliates in the region, too, merely on the basis of ideological affinity without any organizational and operational association with al Qaeda Central, such as al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda in Iraq and al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb.

Unlike al Qaeda which is a terrorist organization that generally employs anticolonial and anti-West rhetoric to draw funds and followers, the Islamic State and the majority of Sunni Arab militant groups in Syria are basically anti-Shi’a sectarian outfits. By the designation “terrorism” it is generally implied and understood that an organization which has the intentions and capability of carrying out acts of terrorism on the Western soil.

Although the Islamic State has carried out a few acts of terrorism against the Western countries, such as the high profile Paris and Brussels attacks, but if we look at the pattern of its subversive activities, especially in the Middle East, it generally targets the Shi’a Muslims in Syria and Iraq. A few acts of terrorism that it has carried out in the Gulf Arab states were also directed against the Shi’a Muslims in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and Shi’a mosques in Yemen and Kuwait.

Recently, the Islamic State’s purported “terror franchises” in Afghanistan and Pakistan have claimed a spate of bombings against the Shi’a and Barelvi Muslims who are regarded as heretics by Takfiris. But to declare that the Islamic State is responsible for suicide blasts in Pakistan and Afghanistan is to contend that Taliban are responsible for anarchy and militancy in Syria and Iraq.

Both are localized militant outfits and the Islamic State without its Baathist command structure and superior weaponry is just another ragtag, regional militant outfit. The distinction between Taliban and the Islamic State lies in the fact that Taliban follow Deobandi sect of Sunni Islam which is native to South Asia and the jihadists of the Islamic State mostly belong to Wahhabi denomination.

Secondly, and more importantly, the insurgency in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan is a Pashtun uprising which is an ethnic group native to Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, while the bulk of the Islamic State’s jihadists is comprised of Sunni Arabs of Syria and Iraq.

Conflating the Islamic State either with al Qaeda or Taliban or with myriads of ragtag, local militant groups is a deliberate deception intended to mislead public opinion in order to exaggerate the threat posed by the Islamic State which serves the scaremongering agenda of security establishments.

America’s Fraudulent Government

Eric Zuesse

Lee Fang at The Intercept revealed on March 31st, that the Republican Party were defrauding the American people with assertions that their Party has an alternative to Obamacare — the Affordable Care Act — and that they’ll pass it if and when they come to power. His headline summarized the considerable evidence for this, “GOP Lawmakers Now Admit Years of Obamacare Repeal Votes Were a Sham”, and his article made clear that the Republican Party has no desire to serve the public, in public office, but are total fraudsters, whose sole real goal is to gain power in order to do what their big billionaire donors want done.

This mirrors what the Democratic Party does regarding its Obamacare fraud. As I documented at great length on 3 March 2013, headlining “Why Obama Will Probably Be Low-Rated By Historians”, Obama designed his Obamacare so as to please the medical industries that donate heavily to politics, and he had no real intention of fulfilling his campaign promises, such as that it would include a “public option” which, according to the Congressional Budget Office study — as Jon Walker reported the CBO study — “would on average have premiums 11 percent cheaper than private insurance and the public option would end up also making private insurance cheaper.” And, as my article reported that study, the CBO had actually found that, “It would cost ‘18-percent lower that the average for private health plans,’ so ‘Premiums for the public health insurance option are estimated to be 11 percent lower than those for private plans on the Exchange.’ This would be due to ‘10 percent lower administrative and margin costs’ and other factors.” Also, as my article pointed out:

Obama had always said that the public insurance option would “help keep the insurers honest,” or words to that effect: it would “keep them honest” by making available to every American a public option competing against the private insurers’ offerings, which needed to pay dividends and capital gains to stockholders, not just medical care to insureds. For example, on 11 June 2009 Obama had told a town hall in Green Bay, “If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and help keep prices down.” 

Obama knew the same dynamics that the CBO study ended up confirming; but Obama didn’t care about truth or the public’s welfare, he wanted to build the public’s support for his plan, even while, in the back rooms (of U.S. Senator Max Baucus’s office, which Obama chose to write the legislation), Obama (his White House aide Nancy-Ann DeParle) never pushed at all, for inclusion of a public option. Her boss, Obama, actually didn’t want it in the plan.

