The United States is First in War, But Trailing in Crucial Aspects of Modern Civilization

Laura Finley

Maybe those delirious crowds chanting “USA, USA” have got something. When it comes to military power, the United States reigns supreme. Newsweek reported in March 2018: “The United States has the strongest military in the world,” with more than two million military personnel and vast numbers of the most advanced nuclear missiles, military aircraft, warships, tanks, and other modern weapons of war. Furthermore, as the New York Times noted, “the United States also has a global presence unlike any other nation, with about 200,000 active duty troops deployed in more than 170 countries.” This presence includes some 800 overseas U.S. military bases.

In 2017 (the last year for which global figures are available), the U.S. government accounted for more than a third of the world’s military expenditures―more than the next seven highest-spending countries combined. Not satisfied, however, President Trump and Congress pushed through a mammoth increase in the annual U.S. military budget in August 2018, raising it to $717 billion. Maintaining the U.S. status as “No. 1” in war and war preparations comes at a very high price.

That price is not only paid in dollars—plus massive death and suffering in warfare―but in the impoverishment of other key sectors of American life. After all, this lavish outlay on the military now constitutes about two-thirds of the U.S. government’s discretionary spending. And these other sectors of American life are in big trouble.

Let’s consider education. The gold standard for evaluation seems to be the Program for International Student Assessment of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which tests 15-year-old students every few years. The last test, which occurred in 2015 and involved 540,000 students in 72 nations and regions, found that U.S. students ranked 24th in reading, 25th in science, and 41st in mathematics. When the scores in these three areas were combined, U.S. students ranked 31st―behind the students of Slovenia, Poland, Russia, and Vietnam.

The educational attainments among many other Americans are also dismal. An estimated 30 million adult Americans cannot read, write, or do basic math above a third grade level. Literacy has different definitions and, for this reason among others, estimates vary about the level of illiteracy in the United States. But one of the most favorable rankings of the United States for literacy places it in a tie with numerous other nations for 26th; the worst places it at 125th.

The U.S. healthcare system also fares poorly compared to that of other nations. A 2017 study of healthcare systems in 11 advanced industrial countries by the Commonwealth Fund found that the United States ranked at the very bottom of the list. Furthermore, numerous nations with far less “advanced” economies have superior healthcare systems to that of the United States. According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. healthcare system ranks 37th among countries―behind that of Colombia, Cyprus, and Morocco.

Not surprisingly, American health is relatively poor. The infant mortality rate in the United States is higher than in 54 other lands, including Belarus, Cuba, Greece, and French Polynesia. According to the World Cancer Research Fund, the United States has the 5th highest cancer rate of the 50 countries it studied. For the past few years, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported, U.S. life expectancy has been declining and, today, the United States reportedly ranks 53rd among 100 nations in life expectancy.

Despite the fact that the United States is the world’s richest nation, it also has an unusually high level of poverty. According to a 2017 UNICEF report, more than 29 percent of American children live in impoverished circumstances, placing the United States 35th in childhood poverty among the 41 richest nations. Indeed, the United States has a higher percentage of its people living in poverty (15.1 percent) than 41 other countries, including Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, and Sri Lanka.

Nor does the United States rate very well among nations on environmental issues. According to the Environmental Performance Index, produced by Yale University and Columbia University in 2018, the United States placed 27th among the countries it ranked on environmental health and ecosystem vitality. The Social Progress Index, another well-respected survey that rates countries on their environmental records, ranked the United States 36th in wastewater treatment, 39th in access to at least basic drinking water, and 73rd in greenhouse gas emissions.

Actually, the findings of the Social Progress Index are roughly the same as other evaluators in a broad range of areas. Its 2018 report concluded that that the United States ranked 63rd in primary school enrollment, 61st in secondary school enrollment, 76th in access to quality education, 40th in child mortality rate, 62nd in maternity mortality rate, 36th in access to essential health services, 74th in access to quality healthcare, and 35th in life expectancy at age 60. In addition, it rated the United States as 33rd in political killings and torture, 88th in homicide rate, 47th in political rights, and 67th in discrimination and violence against minorities. All in all, there’s nothing here to cheer about.

Does the U.S. government’s priority for military spending explain, at least partially, the discrepancy between the worldwide preeminence of the U.S. armed forces and the feeble global standing of major American domestic institutions? Back in April 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower pointed to their connection. Addressing the American Society of Newspaper editors, he declared: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” A militarized world “is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

People infatuated with military supremacy should give that some thought.

