Political prisoner Chelsea Manning begins hunger strike

Tom Hall

Political prisoner and whistleblower Chelsea Manning began a hunger strike on Friday in military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she is currently serving a 35-year sentence under deplorable conditions.

Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, is the former US Army specialist who was the source of major releases by WikiLeaks, including the Collateral Murder video that shows a US Army gunship mowing down civilians in Baghdad, the Iraq War Logs, the Guantanamo Bay files, the Afghan War Diary, and a cache of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables shedding light on the machinations of American imperialism.

Manning explained in a written statement that she was protesting the discriminatory treatment that she, as a transgendered woman, has received while in prison.

“I need help. I am not getting any,” Manning wrote. “My [requests have] only been ignored, delayed, mocked, given trinkets and lip service by the prison, the military, and this administration.”

Despite announcing that she was transgendered in 2013, shortly after her sentencing, Manning has been forced to serve her sentence in an all-male prison and to cut her hair short to meet military standards. She is demanding written assurances that she will receive her prescribed medications for her gender dysphoria.

Prison officials have routinely blocked her access to treatment such as hormone injections, prompting her lawyers to file a lawsuit in 2014. This has contributed to severe and ongoing clinical depression, for which she has not received regular care, and which led Manning to attempt suicide in early July.

“I was driven to suicide by the lack of care for my gender dysphoria that I have been desperate for. I didn’t get any. I still haven’t gotten any. I needed help. Yet, instead I am now being punished for surviving my attempt.”

The government responded to Manning’s attempted suicide by filing additional charges; she now faces the prospect of indefinite solitary confinement, reclassification into maximum security and an additional nine years tacked onto her sentence, with no possibility of parole.

“Today, I have decided that I am no longer going to be bullied by this prison—or by anyone within the U.S. government,” Manning concluded. “Until I am shown dignity and respect as a human again, I shall endure this pain before me. I am prepared for this mentally and emotionally. I expect that this ordeal will last for a long time. Quite possibly until my permanent incapacitation or death. I am ready for this. I need help. Please, give me help.”

Manning's increasingly desperate situation in prison is the direct result of malicious persecution by the US government. It is no exaggeration to say that the Obama administration is seeking to hound Manning to her death.

Since her initial arrest and imprisonment in 2010, the military and Obama administration have been determined to make an example of her, through an unending campaign of torture and harassment, as a deterrent against future whistleblowers.

For the first ten months, Manning was placed in solitary confinement for twenty-three and a half hours per day, under the pretext of being placed on “suicide watch,” and subjected to routine humiliation through daily strip searches.

Last year, Manning was threatened with indefinite solitary confinement for minor violations of prison rules, such as “sweeping food onto the floor,” possession of unauthorized reading material and possession of a tube of expired toothpaste (officially, “medical misuse”).

According to ChelseaManning.org, the charges were retaliation against Manning over an incident in which she had asked for a lawyer after being confronted by a prison guard in the mess hall. Manning was later given the lesser punishment of 21 days of restriction from recreational areas or going outdoors, after a public petition in her defense attracted more than 100,000 signatures.

The retaliation against Manning after her suicide attempt in July, which includes, once again, the threat of indefinite solitary confinement, is particularly vindictive. Solitary confinement, which has been deemed a form of torture by the United Nations, has been linked by scientific studies to significantly higher rates of suicide among prison inmates.

A 2014 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that more than 70 percent of all suicides in California prisons occurred among inmates placed in isolation. A lawyer for Manning from the ACLU explained that her “big fear is formal isolation. She relies on access to phone and written communication. If that were cut off, I’d be even more worried.”

Manning’s principled and courageous stand in bringing to public attention the crimes of American imperialism has earned her the respect and admiration of millions throughout the world. At the same time, she has earned the hatred of those in the state apparatus who understand that her decision to risk prosecution in order to expose their crimes is only an initial expression of the growth of anti-war sentiment and social opposition more broadly. This sentiment is growing, particularly among those of Manning’s generation who have come of age in the last fifteen years under the shadow of the massive expansion of American militarism and assault on democratic rights under the framework of the so-called War on Terror.

Significantly, Manning’s hunger strike has elicited a stony silence from the Obama administration and most sections of the American establishment media. Neither the Defense Department nor the Justice Department, which is conducting the retaliatory investigation after Manning’s suicide, issued statements on the matter, nor did either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, the two main candidates in the current presidential election. The New York Times and the Washington Post, which traditionally set the agenda for the rest of the American media, ran only brief wire reports.

By contrast, the same day that Manning announced her hunger strike, sections of the media were busy manufacturing a new round of provocations against WikiLeaks, on the basis of an anonymous “leak” from a criminal investigation launched against the journalistic organization by the federal government, accusing it of censoring financial transactions between Syrian and Russian banks in its release of “The Syria Files.”

The original report from the Dailydot web site also accused WikiLeaks of issuing veiled threats against them for publishing the story. The slanderous article is in line with attempts to portray WikiLeaks’ release of internal Democratic National Committee emails as being masterminded by Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to influence the US presidential elections.

Obama pledges to veto legislation allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi government

Tom Carter

On Friday, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of legislation that would permit September 11 victims and their families to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, based on its role in the terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people. The bill, which the Obama administration has threatened to veto, was passed by the Senate in May.

The bill, together with the Obama administration’s opposition to it, marks the continued unraveling of the official narrative of the September 11 attacks.

As confirmed by secret government documents released in May and July of this year, sections of the Saudi state apparatus were likely complicit in the September 11, 2001 attacks. At least two of the hijackers—15 out of 19 of whom were Saudi nationals—were directly aided by Omar al-Bayoumi, who was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a Saudi intelligence agent with “ties to terrorist elements.” Some hijackers received paychecks for fictitious jobs from a company affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Defense.

Al-Bayoumi, meanwhile, worked closely with an Emir at the Saudi Defense Ministry. According to phone records obtained through a US government investigation, al-Bayoumi called Saudi government agencies 100 times between January and May of 2000. Meanwhile, three of the hijackers stayed at the same Virginia hotel as Saleh al-Hussayen, a Saudi interior ministry official, the night before the attacks.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations sought to cover up these and other facts pointing to Saudi complicity in the September 11 attacks. The involvement of the government of Saudi Arabia in the attacks—together with Israel, one of America’s key allies in the Middle East for more than half a century—was deemed too embarrassing. It would have raised too many questions about the possible foreknowledge of the attacks within any section of America’s military or intelligence apparatus.