Also, Obama constantly promised that his plan would be “universal,” which actually already exists in all other industrialized nations except the U.S., and it means 100% of the population having insurance for preventative and other basic healthcare expenses. At the time when Obama came into office, 14.6% of Americans were uninsured. By the time he left office, 10.9% were. He had raised the existing 85.4% of insured Americans, to 89.1% insured. He increased the insured percentage by 3.7%, to 89.1% — and that’s not 100%; it’s not “universal.” Not even close.

Another example of our government’s fraudulence is headlined in Britain’s Daily Mail on March 31st, “Latest WikiLeaks release shows how the CIA uses computer code to hide the origins of its hacking attacks and ‘disguise them as Russian or Chinese activity’” which reports that the latest from wikileaks “says the CIA disguised its own hacking attacks to make it appear those responsible were Russian, Chinese, Iranian or North Korean.” The CIA’s ‘finding’ that Russia was behind the wikileaked Hillary Clinton campaign information, is based upon a CIA program to misattribute to Russia (and to other countries the CIA wants to overthrow) things (such as ‘Trump-Putin-gate’) which the CIA itself is actually behind. It’s a U.S. government disinformation campaign designed to promote U.S. coups and invasions.

The CIA was heavy into disinformation when ‘verifying’ the “Saddam has WMD” lies that George W. Bush was pushing.

Jimmy Carter was correct to say that the reality today about the American government is that “Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members.” It’s one “oligarchy” represented by two Parties, sustaining the myth that it’s still a ‘democracy’. The public are trapped between two styles of actually the same oligarchy.

How Fair Is The Media?

Moin Qazi

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.
-Walter Lippmann

In an ideal world, journalism is a profession of incredible integrity. Good journalists are amongst the most dexterous and skilled people in the world—and also the most respected. We have all benefited from the work of indefatigable journalists who put life, limb, family and even sanity on the line for   truth. There is no sane, decent, and democratic polity possible without journalists who challenge power, relentlessly pursue and disseminate   truth.

In recent times, the noble values of this equally noble profession have suffered considerable and irreparable damage. Some of the desperately ambitious, and  those ideologically rooted in a particular conviction, have taken a dangerously wrong turn, all in the allurement of more web traffic. This is best summed up by the unwritten mantra of many digital newsrooms: ”We might get it wrong, but we’re not wrong for long.”  There is no disputing that, like politics, journalism   is the fastest ladder to name, fame and fortune -the last being true in several, but not all, cases.

Good journalism requires attentive listening to diverse sources, dogged examination of data and other records, and close observation of policies and institutions. It takes time and skill, and requires   support of editors and other news leaders who live in the community and care about it. It does not necessarily guarantee publishers a return in eye-popping   audience numbers.

We must not forget the commonsense lesson that objectivity has been the hallmark of al quality journalism.  Facts are journalism’s foundation; the pursuit of them, without fear   or favor, is its main objective. Exaggerating facts, presenting just one side of the argument or sensationalizing stories is ugly and detestable journalism   As CP Scott, the founder editor of The Guardian has emphasized: “Comment is free but facts are sacred”.

There are a number of ways that a journalist can hold people and organizations accountable for their actions without taking a position. To start with, journalists working on a story must be determined to stay objective, throughout the period of research and investigation. To avoid taking a position, both or multiple sides of the story must be presented. If people or organizations are involved in wrongdoings, then their view as well as the views of those facing the repercussions of their actions must be made clear. It is not up to the journalist to help shape the reader’s perspective, especially, while reporting a story or doing a feature, therefore, one should avoid taking a stand. Sometimes, simply pursuing a story, because personal interests could be at stake, amounts to taking a position.

In journalism, like in law, facts can be presented to support or disprove an incident, an action or a decision. Being aware of this, can help journalists understand that facts have to be presented not as one would like them to be read to fit a notion or a brief, but as they have occurred.

Readers and viewers are now immediately taking comments from their peers, seeing additional points of view on the blogosphere, and even hearing directly from companies and sources that may be the subject of a story. No longer do reader letters take days or weeks to publish–and that was only after they’d been edited down to bite-sized, consumable blip–after a story’s news cycle has already passed

While it is vital for journalists to keep a healthy distance from the subjects they cover and the source material they call upon, the good news is that we’ve arrived at a point where content is ubiquitous, and the very participation of multiple parties has resulted in a much more dynamic, energized and exciting form of journalism. That means the current generation of news consumers are the beneficiaries of a rich conversation that occurs among sources, the press and the public–which, in the end, churns out sometimes  really   marvelous content.