Media Panic Over the Stock Market Plunge

Dean Baker

The media continue to be in a panic over the drop in the stock market over the last few weeks. Fortunately for political pundits, there is no expectation that they have any clue about the subjects on which they opine.  For those more interested in economics than hysterics, the drop in the market is not a big deal.

The market is at best very loosely related to the economy. It generally rises in recoveries and falls in recessions, but it also has all sorts of movements that are not obviously related to anything in the real economy.

The most famous example of such an erratic movement was the crash in October of 1987. The market fell by more than 20 percent in a single day. There was no obvious event in the economy or politics that explained this fall, which hit markets around the world. Nor did the decline presage a recession. The economy continued to grow at a healthy pace through 1988 and 1989. It didn’t fall into a recession until June of 1990, more than two years later.

There is little reason to believe the recent decline will have any larger impact on the economy than the 1987 crash. As a practical matter, stock prices have almost no impact on investment. The bubble of the late 1990s was the major exception, when companies were directly issuing stock to finance investment.

Stock prices do affect consumption through the wealth effect, but the recent decline is not large enough to have all that much impact. Also, since it was just reversing a sharp run-up in the prior 18 months, it essentially means that we will not see some of the positive wealth effect that the economy would have felt otherwise.

Basically, the hysteria over the drop in the stock market is either people in the media displaying their ignorance or a political swipe at Donald Trump by people who apparently don’t think there are substantive reasons to criticize him. This drop is not the sort of thing that serious people should concern themselves with.

Wealth Inequality and the Stock Market

One of the most bizarre aspects of the market’s recent decline is that many of the same people who have been decrying the rise in wealth inequality in this recovery have been complaining about the drop in the market. This is bizarre because the rise in wealth inequality is the run-up in the stock market over the last decade.

Stock is disproportionately held by the rich, with the richest 1.0 percent of families hold almost 40 percent of stock wealth held by individuals, and the top 0.5 percent of families holding almost a quarter of stock wealth. This means that when the market rises, the rich get richer relative to everyone else.  Conversely, when the market falls wealth inequality is reduced.

For most middle class people their house is their main asset. House prices have been outpacing inflation in recent years, but generally house prices increase roughly in line with the rate of inflation. It is not a good story when house prices rise more rapidly. Rapid rises in house prices mean that homeowners become wealthier, but it places houses further out of the reach of those who don’t already own a home. Furthermore, if the rise in house prices reflects the fundamentals in the housing market it means that rents are also rising. If the rise in house prices doesn’t reflect the fundamentals in the housing market then we have a bubble, as was the case in the last decade. This is also not good news.

Anyhow, it is not really plausible to tell a story where rises in housing wealth will allow the middle class reduce the wealth gap in the context of a rapidly rising stock market. It is also not plausible to tell a story of the wealth gap closing appreciably due to increased savings by low and middle class families. Suppose the bottom 100 million families increased their annual savings by $5,000. This would be a huge increase After three years they will have accumulated another $1.5 trillion in savings. In a context where total wealth is near $100 trillion, this is barely a drop in the bucket.

I have argued elsewhere that wealth is really not a very useful measure, but those who think it is have an obligation to be consistent. The long and short, is that you get to either complain about wealth inequality or a falling stock market. You don’t get to complain about both.

The Stock Plunge and Stock Returns

Much of the commentary on the drop in the stock market ignores its absolute levels. In spite of the drop, the price to earnings ratio for the stock market as a whole is still close to 20 to 1. This compares to a long-run average of close to 15 to 1. And, it is important to remember that corporate profits remain at extraordinarily high levels as a share of GDP. It is reasonable to think that a tight labor market will allow workers to get back some of the income share they lost in the weak labor market following the Great Recession. We may also hope that a Democratic Congress, and possibly a Democrat in the White House in 2021, will retake some of the tax cut that Trump gave to U.S. corporations last year.

For these reasons it is wrong to see the drop in the market as being a great buying opportunity. I don’t do market analysis for a living and am not in the habit of giving stock advice, but no one would have seen the current levels in the stock market as being low if we had not seen the run-up of the prior two years. The fact that we did see this run-up should not change our perceptions of proper market valuation.

The other point is a simple arithmetic one that seems to be too simple for most economists to grasp. The returns that we can expect on stock are inversely related to the price to earnings ratio. When the price to earnings ratios are low, then returns can be high. When price to earnings ratios are high, returns will be low.

This is important because price to earnings ratios have historically been much lower, as I just pointed out. This allowed for higher returns. The long-term average for real returns had been over 7.0 percent prior to 2000. It has been considerably lower in the last two decades, with the recent plunge putting the annual average under 4.5 percent.