Indeed, the documents released this year confirm that American intelligence agencies had a policy prior to September 11, 2001 of not following the activities of Saudi intelligence agents within the US, on the grounds of Saudi Arabia’s status as a major US ally. For this reason, US intelligence agencies paid little to no attention to the activities of Saudi agents like al-Bayoumi while they organized and facilitated the attacks. The possibility that this state of affairs was intentional has not been ruled out, and nobody was ever prosecuted for what amounts—if the official story is to be believed—to systemic incompetence and colossal negligence.

For 13 years, the infamous so-called 28 pages were redacted from the official report known as the “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.” Until their release in July, members of Congress were only given access to these pages via a locked basement vault where they were not permitted to take notes.

The bill passed on Friday—sponsored by Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas and Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York—is a response to information pointing to Saudi involvement in the September 11 attacks. The bill would permit victims and their families to argue in American courts that the Saudi government should be held liable for its role in the attacks. The bill would allow an exception to a 1976 law that generally provides that foreign nations are immune from lawsuits in US courts.

The “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” Senate Bill 2040, would amend the federal judicial code to allow US courts “to hear cases involving claims against a foreign state for injuries, death, or damages that occur inside the United States as a result of... an act of terrorism, committed anywhere by a foreign state or official.”

The text of the bill makes no direct reference to Saudi Arabia. Instead, it is couched in terms of providing “civil litigants with the broadest possible basis... to seek relief against persons, entities, and foreign countries, wherever acting and wherever they may be found, that have provided material support, directly or indirectly, to foreign organizations or persons that engage in terrorist activities against the United States.”

The Obama administration has cloaked its opposition to the bill on procedural and diplomatic grounds, citing the necessity of maintaining friendly relations with Saudi Arabia. The White House has also argued that permitting lawsuits against foreign nations in American courts would set a precedent under which the US government could be sued in foreign courts by foreign victims.

“There are always diplomatic considerations that get in the way of justice, but if a court proves the Saudis were complicit in 9/11, they should be held accountable,” Schumer wrote in a statement issued to the press. “If they’ve done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.”

The Saudi government threatened to retaliate if the bill was passed by selling off up to $750 billion in US assets before they could be seized by legal procedures in American courts.

Sunday marked the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which have been invoked incessantly over the intervening years by both the Bush and Obama administrations as a justification for war as well as for vast changes to American politics, law and society. The September 11 events “changed everything,” the population was told, necessitating an indefinite “war on terror.”

The September 11 attack was a godsend to the Bush administration, which had come to power following a stolen election in the year 2000. Having lost the popular vote, Bush was installed as president only after the Supreme Court ordered a halt to the counting of votes in Florida. Composed of ultra-right “neocons” who had spent the previous decades on the fringes of the state apparatus, the Bush administration seized on the September 11 attacks to implement a far-reaching transformation of American political life, imposing an agenda of military aggression abroad and constructing the framework of a police state at home.

The phrase “9/11” was used to terrorize and browbeat the population with the prospect of a future attack, trample democratic rights, and bully and intimidate dissent. Pursuant to the new legal and political framework instituted as part of the so-called war on terror, the American government asserted the power to “preemptively” wage war against any country; depose any government; spy on the entire world’s population; and abduct, torture and assassinate anyone in the world.

The repressive apparatus of the state, from airport security checkpoints to local police forces, was militarized and armed to the teeth. To this day, anyone passing through a Transportation Security Agency checkpoint is confronted with a shrine dedicated to the victims of the September 11 attacks.

The population has been told for 15 years that the September 11 attacks inaugurated an existential conflict between the American government and Islamic extremism. The reality is that the September 11 attacks were sponsored by sections of the government of a US ally, which itself is a bulwark of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. Meanwhile, a question mark remains over the unaccountable failure of the American intelligence agencies to prevent the attacks.

The US has been a key supporter of Islamic extremism in the Middle East throughout its 70-year alliance with the Saudi monarchy. During the Cold War, and especially in Afghanistan during the 1980s, the US sought to use right-wing Islamic militants as a counterweight to Soviet influence in the region.

American support for Islamic fundamentalist forces did not end with the liquidation of the Soviet Union. While verbally opposing Islamic extremism abroad, the US has supported Chechen terrorists against Russia as well as Al Qaeda affiliates in Libya and in Syria. It armed and funded the latter forces as part of its regime-change efforts against the governments of Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad.

US and allies threaten North Korea with sanctions and military attack

Peter Symonds

In the wake of North Korea’s fifth nuclear test last Friday, the Obama administration is pressing for tough new sanctions on a regime that is already one of the most isolated in the world. Another round of punitive measures will exacerbate the already tense situation on the Korean Peninsula and heighten the danger of conflict.

US Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim declared yesterday that the United States and Japan, together with South Korea, were considering unilateral sanctions in addition to any that might be imposed by the UN. Speaking in Tokyo, he said, “We will be working very closely in the [UN] Security Council and beyond to come up with the strongest possible measure against North Korea’s latest actions.”

North Korea, however, dismissed the threat of new sanctions as “meaningless” and “highly laughable” and called on the US to recognise it as a nuclear power. A foreign ministry statement declared it would work to improve its nuclear arsenal “in quality and in quantity,” saying it needed to protect itself against US aggression.

Pyongyang’s nuclear program, however, only heightens the dangers facing the working class in North Korea, throughout Asia and the world. Its bellicose threats provide the pretext for Washington to accelerate its military build-up in North East Asia, not just against North Korea, but also against China, as well as providing Japan and South Korea with a justification for further militarisation.

Speaking to the Yonhap news agency yesterday, an unnamed South Korean military official declared that the defence ministry had plans, known as “Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation,” aimed at destroying Pyongyang if North Korea showed any indications of planning a nuclear attack.

“Every Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and high-explosive shells as soon as the North shows any signs of using a nuclear weapon. In other words, the North’s capital city will be reduced to ashes removed from the map,” the source said.

This bloodcurdling threat is in line with new operational plans agreed last year between the US and South Korea, known as OPLAN 5015, providing for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea and “decapitation” operations to eliminate its top leaders, including Kim Jong-un. The US has 28,500 troops in South Korea and, in the event of war with North Korea, would assume operational command of South Korea’s forces, which, including reserves, number over 3 million personnel.

Following North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January, the US pressured China to agree to the harshest UN sanctions yet, including on North Korean exports of gold, titanium ore and rare earth metals. Pyongyang is still able to buy oil and sell coal, as long as it is for “livelihood purposes,” not the military. China is by far North Korea’s largest trading partner, accounting for up to 90 percent of its overall trade.

China is the focus of fresh US accusations that it is not doing enough to rein in its ally and demands for tougher measures. Beijing criticised the latest nuclear test and called for North Korea to denuclearise but is reluctant to impose sanctions that would precipitate the collapse of the Pyongyang regime and result in a unified Korea allied to the US.