Liberalization   has ushered in so many news channels and newspapers that it has become a tough challenge for newsmen to differentiate themselves from the flock. While lauding investigative journalism and judicial activism, the Supreme Court had cautioned about the possible abuses that could creep in. Activism can have its dangers. Poorly calibrated, it can make bad problems worse.

The real challenge for today’s journalists is that what journalists value and what their audiences value are often frustratingly misaligned. In an environment where trust is no longer the default — where reading your daily newspaper in the morning and watching a news broadcast at night have moved from standard to niche behavior — doing great journalistic work isn’t enough.

In the pursuit of truth and fairness, no price is too high to pay. One should make that extra call, take that extra trip, visit that additional source – then do it all over again until one is truly convinced that the story is as accurate, as fair and as thorough as humanly possible.

Let us not forget that there was a generation of journalists in whose hands a mystic transference took place with each clack of the typewriter imprinting a journalistic legacy on the next generation. Stamped indelibly on our formative minds when we were training for journalism was the line; ”every time a grand editor puts a finger to a typewriter, he sits back to hear the crash of falling governments.”

The  primary mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth as nearly as the truth may be ascertained. The public expects that of us as the least reciprocation of their trust. If we fail to pursue the truth and to tell it unflinchingly—because we’re fearful that we’ll be unpopular, or because powerful interests will assail us, or because we worry about financial repercussions to advertising or subscriptions—the public will not forgive us.

For this to happen, the media will have to walk that extra mile. As John Pilger advises in his book Hidden Agendas, “It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and the myths that surround it.”

I remember a young journalist who was desperate to make to the big media during the farm crisis in central India which was marked by an epidemic of farmer suicides .He was always on the hunt for a story that would catapult him to the national league. He coldly hunted stories for a page-one byline. And he landed on one.  Within hours of reaching the destination, which happened to be a small village, his story was ready – a villainous moneylender killed by long-suffering villagers. But the young inquisitive journalist had also unearthed a disconcerting fact: the moneylender was a kind-hearted, generous man whose death was being used to intimidate other moneylenders. In case of genuine problems, outstanding loans of penniless families were      written off by the moneylender, but the politically well-connected and dangerous moneylenders planned a brutal retribution. The young journalist hates the half-truth he reports, but covets the byline it gets him?’

Trump In Outer Space: The NASA Bill

Binoy Kampmark

“You could send Congress to space.”

Senator Ted Cruz, Mar 21, 2017

The NASA authorisation bill was another Trump huff and puff show, brimming with the usual air of minted if misplaced confidence.  “My fellow Americans, this week in the company of astronauts I was honoured to sign the NASA Transition Authorization Act right into law.”

The bill was meant to “renew our national commitment to NASA’s mission of exploration and discovery, and we continue a tradition that is as old as mankind.  We look to the heavens with wonder and curiosity.”  Ever hackneyed, always banal, and fastidiously clichéd – Trump’s touch of the reality show cannot be faulted on that level. The heavens may be gazed at, but what matters in Trumpland are earthbound desires fuelled by conventional concerns for finance and what sells.

Packaging is all in such promotional endeavours, even if it supposedly entails the same gift that has been provided for years.  “The bill will make sure that NASA’s most important and effective programs are sustained and orders NASA to continue… transitioning activities to the commercial sector where we have seen great progress.”

Delivered over YouTube, the video featured the Apollo 11 moon landing and that interplanetary conquistador, Neil Armstrong, taking his “one small step” for a US-led mankind.  Naturally, celebrations subsequent to gracing the lunar crust were also incorporated.

The Trump bonanza also reflected in his words on the Hubble Space Telescope. “In that tiny patch of sky, the Hubble Deep Field showed thousands of lights.  Each brilliant spot represented not a single star but an entire galaxy.  The discovery was absolutely incredible.”

The theme of annexation and conquest, ever natural to the Trump instinct, is to push the US juggernaut into a messianic gear, driving exploration (or conquest?) further. The sense here is that Mars is up for grabs, a patch of real estate to be acquired sooner rather than later.  Commerce is there to be embraced, and national space agencies such as NASA are the front running agents.

The mission here is less one for humanity as one for US business, though much of this direction will become evident with the role of the National Space Council, which has made another appearance. “So many people and so many companies are so into exactly what NASA stands for.  So the commercial and the private sector will get to use these facilities, and I hope they’re going to be paying us a lot of money, because they’re going to make great progress.”