This is noteworthy for two reasons. First, if we go back to the late 1990s both Democrats and Republicans thought it was a clever idea to put Social Security money in the stock market. Democrats wanted to put the Social Security trust fund in the stock market, while Republicans wanted workers to hold individual accounts that would be largely placed in the stock market. In both cases they assumed that the stock market would continue to provide 7.0 percent real returns in spite of the high price to earnings ratios that exists at that time.

I was rather lonely in arguing that these sorts of returns would not be possible.  And it does make a difference. If someone invested $1,000 in the market in 1998, and got 7.0 percent real returns, their money would have increased to $3,870 in 1998 dollars. However, given the returns we have actually seen, a $1,000 invested in 1998 would only be worth $2,410 today. The gap between 7.0 percent annual returns and 4.5 percent is a big deal and it becomes even bigger over time. If we looked at it over 30 years, it would be $7,610 versus $3,750. After 40 years, $14,970 compared with $5,820.

The other point about the 4.5 percent returns over the last two decades is that it means that shareholders have not been doing great. The run-up in the stock market from 1980 to 1998 meant that people who held stock forty years ago did quite well, but the people who bought into the market in the last two decades have not.

For some reason there is little awareness of this fact. This is likely due to the fact that people do not distinguish between corporate profits, which are very high, especially after the tax cut, and the returns to shareholders. This is not a question of feeling sorry for shareholders, since the rich hold such a disproportionate share of stock wealth. It is simply a question of whether shareholders have been doing especially well in the last two decades.

The fact their returns have not been good means that they could be allies in trying to bring down CEO pay. CEO pay is essentially coming out of profits that could otherwise go toward higher returns.

There are two reason for preferring the money goes to shareholders rather than CEOs. While most shares are held by the rich, a substantial portion is held by pension funds and middle class people with 401(k)s. By contrast, every penny of CEO compensation goes to someone in the top 0.01 percent.

More importantly, CEO pay affects pay structures throughout the economy. If CEO pay were again 20 to 30 times the pay of ordinary workers, instead of 200 to 300 times their pay, it would bring down pay at the top of the corporate hierarchy more generally. We might see the second and third tier of corporate executives getting pay in the high hundreds of thousands instead of millions. The same would be true of presidents and CEOs of universities and other non-profits.

Shareholders should be seen as allies in this effort. They have every bit as much reason to want to see lower CEO pay as lower pay for manufacturing workers or retail clerks. We should look to help them in that effort and part of the story is increasing their stock returns.

Worse than Obsolete: NATO Creates Enemies

John LaForge

NATO’s and the US military’s desecration of corpses, attacks on wedding parties, mosques, hospitals and market places — along with the bombing of allied troops, torture of prisoners, and their notoriously unaccountable drone warfare — are a few of the alliance’s more infamous outrages in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.

Twenty years’ worth of “unintended” or “collateral” damage hasn’t created friends in the war zones:

+ On April 23, 1999, NATO rocketed the central studio of Radio Televisija Srbije (RTS), the state-owned broadcasting corporation in Belgrade, destroying the building. Sixteen civilian employees of RTS were killed and 16 wounded. Amnesty International concluded the attack was a war crime.

+ In a Feb. 12, 2010 atrocity that was kept secret until March 13, US Special Forces killed a teenage girl, a pregnant mother of 10, a pregnant mother of 6, a police officer and his brother, and were accused of then trying to cover-up the killings by digging bullets out of the victims’ bodies, washing the wounds with alcohol and lying to superior officers.

+ While bombing Libya in March 2011, NATO refused to aid a group of 72 migrants adrift in the Mediterranean Sea. Only nine people on board survived. The refusal was condemned as criminal by the Council of Europe.

+ On Nov. 26, 2011, NATO jets bombed and rocketed an allied Pakistani military base for two hours, killing 26 Pakistani soldiers and wounding dozens more. NATO refuses to apologize.

Allies have reacted angrily. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave his “last” warning against NATO’s bombing of Afghan homes on May 31, 2011, saying, “If they continue their attacks on our houses … history shows what Afghans do with trespassers and with occupiers.” On March 20, 2012, Pakistani lawmakers demanded an end to all NATO/CIA drone strikes against their territory. The drone attacks continue, and newspapers repeatedly remind readers of the self-defeating hopelessness of using atrocities to fight a tactic or to enforce US military occupation.