China is well aware that the US military build-up in North East Asia is part of broader American efforts to militarily encircle it and prepare for war. Beijing sharply criticised the US decision to install a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea that undermines China’s nuclear deterrent.

The clearest indication that the US military and intelligence apparatus is preparing more aggressive measures against North Korea was the response of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to the nuclear test. In a pre-recorded interview last Friday with CNN after meeting with former national security officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations, she suggested that sanctions had failed and that other unspecified measures were needed. The interview was broadcast yesterday.

Clinton declared that if she took office as president, “[W]e will not allow North Korea to have a deliverable nuclear weapon.” Asked what she would do, Clinton first indicated that she would apply pressure on China to choke off trade with North Korea. “We have got to start intensifying our discussions with the Chinese, because they can’t possibly want this big problem on their doorstep,” she said.

Pressed on the issue, Clinton declared: “We’re not going to go into all the details,” then pointed to Iran as an indication of what her administration would do. “Additional sanctions and doing it the way… that I led with Iran, did have a big impact because they worked,” she said, adding: “So we will do more on sanctions [on North Korea], because that’s part of an overall strategy, but that’s not enough.”

Clinton’s reference to Iran is significant. The Obama administration’s strategy toward Tehran was a combination of economically crippling sanctions that impacted heavily on the Iranian population, and the constant threat of devastating military strikes not only against Iran’s nuclear facilities but also its military and economy. White House officials repeatedly declared that “all options are on the table”—that is, including the military one.

Clinton’s “overall strategy” toward North Korea is the same: intense economic pressure on North Korea and, if that fails to bring Pyongyang to its knees, military action that threatens to precipitate a wider war. A more sinister aspect of US measures taken against Iran—a sustained covert operation in collaboration with Israel to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists and sabotage its nuclear facilities—is undoubtedly under discussion in relation to North Korea.

John Negroponte, former director of national intelligence under US President George W. Bush, yesterday declared that North Korea was “single most significant danger that the next administration is going to face” and something was going to have to be done about its nuclear and missile programs. Like Clinton, he suggested that “the real solution” must go further than another UN resolution or more sanctions.

The remarks of Clinton and Negroponte reflect intense discussions almost certainly taking place right now behind closed doors in the Pentagon, US intelligence agencies and the White House. While further sanctions are being publicly touted, other plans, which are far riskier and more provocative, are being drawn up and prepared that may well be implemented by the present, not the next, administration.

Wall Street’s Destruction Of Sacred Sioux Indian Burial Grounds

Irwin Jerome

Major kudos go out to the Texas-based, crude oil Energy Transfer Partners and their multitude of Wall Street financiers that reads like a lineup of who’s-who from the financial world (Sunoco, Bank of America, HSBC, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, US Bank, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Bank of Nova Scotia, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Tokyo, Societe Generale, Intesa Sanpaolo, Compass Bank, Phillips 66, Enbridge, Marathon, to name but a few of the 30+ international funders of over 10 Billion dollars). Their collective contributions to the Dakota Access Pipeline are in keeping with the time-honored ruthless American tradition of racism, facism and corporatism towards people of color and the sacredness of land and life.

The moguls of the petroleum industry and reckless abusers of the Earth’s finite resources are now intent upon creating an underground pipeline wall 1,172 miles long back and forth across the Missouri River, through North & South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois with pipeline connections to the Gulf of Mexico and a multitude of international destination’s beyond. The penchant among politicians and corporatists alike to constantly build walls of various kinds, whether above or below ground, between nations of people makes this current pipeline controversy especially poignant on the eve of 2016’s US Presidential Election as voters struggle to decide who is the lesser evil regarding the support of Wall Street, the Pentagon and the Establishment’s Mongers of Environmental Destruction and War in the world. One wonders what relevant, pithy commentary will be forthcoming from Presidential candidates Trump, Clinton, Stein and Johnson?

Energy Transfer Partners and its coterie of Fat Cats recently sent in a fleet of Caterpillar tractors to intentionally destroy the culturally-sensitive, sacred burial grounds of the Standing Rock Sioux people before their legal representatives could address relevant state and federal protocols in a court of law, or North Dakota’s State Historic Preservation Office could do a proper survey of the area. One could either call it a stroke of genius or stupidity, matched only, perhaps, by the diabolical craftiness of North Dakota Governor Dalrymple who sought to cut off all the cell phone and internet WiFi reception in the contested Sioux lands of North Dakota to try to muzzle any factual accounts from ever reaching the outside world. Meanwhile, the brutality and ruthlessness continues at the hands of those like the Frost Kennels of Ohio and their ex police and military dog handlers who’ve been hired to sic their trained German Shepherd guard dogs onto peacefully protesting men, women, elders and children from all races and nations who have begun to gather in ever greater numbers to protest what is going on.

This confrontation in the distant, isolated northern plains and prairie lands of the Lakota & Dakota Sioux people has all the earmarks of another potentially-brewing historic Wounded Knee. Will it end up becoming yet another massacre of 1890 or another Siege of 1973?

Will America & the Fat Cat corporatists and politicians ever learn how to live in peace and harmony with those so different than themselves who live on ancestral lands they consider to be forever sacred?

American Muslims 15 Years After 9/11/2001

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

• For Muslims now, 15 years since 9/11, ‘it seems more people are more openly hateful’ (Penn Live)
• Muslim Americans still struggle with hate crimes, 15 years after 9/11 (AOL)
• 15 years after 9/11, unwelcome spotlight returns to Islam (USA Today)
• Muslims are still under attack for their beliefs 15 years after 9/11 (Desert News)

These headlines best reflect the dilemma of the seven-million-strong American Muslim Community which remains target of assault, bigotry, hate-crime and profiling, one and half decade after the horrific terrorist attacks. Muslim men were attacked, some fatally, while Muslim women in headscarves were harassed and mosques and Muslim businesses were vandalized.

In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, U.S. Muslims were targeted by a slew of hate crimes, some tragically resulting in loss of life. But 15 years after the attacks, religious tolerance and assimilation into the fabric of the country continues to largely elude Muslims in America, whether they are from Middle Eastern or Asian countries, American-born and bred, white or black, says Ivey DeJesus of Penn Live.

Tellingly, in the 15 years since the 9/11, hate towards Muslims has become more openly acceptable. Anti-Islam rhetoric is no longer playing out behind closed doors. It’s explicit, not implicit anymore.