Very terrestrial, is Trump, and the organisation is hardly going to be getting funds to be scientific so much as aspiringly entrepreneurial.  For that reason, he sees sense in encouraging NASA’s Commercial Crew program, an agency initiative involving sending astronauts to and from the International Space Station using commercial spacecraft.

In a structural sense, the astronaut fraternity are at odds about the usefulness of a re-established Space Council.  Without backing from other White House offices, argues Marcia Smith of SpacePolicyOnline.com, it would merely be “a waste of resources” (Space.com, Dec 29, 2016).  Having been tried from 1958 to 1973, and again from 1989 to 1993, disposition to such a body has been fickle at best, seen often as more of a political instrument than a holistically dedicated one.

Much of that sentiment is driven by bureaucratic friction, the sort of fractiousness that instils adversarial dispositions rather than cooperative ones.  To get to space in a coordinated fashion is a difficult business, given the range of commercial, civilian and military ingredients that make up the policy.

The report card on that subject drawn up by James Vedda, senior policy analyst at The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy in Arlington, Virginia, is far from glowing. Mistakes are bound to be repeated “if the administration establishes a space advisory mechanism that is too cumbersome, too far removed from senior decision makers, or poorly staffed.”

Scrapping over the budget pie and available resources tends to encourage that sort of sentiment.  In the words of Apollo astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, such a council, chaired by the Vice President, “might add clear White House support for the program, but it also would add another layer of bureaucracy on top of the [Office of Management and Budget].”

Buzz Aldrin, the second member of humanity to take steps on the moon, slants it differently, seeing such a body as “absolutely critical in ensuring that the president’s space priorities are clearly articulated, and effectively executed.”

Senator Ted Cruz may have been teasing with his remark to Trump about sending Congress to space. But Trump is exactly the sort of person who would approve.  He might even approve keeping them in astral isolation and deaf to the world, whatever the actual scientific merits of NASA’s next grand mission.  Things on the ground are ugly, and there are going to get more acrimonious.  No agency is going to spared bruising in the era of Trump.

East coast of Australia hit by catastrophic floods

Oscar Grenfell 

Large swathes of northern New South Wales (NSW) and south-eastern Queensland have been hit by catastrophic floods in the aftermath of tropical Cyclone Debbie, which made landfall last Tuesday.

The flooding followed the transformation of the cyclone into an intense system of storm clouds, leading to massive rainfalls. Areas near Queensland’s Gold Coast hinterland registered up to 900 millimetres of rain in 48 hours last week, well over the average annual rainfall in some of the country’s major cities, such as Melbourne.

Five people have perished in the floods and at least three people are missing in Queensland, prompting fears that the death toll will continue to rise over the coming days. Thousands of homes have been inundated by floodwaters, with many rendered uninhabitable. Five areas in northern NSW were officially declared disaster zones on Friday.

Thousands of people are still unable to return to their homes and thousands more are without electricity and other essential services.

While waters have begun to recede in parts of northern NSW, the flood crisis is far from over. Rockhampton, a regional city in central Queensland with a population of around 80,000, is set to be hit today by its worst floods since 1954. At least 5,400 homes and businesses in low-lying areas are threatened with inundation.

The city of Lismore in northern NSW, and neighboring towns, including Murwillumbah and Chinderah, were among the worst affected when waters struck the area late last week, in the worst flood disaster since 1974.

Lismore residents have begun returning to the city and surveying the damage. Naomi Tarrant, from the Lismore Environment Centre told the ABC last night, “It’s a disaster zone, it really is. Just mud and debris and concerned people everywhere—people cleaning out their businesses... It’s so inconceivable what’s been lost down town here.”

Pictures posted online from Lismore show houses and businesses gutted by flood waters and front lawns strewn with damaged household objects.

Residents have told of harrowing experiences when Lismore’s central business district (CBD) was completely submerged by floodwaters on Friday, after a number of suburbs had been engulfed over the previous days.

One man was rescued from the wall of a church as floodwaters swirled around him. Others sought refuge on the roofs of their homes. Some reported seeing people clinging to trees to survive. In Murwillumbah, 45 people were trapped in an art gallery on Thursday, and were not able to move to higher ground until Saturday.

A 36-year-old woman died in flood waters at a property 20 kilometres south of Murwillumbah. A 46-year old man died after his home, near the town, was flooded. A 47-year-old man was killed south of the town when his caravan was struck by flood waters. A 64-year-old woman perished on Thursday after her car was swept off a causeway at Gungal, in the Hunter Valley region.