Headlines Record NATO’s Global Crime Spree

“Civilians Killed in US-Afghan Operation,” New York Times, Nov. 29, 2018

“Navy SEAL is Accused of Bloodthirsty Killings,” New York Times, Nov. 16, 2018

“Report: 3,301 civilians killed in US-led strikes in Syria since 2014,” Duluth News Tribune, Sept. 24, 2018

“Study: US killed 500 civilians” (“Pentagon may be grossly undercounting”), Mpls. StarTribune, June 3, 2018

“More Afghan Civilians are Victims of Targeted Attacks, UN Says,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 2018

“Afghan Pedophiles Get Pass from US Military, Report Says,” New York Times, Jan. 24, 2018

“‘Killed, Shovel in Hand’: Afghan Farmers are the Latest Victims of a Chaotic War,” New York Times, March 19, 2018

“American Airstrikes in Afghanistan Stir Debate Over Who Was Killed,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 2017

“US Airstrikes kill at least 13 civilians,” Mpls. StarTribune, Nov. 5, 2017

“Airstrike Kills at Least 25 at Street Market in Yemen,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 2017

“Civilian deaths from US-led strikes on ISIS surge under Trump administration” (“Airwars, a UK-based watchdog group, estimates the civilian death toll from coalition airstrikes at over 3,800.”), The Guardian, June 6, 2017

“11 Afghans Killed in US Airstrike,” New York Times, Aug. 31, 2017

“3 Children Among Dead in a Raid In Somalia,” New York Times, Aug. 26, 2017

“Afghans Say US Strike Hit Civilians,” New York Times, Aug. 12, 2017

“Civilian deaths a windfall for militants’ propaganda,” AP/Mpls. StarTribune, April 2, 2017

“US Airstrike ‘Probably Had a Role’ in Mosul Civilian Deaths, Commander Concedes,” New York Times, March 29, 2017

“US strike reportedly killed 30 Syrians,” New York Times/Mpls. StarTribune, March 23, 2017

“US military says fight with Taliban killed 33 civilians,” Mpls. StarTribune, Jan. 13, 2017

“US-led strikes in Iraq, Syria have killed at least 188 civilians, military says,” Duluth News Tribune, Jan. 3, 2017

“US admits its airstrikes likely killed Afghan civilians.” Washington Post/Mpls. StarTribune, Nov. 6, 2016

“US Drones Hit Civilians, U.N. Says,” New York Times, Sept. 30, 2016

“Residents Say US Strike Killed Civilians” (killed at least 15 civilians), Wall Street Journal, Sept. 29, 2016

“Pentagon: Errors led to hospital strike” (“which killed 42 people”), New York Times, & Mpls. StarTribune, May 1, 2016

“A Moral Debt for Bombing a Hospital” (“killing 42 innocent people”), editorial, New York Times, April 30, 2016

“Airstrike on Afghan hospital stirs fury,” New York Times/Mpls. StarTribune; and “19 die in apparent US airstrike on Afghan hospital,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 4, 2015

“US marine pleads guilty to urinating on corpse of Taliban fighter in Afghanistan,” The Guardian, Jan. 16, 2013

“US troops posed with body parts of Afghan bombers,” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2012

“Drones At Issue… Raids Disrupt Militants, but Civilian Deaths Stir Outrage,” New York Times, March 18, 2012

“G.I. Kills 16 Afghans, Including 9 Children In Attacks on Homes,” New York Times, March 12, 2012

“NATO Admits Airstrike Killed 8 Young Afghans, but Contends They Were Armed,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 2012

“Informer Misled NATO in Airstrike That Killed 8 Civilians, Afghans Say” (seven shepherd boys under 14), New York Times, Feb. 10, 2012

“Video [of Marines urinating on dead fighters] Inflames a Delicate Moment for US in Afghanistan,” New York Times, Jan. 12, 2012

“Commission alleges US detainee abuse,” Mpls. StarTribune, Jan. 8, 2012

“Six Children Are Killed by NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan,” New York Times, Nov. 25, 2011

“American Soldier Is Convicted of Killing Afghan Civilians for Sport,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 2011

“US Drone Strike Kills Brother of a Taliban Commander,” New York Times, Oct. 28, 2011

“Afghanistan officials ‘systematically tortured’ detainees, UN report says,” The Guardian, & BBC, Oct. 10; Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2011

“G.I. Killed Afghan Journalist, NATO Says,” New York Times, Sept. 9, 2011

“Cable Implicates Americans in Deaths of Iraqi Civilians,” New York Times, Sept. 2, 2011