A new report by Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding has documented an upsurge in violence against Muslims in the United States. The report cites 180 reported incidents of anti-Muslim violence during the period between March 2015 and March 2016. Among these were 12 murders; 34 physical assaults; 56 acts of vandalisms or destruction of property; nine arsons; and eight shootings and bombings. Among the incidents noted were the murders of three university students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the murder of an Iranian-American in California by a white supremacist, and a road-rage incident in Houston in which a Palestinian-American man was killed by a man who told him to “go back to Islam.”

Not surprisingly, there were nearly four times as many attacks against mosques in 2015 compared with 2014, according to a report compiled by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest American Muslim civil advocacy group. There were 78 instances where mosques were targeted — counting vandalism, arson, and other destruction — in 2015. There were 20 total in 2014, the group counted. Some of the incidents from December 2015 include the firebombing of a mosque in Coachella, California and the discovery of a severed pig’s head at a mosque in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On the other hand the 2016 CAIR California Civil Rights Report, which reveals that anti-Muslim bias incidents saw a significant increase since last year. A total of 1,556 incidents, 295 from the Bay Area alone, were reported to CAIR-California over the course of the 2015 year. These included complaints involving: employment discrimination, federal law enforcement questioning, housing discrimination, immigration issues, hate crimes, and school bullying.

Few incidents have underscored the paranoia and misconceptions that a wide section of America has about Muslims than the arrest on September 14, 2015 of a 14-year-old Muslim boy in Dallas, Ahmed Mohamed. He was arrested at his MacArthur High School after the school officials called police because he had brought to class a homemade clock that allegedly looked like a bomb. He was suspended from the School for three days.

Relating all the hate attacks, discrimination, mosque vandalism, and other negative incidences related to the American Muslims are beyond the scope of this article.

2016 Elections

Muslim Americans have been at the center of this year’s presidential election. As the presidential election draws near, American Muslim community is facing increasing challenges in terms of Islamophobic rhetoric by public figures and the resulting hostility and discrimination. Donald Trump’s claim that he witnessed “thousands” of people “cheering” in New Jersey following the September 11, 2001, attacks sparked controversy. Even more controversy followed with the Republican nominee calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. In a move that goes beyond his call to ban Muslim immigration into the United States, Donald Trump said in June that profiling American Muslims is something that needs to be considered. In an interview with Face The Nation on CBS, Trump said “I hate the concept of profiling, but we have to use common sense. We’re not using common sense.”

Throughout the campaign, Trump has advocated increased surveillance of Muslim American communities and mosques. He also said he would consider registering Muslim Americans in a database, or requiring Muslims to carry special identification cards. Trump is persisting with his attack on Muslims because it has proven to be his strongest issue, according to exit polls in many Republican primaries. In the pivotal March 15 contests, exit polls of voters in the five states that held elections revealed a remarkable fact: two-thirds of Republican voters support Trump’s proposal to ban Muslim immigrants and tourists. In some states that held early primary elections – South Carolina and Missouri – nearly 75 percent of Republican voters support the ban. Apparently, he is taking advantage of deep-seated fears of Muslims among Americans, especially Republican voters. Trump is winning votes because he is willing to go further than any other candidate in tarnishing all Muslims.

Trump even provokes controversy when he criticized the Muslim parents of a slain American soldier who was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber in 2004.

‘The Trump Effect’: Hatred, fear and bullying on the rise in schools: The presidential race is stoking fears and racial tensions in America’s classrooms. In April 2016, The Southern Poverty Law Center published a report titled “The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on our Nation’s Schools.” “My students are terrified of Donald Trump. They think that if he’s elected, all black people will get sent back to Africa,” one middle school teacher told the SPLC. The teacher was one of more than 2,000 educators who opted to take a survey conducted through the SPLC’s “Teaching Tolerance” program. “I have had Muslim students called terrorists,” said another teacher who submitted comments to the survey. “There is a boy from Mexico, who is a citizen, who is terrified that the country will deport him if Trump wins,” wrote a third teacher. “He is also scared that kids and grown-ups can and will hurt him.” Overall, more than two-thirds of the teachers who took the survey reported that their students — mainly Muslims, immigrants and children of immigrants — were worried about what could happen to them and their families after the November election. And more than one-third of the teachers said they’ve noticed a rise in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment among their students as well.

Divisive presidential election negatively impacts American Muslims: A majority of Muslim Americans feel unsafe in the United States due to a divisive presidential election that, they report, has negatively impacted their lives, according to the preliminary results of a recent study conducted by Adelphi University, New York. Researchers assessed the impact of Islamophobia on the Muslim American community during the corrosive campaign for the White House. The results, although troubling, were not surprising, say researchers, given the rancorous rhetoric demonizing Muslim Americans, their role in society, and how their culture clashes with purported mainstream American values. Among the more disturbing of the study’s discoveries: 50 percent of respondents said they feel unsafe; nearly two-thirds reported experiencing discrimination in the past year; and perhaps most noteworthy, 93 percent reported that election-year Islamophobia had “some to extreme” negative impact on theirs and their families’ lives. “There’s a lot of fear,” said Dr. Wahiba Abu-Ras, an associate professor of social work at Adelphi University who is studying the mental health of American Muslims. More than half of participants (57 percent) described their experiences as “extremely stressful” and 31 percent reported their experiences as “somewhat stressful.”

Trump’s bigotry has inspired American Muslim voters: According to USA Today, “after 9/11, some Muslim Americans said they were so fearful that they ventured from their homes only when they had to. Not so anymore. With the scrutiny of Muslims, the diverse faith group has become organized and outspoken. Muslim civic and religious groups are holding news conferences, staging anti-terror prayer vigils and interfaith events, and meeting with law enforcement to act against bias and show that they are as American as the next person. They’re bombarding media with condemnations of terrorism after all attacks, including those in the U.S., France, Iraq and Pakistan that targeted non-Muslims and Muslims alike. Groups have held voter registration drives. Some have run for office. In North Jersey, both Teaneck and Prospect Park have Muslim mayors, and Muslims serve or are seeking seats on councils and school boards in Paterson, North Bergen, Passaic, Paramus and Clifton.”

Muslims, who have generally refrained from city politics, had begun organizing get-out-the-vote drives in many cities and showing up in record numbers at the polls.

Washington Post writes under the title: “Donald Trump’s bigotry has inspired U.S. Muslim voters like no candidate before”: Donald Trump? Your bigotry has inspired Muslim American voters like no presidential candidate has done before.

The American Muslim community has responded to its challenges in the post 9/11 America with political activism and an intensive interfaith and outreach drive to build bridges and reach other ethnic and faith communities. It gains strength from the principles of freedom, liberty and equality on which this great nation was founded.