In Queensland, a 77-year-old man died in the town of Eagleby after he was caught in rapidly rising waters on Friday.

Questions have emerged over the severity of the Lismore floods. The city centre was rapidly engulfed on Friday after floodwaters breached a flood levee. Constructed in 2005, the levee was designed to withstand only a one-in-ten-year flood, meaning that it was not built to cope with floods of last week’s magnitude.

Over the weekend, the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian denounced people in the area who “did not follow instructions” to evacuate. She claimed that the seriousness of the floods was not anticipated because forecasts underestimated rainfalls.

A number of residents around Lismore, however, have said that they had little chance to escape the flood. Phillip Roberts, from Wyralla, a town near Lismore, told the Sydney Morning Herald, “They tell everyone in the towns what’s going on but further downstream, you’re sort of in the dark until that knock on the door from police. We got told, ‘This is a 100-year flood, you need to go.’ But we had nowhere to go.”

There are also fears that a number of the city’s small businesses will be forced to close. Many face the prospect of weeks without trading. Numbers of businesses and homes in the city were not insured as a result of exorbitant premiums, with some insurers reportedly charging up to $50,000 a year for businesses in the flood-prone CBD.

In Queensland, clean-up efforts are still underway after Cyclone Debbie hit last week. At least 270 houses on the south-east coast have been rendered uninhabitable while another 1,000 have undergone damage assessments.

Tourists and residents in some of the worst affected areas have complained of being virtually abandoned by government authorities. Last Thursday, several days after the disaster, people in the Whitsunday region were being told not to drink tap water.

Food shortages have also been reported, with one woman telling the Townsville Bulletin that she had nothing to eat but tins of baked beans and bread after the unit she was staying at on Hamilton Island lost its roof during the cyclone.

She said that residents were at the mercy of travel agents and shops charging exorbitant prices for basic necessities. “We’ve had no one tell us about food or water, we only know the store is selling stuff which we cannot buy as they’re only accepting cash payment but there’s no way to get money out,” she commented.

Anger has also emerged over claims that not enough water was released from Kinchant Dam, 30 kilometres west of Mackay in eastern Queensland, prior to Cyclone Debbie. The dam was reportedly at 98 percent capacity before the cyclone struck.

Residents of Eton, a town south of Mackay, say that their homes were inundated on Wednesday, after water was released from the dam. They received virtually no warning and were trapped without power or phone coverage.

As in previous disasters, the government response to the cyclone and its aftermath has been manifestly inadequate. Queensland residents who have lost everything are eligible for immediate hardship relief of just $180 per person. Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has called for volunteers to clean up the aftermath of the cyclone and flood, in effect demanding that ordinary people fill the breach left by insufficient government preparation and disaster resources.

In 2011, floods in Queensland killed 35 people and inundated 29,000 homes and businesses. The disaster revealed that emergency services were unequipped and unprepared to respond to a crisis of that magnitude and that virtually no flood mitigation measures had been put in place. Six years on, the initial indications are that successive Labor and Liberal-National governments have done little or nothing to rectify the situation.

Australian opposition parties block extradition treaty with China

James Cogan

The Liberal-National coalition government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was forced last week to renege on undertakings given to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that Australia would implement a long-delayed extradition treaty with Beijing.

Senator Cory Bernardi, a right-wing renegade who split from the government in February, led the campaign against the treaty, backed by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott within the governing parties. Ensuring the total humiliation of Turnbull, the Labor opposition joined with the Greens, Bernardi and other right-wing senators, to declare it would block any agreement in the parliament.

Capping off the debacle, Turnbull appears to have told Labor leader Bill Shorten that the legislation would not be introduced before speaking with his own cabinet and foreign minister, Julie Bishop. Shorten exploited the government’s disarray by rushing to call a press conference last Tuesday morning and publicly announced the decision himself.

The proposed extradition treaty was first signed between China and Australia in 2007, in the final months of the Coalition government headed by John Howard. The Labor governments that followed―under Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Rudd once again―used their lack of a majority in the upper house of parliament to justify not introducing legislation to ratify the agreement. While Abbott was prime minister from September 2013 to September 2015, the Coalition government also delayed ratification.

Last week, the furore around the extradition treaty coincided with the ongoing debate in Australian foreign policy circles about the implications of the Trump administration and its “America First” agenda for US-Australian relations. Explicit calls have been made by former politicians and diplomats for Canberra to distance itself from Washington and to instead forge closer ties with China on the grounds it is Australia’s largest trading partner and will supplant American hegemony in the Asia-Pacific.