On the positive note

All is not downbeat for the American Muslims. Despite prevalent negative public opinion American Muslims get support from the fellow Americans in their time of distress.

Taken a strong stand against a rising climate of Islamophobia in America, the California State Assembly has declared August as the ‘Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month.’ The Assembly passed a resolution that declared August 2016 as Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month, as part of an effort to acknowledge the “myriad invaluable contributions of Muslim Americans in California and across the country.” The sponsors of the resolution pointed out that California is home to over 240 mosques, more than any other state in the country. The resolution also decried the discrimination that Muslim Americans have had to endure in the years following the September 11 attacks.

In July last, Montgomery County, Maryland, issued a proclamation reaffirming the county’s support for its Muslim citizens. The decision to issue the proclamation came out of concern over anti-Islamic rhetoric in the wake of attacks in Paris and Brussels. The proclamation was issued to demonstrate the County Government’s firm belief that people of all religious faiths are valued and respected and will be safe; and that acts of hatred against Muslims will not be tolerated. The county executive’s office has estimated that there are about 12,000 Muslims in the county — roughly 1.2 percent of the county’s total population.

St. Johns County of Florida issued a Proclamation expressing County’s strong adherence to fostering civility among its diverse community of residents. The proclamation declared that May, 2016 be designated as: Civility Month; and “calls upon all citizens to exercise civility toward each other this month and throughout the year.”

A the Muslim community faces difficulty in establishing new mosques or expand the existing Islamic Centers, Afton (Minnesota) City Council approves plans for mosque in city. The Newton County, Georgia, has decided to lift moratorium on permits for all houses of worship.

The U.S. Education Department has announced it will begin collecting data this year about allegations of discrimination or bullying of students based on their religion, bringing new attention to what educators and advocates call a growing problem in public schools, particularly for Muslim students. Catherine E. Lhamon, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said “Students of all religions should feel safe, welcome and valued in our nation’s schools,” she said in an announcement.

Seven million strong American Muslim community has welcomed the appointment of first Muslim federal judge. On Sept 7, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Abid Riaz Qureshi, a Washington lawyer, to the US District Court bench who would become the country’s first Muslim-American federal judge if he is confirmed. Abid Riaz Qureshi is a lawyer at the Latham & Watkins law firm in Washington, specializing in health care fraud and securities violations, according to the White House. Obama nominated him to serve on the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Qureshi earned the Champions of Justice Award in 2012 by the National Law Journal’s Legal Times for upholding the legal profession’s core values through public service, pro bono work and advocacy for civil liberties.

76% Want Four-Person Debates, Why Are Establishment Elites Preventing It?

Kevin Zeese

A recent USA Today poll found 76% of voters want debates with four candidates including not just the two most hated candidates in history, the Republican and Democratic nominees and their vice presidential running mates, but Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka of the Greens, and Gary Johnson and Bill Weld of the Libertarians.

Any candidate on enough ballots to achieve 270 electoral college votes should be in the debates. The people have a right to see all candidates debating the issues who are on their ballots.

The deceptive debate commission, which is called a debate commission just to hide the truth: it is a corporation of the Democrats and Republicans whose purpose is to limit debates to their two parties, has no legitimacy. It has a major conflict of interest – why should the two establishment parties decide their opponents cannot debate? It is an obvious conflict of interest that the media should be calling out. The media should join the demand of the people – open debate are essential for democracy.

Today, half of US voters do not even consider themselve Democrats or Republicans, both parties are widely disliked and debates should not be limited to two minority parties, who present two hated candidates when there are four candidates on enough ballots to win a majority of the electoral college.

This week we are starting a series of protests in Washington, DC at the offices of the deceptive debate commission. On Wednesday during rush hour beginning at 4:30 people will be holding a disruptive protest at rush hour. We will me meeting at New Hampshire Ave and M St. NW at 4:30.  We are calling for people to “Occupy the Debates.” The anniversary of OWS is September 17th and opening the debates would be a good use of that anniversary. The people need to challenge the DC political elites who keep the debate closed so only big business views are heard.

Please share this announcement widely and urge people to attend if they are near DC  also urge them to share it widely so all activists near DC are aware of it.

We also urge people around the country to self-organize protests at media outlets to urge them to demand open debates and to stop the fraud of the deceptive debate commission. The debates will be shown on all network and cable news outlets.

And, we urge students and others near the venues of the debates to organize protests, write about the deceptive debate commission in local papers (including student papers), and pressure the president and board of trustees for open debates. Debates will be held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, Longwood University in Farmville, VA, Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and University of Nevada in Las Vegas, NV. Universities in particular should be open to a wide variety of views not just the views of two parties funded by Wall Street and big business interests.

Either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton could demand open debates. Donald Trump supported open debates in 2000 and exclaimed how it was amazing that this commission could keep people out of debates. Now, he seems to have joined the DC political elites and is manipulating democracy. In 2008 Hillary Clinton pushed for debates because of the importance of the office of the presidency. She too, is a debate manipulator. These two hated candidates do not want the voters to know there are more options. Instead they prefer to close the debates and shut out the voices of those who challenge them.

The debates impact every issue we care about. Many issues will not be on the agenda for these debates, among them are preventing escalation of wars, relieving students and millennials of the burden of unfair tuition debt, ensuring healthcare for everyone in an improved Medicare for all program, breaking up the big banks, and transforming to a green economy with a major jobs programs. These issues among others will not be debated if we only hear from two Wall Street parties.

It is time for all of us to unite and demand inclusive debate as a step toward creating a real democracy and ending the manipulation of the elites.

Fifteen Years After 9/11: Is America Any Safer?

Taj Hashmi

“Is America Any Safer” is the cover story of this September’s Atlantic magazine. CNN and other media outlets are also commemorating the catastrophic terror attacks on the morning of September 11, 2001. Reflecting their collective delusions of persecution, and exaggerated self-importance, Americans in general are perplexed about certain things with regard to 9/11: a) what went wrong with their intelligence; b) why some people hate them so much; c) America is no longer invincible; and d) theirs being “The land of the free and the home of the brave” will always remain “Number One”. However, the politics of fear- and hate-mongering has impaired American minds, which only think Islamist terrorists are the only security threat to their nation.

Some Americans honestly believe there are evil people around the world who are jealous of Americans, and hate their freedom. They aren’t that different from some North Koreans, who also believe the whole world is jealous of their country. After a decade of teaching security studies in America – both in military and civilian settings – I am convinced the average American politicians, intellectuals, and generals believe terrorism is an original sin, and terrorists kill for the sake of killing! However, a ten-year-old American boy was exceptional. Moments after the second plane hit the Twin Towers, he quipped: “Why are they killing us? We must’ve done something wrong to some people, somewhere in the world”!