In response, the pro-US constituency has argued that the Australian government must align with the Trump administration’s confrontational stance against China, partly to try and gain exemptions for Australian corporate interests from Trump’s threats to pursue protectionist policies.

Turnbull’s decision to proceed with the treaty was almost certainly a concession offered to China during Li Keqiang’s visit to Australia from March 22 to March 26. China made a range of economic overtures to Australian business, as part of a broader diplomatic effort by Beijing to strengthen the wing of the Australian establishment that is arguing for a shift away from Washington.

The extradition issue was seized upon by the pro-US wing to strike back. With shameless cynicism, the US and Australia are held up by the propagandists of this layer as examples of “democracies” based on “liberal values,” whereas China is labelled both a totalitarian state and a threat to the US-dominated “global rules-based order.”

Cory Bernardi, who has declared his intention to build a political movement in Australia modelled on the policies of the Trump administration, conducted his campaign to block the treaty on an openly anti-Chinese and pro-US basis. He railed against China’s human rights record and its judicial system, highlighting the fact that guilty verdicts were brought down in 99.9 percent of cases heard by Chinese courts in 2015. He particularly denounced any treaty on the grounds that none of Australia’s “Five Eyes” partners―the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand―has extradition arrangements with China.

As American whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed, the “Five Eyes” group collaborate to carry out the pervasive spying of global communications, including those of their own citizens.

Tony Abbott likewise denounced the proposed ratification of the treaty on human rights grounds, declaring last Tuesday that “China’s legal system has to evolve further before the Australian government and people could be confident that those before it would receive justice according to law.” Within the Coalition, Abbott is considered one of the ardent advocates of the closest strategic and military ties with Washington. The prospect was even raised in the media that he could have crossed the floor of parliament to vote against legislation.

The initial statements by Labor’s Shorten suggested that there were differences within the Labor leadership over whether to support or oppose the legislation. Shorten declared last Monday: “We’re currently considering this matter very carefully. It is a matter of great importance. It goes to questions of our relationship with China. It goes though, of course, to human rights, and it goes to questions of law.”

After a meeting of the entire Labor parliamentary caucus last Tuesday morning, the decision was taken to side with Bernardi and Abbott.

The human rights rhetoric from conservative and Labor politicians alike is transparent hypocrisy, to conceal the underlying strategic calculations as to whether to deliver a diplomatic rebuff to the Chinese regime. The Australian ruling class has not the slightest concern for the democratic and social rights of the Chinese people. The political repression by the Chinese regime is precisely what enforces the appalling wages and working conditions from which Australian companies, along with other transnational corporations, reap vast profits. The Australian establishment has no qualms about maintaining extradition treaties with the Gulf state monarchies—among the most dictatorial regimes on earth.

Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Australian and one of the more vocal pro-Washington media commentators, could not restrain his delight over the collapse of Turnbull’s extradition agreement, hailing it as a “great day for democracy.”

He declared: “No country other than China makes a remotely comparable effort to manipulate, coerce and control the political activities of its diaspora population in Australia as China does. And no other country has China’s ability to pressure an Australian government. This appalling treaty would institutionalise that manipulation and invite that pressure.”

The portrayal of Chinese-Australians as a potential fifth column on Beijing’s behalf has become a ubiquitous theme in the demands within the ruling elite that Australia remain in the closest alignment with Washington.

Historically, the country with the greatest ability to pressure an Australian government, is the United States. As recently as June 2010, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted in an overnight inner-Labor Party coup in large part because of Washington’s dissatisfaction with his foreign policy orientation. Continuous pressure has been applied to every government since to fully back the US anti-China “pivot to Asia” under the Obama administration, the expansion of US bases and operations in Australia, the further integration of the American and Australian militaries and the deployment of Australian troops back to the Middle East. Under Trump, the pressure for assistance from Canberra remains relentless.

The Chinese regime’s response to the Australian government’s reneging on the extradition treaty has been muted. Instead of issuing a formal criticism of the human rights rhetoric in Canberra, it allowed Chinese-born Australian permanent resident Chonygi Feng, who it had blocked from leaving China, to return to Sydney. Just days out from what is expected to be a tense first meeting between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping, Beijing more than likely does not want to add another possible cause of controversy.