Fifteen years after 9/11, American media, politicians and analysts are evaluating what went wrong on that fateful day; and how much 9/11 has cost the economy and society so far; and what else America should do to defeat al Qaeda, ISIS and their ilk. There’s no guilt, no remorse, no apology to the Muslim World for America’s illegitimate invasions, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Gharaib.

American bombs, guns, and drones since Hiroshima have killed more than ten million unarmed civilians across the world. And who doesn’t know this except the overwhelming majority of Americans? They know very little to nothing about their country’s covert and overt invasions of countries, and promotion of terrorist groups across the world. Americans somehow were instrumental in the creation of al Qaeda, Taliban, and the ISIS, directly or through its surrogates like Saudi Arabia. It’s sad but true; in 2011 America turned a blind eye to Saudi invasion of Bahrain to crush the popular mass upsurge of the Shiite majority against the Sunni rulers of the oil rich sheikhdom; and Saudi Arabia since 2015 has killed thousands of Yemeni rebels, with impunity.

America since 9/11 has confronted “the newfound fear” … sometimes heroically and sometimes irrationally, mostly by fear-mongering and demonizing Muslims, Syria and Iran. Meanwhile, the country has spent $1 trillion to defend against al Qaeda and ISIS. “Has it worked?” is the embarrassing question. While the State, DoD, and Homeland Security agencies had been trying to defeat al Qaeda, the more deadly ISIS emerged from “nowhere” in Syria and Iraq. One’s not sure if America’s Middle Eastern surrogates, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey (which was in good terms with Washington until the abortive July coup in 2016) created the anti-Shiite/anti-Iranian ISIS – with tacit US support! It raises two diametrically opposite questions: a) Has the “War on Terror” been lost? b) Is the ISIS another US-sponsored false-flag operation?

The legacies of 9/11 haunt the world, and America too. American and allied soldiers’ indiscriminately killed and captured a large number of civilians in Afghanistan in the first few months of the invasion in November 2001. Hundreds of “unlawful combatants” from Afghanistan were tortured and kept behind bars at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center for years; a couple of hundred detainees are still there without any charges and trial process.

The way US General Wesley Clark (ret.) publicly exposes the real motives of the American warmongers days after 9/11 is revealing. According to him, America didn’t invade Iraq in 2003 for defending democracy, freedom, or America’s Homeland Security, let alone 9/11: “About ten days after 9/11, I went to the Pentagon … and one of the generals called me in. He said, ‘We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq…. I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.’” He also reveals Pentagon’s hidden agenda about invading seven countries in five years, “starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran”.

Since invading countries for the sake of invasions being the raison d’être – America’s mighty Military-Industrial Lobby loves mega wars in distant lands for the “profits of war” – 9/11 didn’t precipitate the invasions of Iraq and Libya. The “profits of war” explain all American post-World War II invasions of countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; and millions of innocent civilians got killed in these countries. The US-led illegitimate wars are only comparable to those waged by Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo.

However, democracy and free press create problems, even for the American hawks. What fascist, communist, and military dictators got away with – the world hardly knew how many people Stalin, Mao, or Saddam Hussein killed during their heydays – America’s top warmongers, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. couldn’t hide from their own people and the world at large. Thanks to William Assange and Edward Snowden, now we know a lot more about American ways of illegitimate wars and invasions than before. We also know as to how Nobel Laureate (in Peace) President Obama, and his former hawkish Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were responsible for thousands of deaths of unarmed civilians in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

The 15th anniversary of 9/11 is a time to reflect on as to how despite being democracies, countries like America, Britain, France, Germany, and Australia get away with invading countries, and killing tens of thousands of unarmed civilians. It’s time to demand the trial of all war criminals that invaded countries and killed millions of innocent people during the last seven decades – from Hiroshima to Helmand, Aleppo to Fallujah, Sana’a to Mogadishu, and Bahrain to Beirut – for the sake of justice, and just and durable peace. It’s time to stop demonizing Muslims, Arab or non-Arab. It’s time to inform the misinformed in the West about the lies, and deceptions their governments resort to justify invasions of countries out of sheer neo-imperialist design of plundering the weak and resource-rich countries in the Third World. American taxpayers must know that since 9/11, their Government has plundered around $3 trillion from them in totally unnecessary and illegitimate wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.

We believe America and its allies would be safe only when they would ensure others’ safety, freedom, honour and dignity. They must be told terrorists just don’t drop from the heavens; terrorism is a weapon of the weak, and desperate people resort to terrorism as their last resort, not as their first choice; Islam doesn’t permit suicide attacks, and killing of innocent people; only imperialists and neo-imperialists wage wars and kill innocent people. Apparently, today America is safer than before while resource rich countries in the Third World worry if they are the ones America contemplates invading next to bring “freedom and democracy” to them, a la Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya!

Ending Ecocide And Genocide

Glen Barry


Humanity has waged war against the natural world for millennia, intensifying with the industrial revolution, culminating with 9/11 terror and resulting perma-war, and threatening now to collapse the biosphere. Centuries ago an epic wave of ecological terror swept from Northern Europe as the industrial revolution and colonialism put a price on everything, liquidating natural ecosystems for illusory consumption by some, based upon false claims of advancement. Fleeting creature comforts for a few generations for some have come at the expense of apocalyptic war waged upon our ecological habitats and all that is different than ourselves.

In the name of god and country, indigenous cultures ensconced within the loving embrace of natural ecosystems, living materially simple but ecologically rich lives, were labeled savages and brutally murdered in waves of ecocide and genocide. Millions of year old natural ecosystems were systematically dismantled, and their vibrant life forms mercilessly slaughtered, to be used as resources to fuel the fires of industry. Anything that could burn, including timeless carbon stores of ancestral life meant to remain sequestered, were set ablaze to fuel our insatiable urges.

Multi-pronged wars upon nature proclaimed as god’s will, and thus destined to be waged by exceptional nations, have utterly devastated naturally evolved ecosystems, the current climate equilibrium, non-Western cultures, and the sum total of life known as the biosphere. A constant state of conflict with nature and all people with heritages other than that of European settlers has left the world in an overpopulated, biologically tawdry and diminished condition, poised upon utter and complete ecological ruin. The end of being is nigh, yet hope inherent in ecology and peace remains.

Declaring Climate Peace

It is time to declare and make a lasting peace with the natural world – starting with climate and intact ecosystems such as old-growth forests, and encompassing all Earth’s life, including other peoples. Each of us must seek to minimize biological, ecological, and cultural conflict in order to allow Earth to rest, recuperate, and recover.

Only a declaration of climate peace based upon protecting and restoring natural ecosystems including the atmosphere can save us now.

Gluttonous murdering of other life forms – be they plants, animals, or people – as the basis of the majority worldview will be abandoned. The everyday violence of fueling our lives with fossils ripped from the Earth and spewed into the atmosphere will be replace with nega-watts and small scale renewables. The brutal rape of naturally evolved ancient ecosystems cleared to make consumer junk will be banished, and as old-growth forest logging is banned, natural regeneration along with restoration will fix the damage done to the biosphere and humanity’s prospects for lasting advancement.

Peace will be made between warring peoples and cultures based upon justice, truth, equity, and ecology. Restitution will be paid and hierarchical structures of exploitation of the land, water, air, animals, and people dismantled. People will be drawn back to the land to grow and create things of worth from the labors of their minds and bodies.

As climate peace breaks out, one last time guns will be beaten into plowshares, as small scale community development based upon bioregional scale sustainability flourishes. Trillions in military expenditures will be redirected to equitably meeting basic human needs, de-industrializing, gradually limiting human numbers, restoring ecological habitats, and meeting reduced needs for energy in the least ecologically intrusive manner possible.

Conspicuous overconsumption is profoundly violent, based upon lengthy supply chains of exploitation, leaving behind injustice, murder, and war. We must constantly strive to ask ourselves and brethren how much is enough, and find meaning in experience, togetherness, community, art, sport, and other worthy endeavors beyond simply gorging ourselves upon the fruits of ecocide like an out of control microbe.

Lifestyles based on subjugation and elimination of other life forms are unacceptable. Diversity in all things – from the genome through plant community and landscapes, and outward to other cultures – will be hailed as glorious and worthy of veneration and deep abiding love. The sum of our worth will be best assessed by the degree to which we cherish and nurture life.

Centuries old indoctrination that subjugation and destruction of all that is natural is desirable will be overcome, and right livelihoods based upon deep biocentric truths regarding the sacredness of nature will be embraced. Processes as different as formal ecological education, fostering of ecological intuition, and mentoring by native elders will be nurtured allowing shallow, narcissistic over-consumers eating their own habitat to reconnect with the natural world.

Peace-Makers of the Rainbow

A panoply of opportunities exist for comfortable, rich, truth-filled, and worthwhile lifestyles ensconced within a peaceful natural world. That is, living well together in a manner that doesn’t collapse the climate or natural ecosystems, is fair as all basic needs are met and luxuries shared, and does not lead to global nuclear annihilation.

Making peace with ecology will allow our descendants to live forever, rather than suffer and die miserably in ecologically apocalyptic wastelands.

One of our greatest obstacles as citizens of a threatened living Planet is the dearth of climate change role models demonstrating peaceful and ecologically sustainable lifestyles. Various climate charlatans hock technological fixes (more of the same industrial over-development) as others preach climate is real from private jets flitting around the world polluting voluminously. Meanwhile innumerable climate visionaries wage peace with the natural world as they labor on the land in obscurity, demonstrating truly sustainable development; yet are denied the funds and platform by the elite to spread their vision, in order that climate peace become the dominant paradigm.

Declare climate peace in your life by ditching your personal car. Commit to bearing one child while helping raise others. Eat little or no meat, and grow much of your own food, buying most of the rest locally, ensuring it is sustainable, ethical, and of the highest quality. Travel via air as infrequently as possible, and when you do, linger and fully embrace the marvel of being in another place and time. There is much to be explored in your own bioregion.

Naturally evolved remnant plant and animal communities will be protected, and massive employment created as entire landscapes are ecologically restored; as their natural water, carbon, wildlife, evolutionary, pollination, and other ecosystem processes are re-connected. Huge mobilizations of plant propagation and care based upon native genetic stocks will expand and recreate old-growth forests and perma-culture forest gardens as the context for human society, re-embracing humanity within nature’s nurturing and firm embrace.

An age of ecological restoration will ensure natural ecosystems continue to make Earth habitable.

It is unnatural to burn hydrocarbons spewing filth into the atmosphere. The fossilized remains of our evolutionary ancestors will no longer foul our shared biosphere. A massive program of industrial demobilization will see an end to virtually all unnecessary toxic consumption, even as the benefits of appropriate technologies for renewable energy, health, education, communication, and sustainable development are retained.

Join with others in acts of civil disobedience to protect natural ecosystems and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Work tirelessly to end war, for racial equality, to restore native rights, and to promote equity. Commit the focus of your being to justice and ecological sustainability. There is no more worthwhile life, than to peacefully display your love of Earth and all her creatures, to be had at this juncture in human and natural history.

We need many, many diverse leaders that bluntly and truthfully speak and live the language of peace and love for each other and the natural world. Only as we come together in such a manner can the omnipresent prophecy referred to in many indigenous cultures (perhaps apocryphal or maybe not) be realized of peace-makers of the rainbow (much preferred to warriors during these troubled times) rising during a period of natural destruction to regreen the Earth. Let’s make it so.

A Flimflam Impeachment: The Overthrow Of Dilma Rousseff

Arshad M Khan


What did Dilma Rousseff do to warrant impeachment? According to her opponents, she falsified the accounts to exaggerate the health of the economy, a practice not uncommon among governors. In her case, a fiscal court rejected the 2014 accounting report, which under normal circumstances would have prompted a revision; instead the Senate plotters seized upon it to draw up impeachment papers.

Yet Dilma still had one ace up her sleeve: Eduardo Cunha, the Speaker of the Lower House. It is required by the constitution to initiate the process and he had the power to shelve the request.

Like the plotters, Mr. Cunha had ethics and corruption problems of his own and was being investigated by a house Ethics Committee for allegedly secret bank accounts. Unfortunately for Dilma, three members of the Lower House from her own Workers Party (PT) decided to withdraw their support for Mr. Cunha and to vote against him in the Committee. Within hours of their announcement he had acknowledged the impeachment request.

Perhaps most striking and ironic is the absence of any personal impropriety on Ms. Rousseff’s part in contrast with her opponents. They were fighting a ticking clock as Operation Car Wash (Lava Jata) an anti-corruption investigation homed in on them. Her principal accuser Michel Temer now leading the new government has been named in two plea bargains where some top officials of Petrobras, the state-run oil company, have been accused of operating a kick-back scheme.

While Mr. Temer is not personally under direct investigation, he has been barred from running for office for eight years, stemming from campaign funding irregularities and election law violations for spending more of his personal fortune than the law permits.

Mr. Cunha, the number two in the plot against her according to Ms. Rousseff, is reported to have secreted $5 million received in illegal kickbacks in Swiss bank accounts. His lifestyle belies his declared annual income of $120,000. Leaked information from investigators revealed a $40,000 splurge on a nine-day family holiday in Miami, shopping sprees in New York, Paris and Zurich, and a fleet of eight luxury cars. He resigned tearfully in July three months after commencing the impeachment proceedings in the Lower House. The house voted 367 to 137 for impeachment.

At face value the vote appears decisive but the fact is Ms. Rousseff’s party the PT does not command a majority in the House or the Senate. It relied on the support of the slightly larger PDMP (The Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) to govern. This support was withdrawn as the economy teetered and because of personal squabbles. There are moreover a host of small parties whose vote was also affected by both the economy and Dilma Rousseff’s rapidly fading poll numbers and public support.

So to the formal vote for impeachment in the Senate, the trial on Wednesday August 31, and the 61 to 20 vote for dismissal comfortably above the 54 votes required. Ms. Rousseff has since filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, an appeal not very likely to succeed as constitutional procedures were followed, and the charge though flimsy was buttressed by the fiscal court ruling.

The PT led the country for thirteen years. In the decade following the election first of Lula da Silva in 2002 and 2006 and then of Dilma Rousseff in 2010, their policies reduced poverty by a record 55 percent. Income growth was triple in comparison with the previous government. Unemployment hit record lows and the real minimum wage doubled. But it had to be paid for.

After being re-elected in 2010 promising more of the same, Ms. Rousseff came face to face with reality and reversed course. The subsequent belt-tightening worsened by a slowing world economy proved her undoing.

Protest demonstrations against her policies and against what then appeared to be the profligacy of the Olympics loosened her grip. She lost support in the legislature. At the same time the ongoing Lava Jato investigation made many legislators unhappy. Then came the fiscal court ruling and a chance for them of escape.

What’s in the future? Mr. Temer’s government is holding the reins until the next election in 2018. Corruption is endemic. Within a month of assuming office, three of Mr. Temer’s cabinet members had resigned. Lava Jata was taking its toll.

The PT party is not without taint. Past President Lula da Silva is to stand trial for his role in the Petrobras kickback scandal — contractors bidding high for services and giving kickbacks. Mr. Lula’s lawyers claim he is innocent and the flimsy evidence is based on someone testifying against him in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Another scandal involving the PT relates to paying lawmakers for their votes. From 2005 when the story broke to 2012, 25 politicians and businessmen were convicted including senior PT members. As can be expected, the Brazilian electorate is fed up.

The economy is in depression due mostly to the worldwide slowdown affecting commodity prices, seriously undermining Brazil’s earnings from its exports of oil, iron and soya. It shrank 3.8 percent in 2015, the worst since 1981, and is expected to contract another 3.8 percent in 2016. When you hit bottom, there is nowhere to go but up. For the time being, it may be the only consolation for the temporary unelected stewards.

China and the FSI: Decennary Trends, 2007-2016

Chao Xie

The Fund for Peace has released its twelfth annual Fragile States Index (FSI). As with previous editions, it presents yearly scores and rankings based on the levels of stability and pressures each state faces.. However, the changes in a year are hardly of any observable significance, especially for those not-so-fragile states, and even for the fragile ones, the situation should be considered in longer terms so as to acquire a more accurate understanding. What makes this year’s report more useful is an included report on decade trends over 2007-2016. With the range of observation extended, one can take a deeper look into the data to see into FSI’s and see how this world has changed over the last ten years, even though it might just provide a partial or biased representation of broad trends related to some countries, for instance, China and India.

First, light will be shed on the economic indicators. As per the FSI design, the parameters of scoring economic growth are supposed to influence each other in the FSI scoring system because for developing countries, rapid economic growth will inevitably mean a minus in Poverty and Economic Decline but a plus in Uneven Economic Development. In 2007, before the subprime mortgage crisis dragged the world financial markets into turbulence, the world was cheering emerging markets that were set to become new drivers of the world economy. China and India are on the anticipation list, and for this decade they are two leading states in terms of economic growth but still on the road to balancing rural and urban development and easing tensions between the richest 10 per cent and the poorest (it must be noted that FSI chose the 10 per cent gauge over 5 per cent which is more favourable to developed countries). Despite all their similarities in other areas, the FSI points for China and India should be a down trend and the instinct is that their general situation is becoming better and better. But the final scores are divided. China appears to have experienced significantly greater improvement between 2007-2016 than India, which gets +8.8 in a worsening trend. This is of course not a sound assessment and their ranking should be somewhat nearer to each other.

Social indicators with double weightage may present a bigger picture. In the past decade, both the countries have had challenges on aspects of Refugees and IDPs and Group Grievance. Tension and violence between ethnic groups exists in both countries. China is trying to calm its north western frontier; the violence in Northeast India and J&K does not see a prospect of settling down in the coming years either. Despite all the challenges, a reasonable estimate is that no significant changes have occurred, and the change will be even less significant when starting the calculation from 2007. Taking a step back to assess the Index, should such challenges add more points to their fragility, their cores being about the same in these categories?

In the category of Demographic Pressure, the FSI implies that population growth is a bad thing as the description about it is weighted with negative words such as malnutrition, food and water scarcity, and disease. What the FSI turns a blind eye towards is that nowadays countries are increasingly aware of what demographic changes would bring about. For China, without a good supply of human labour, there would have had no economic miracle for three decades. With human dividend coming to an end, it has timely terminated the single-child policy to curb the ageing curve. India, on the other hand, is set to become the youngest country by 2020 and is enjoying an outstanding advantage from its youth surge. But the FSI scoring design is again more favourable to Western countries, especially considering some countries are suffering from the demographic deficit and an ageing population. To make it simple, demographic structure can be a core element of state capacity rather than fragility, not to mention that countries like China and India with stronger economies are better equipped to counter demographic challenges.

What is concealed here? The composition of the Index’s indicators shows that more weightage is given to political (and military) indicators as it has six categories. If the FSI can be of any policy indication, it encourages states to imitate the Western path of development and that they would have a brighter chance to better their ranking if they prioritise political over social and economic developments. Cuba has undertaken unprecedented political and economic reforms in the past few years, and has earned itself significant improvement in the trend ranking. However, some failed experiences have definitely proven the opposite as well, because states tend to become fragile in the process of political improvement and more fragile if domestic insurgency or external interventions are underway. Obvious cases are those countries affected in the Arab Spring; for example, Tunisia got 9 points in a worsening trend and others, including Yemen, Syria and Libya, went to a critical worsening stage. Therefore, for states like China and India, it will be wiser to put the FSI implications aside and insist on their own path of development.