“Civilians Die in a Raid by Americans and Iraqis,” New York Times, Aug. 7, 2011

“NATO Strikes Libyan State TV Transmitters,” New York Times, July 31, 2011

“US Expands Its Drone War to Take On Somali Militants,” New York Times, July 2, 2011

“NATO admits raid probably killed nine in Tripoli,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 20, 2011

“NATO airstrike blamed in 14 civilian deaths,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 30, 2011

“Libya Effort Is Called Violation of War Act,” New York Times, May 26, 2011

“Raid on Wrong House Kills Afghan Girl, 12,” New York Times, May 12, 2011

“Yemen: 2 Killed in Missile Strike,” Associated Press, May 5, 2011

“NATO Accused of Going Too Far With Libya Strikes,” New York Times, May 2, 2011

“Disposal of Bin Laden’s remains violated Islamic principles, clerics say,” Associated Press, May 2, 2011

“Photos of atrocities seen as threat to Afghan relations,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 22, 2011

“Missiles Kill 26 in Pakistan” (“most of them civilians”), New York Times, March 18, 2011

“Afghans Say NATO Troops Killed 8 Civilians in Raid,” New York Times, Aug. 24, 2010

“A dozen or more” Afghan civilians were killed during a nighttime raid Aug. 5, 2010 in eastern Afghanistan, NATO’s officers said. Chicago Tribune, Aug. 6, 2010

“Afghans Say Attack Killed 52 Civilians; NATO Differs,” New York Times, July 27, 2010

“Afghans Die in Bombing, As Toll Rises for Civilians,” New York Times, May 3, 2010

“Pakistan Angry as Strike by U.S. Kills 11 Soldiers,” New York Times, June 12, 2008

“Marines Used ‘Excessive Force’ in Afghan Civilian Deaths,” Washington Post, April 14, 2007

To end NATO’s recruitment of terrorized enemies, a lesson from Dr. King needs to be learned: “The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”

Year of caste and communal tensions

Sheshu Babu

As new year draws closer, there is an increase of tensions on caste and communal lines. The Naseeruddin Shah affair has not yet subsided and another instance of repression took place in Mumbai. The dashing dalit leader Chandrasekhar Azad who was invited to address a rally on December 29, wanted to use the opportunity to visit Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Memorial in Mumbai at Chaitanya Bhoomi. But his maiden visit was turned into a nightmare by unconstitutional detention at his hotel followed by a ride in the city in a police van! After a three hour ride, he along with some north Indian colleagues were deposited at Malad East hotel. According to a report ‘ Why was Dalit Leader Chandrasekhar taken for a Late Night Ride by Mumbai Cops?’ Written by Sabrangindia published on December 28, 2018, several Bhim Army colleagues including Ashok Kamble were detained/ arrested by the police. This reflects the hindutva forces and their supportive authorities continued measures of repression.

Meanwhile, the Pune Bhim Army Chief Datta Pol said that all preparations are done for the Bhim Army Chief Chandrasekhar Azad alias Ravan’s rally in Mumbai pending permission. (Bhim Army Rally: All preparations are done, rally will be held as planned, says Pune Bhim army chief, Ani, 29, December 2018, in.news.yahoo.com). He said that stage is ready on ground, banners and advertisements are ready. People have faith that this rally will happen as planned, he said. Chandrasekhar Azad is planning to hold a rally in SSPMS Ground in Pune on December 30.

Rise in violence

Caste and religion related hate crimes are rising alarmingly. The polarisation has risen especially in U. P which leads in communal violence related incidents. In the Vinod Dua Show Episode 11, discussing trends of violence, he exposes the apathy of rulers in states like UP, Karnataka and Gujarat quoting the figures provided by government in Lok Sabha. In the year 2015, 751 incidents of communal violence took place killing 97 persons and injuring 2264. In 2016 , 706 incidents with 86 dead and 2321 injured and in 2017, 822 killed and 2384 injured. Report released by Amnesty International a London based NGO, reveals the number of crimes committed against marginalised sections in India. (Amnesty list out, caste violence tops charts: UP, Gujarat record highest hate crimes, updated July 17, 2018, timesnownews.com) . The data from 2015 to 2018 were documented. According to the report, in 2015, 240 cases of mob lynching were recorded. In 2017, the number was 212 and in 2018 till july, 98 cases have been reported. 9 cases of cow violence, 66 cases of caste related and 26 cases of religion related crimes, 34 cases of gender related violence and three cases of honor killing were reported in 2018 till july.

Atmosphere of anger and fear

Therefore, anguish and anger about present atmosphere is justified to a large extent. The attempt to curb minorities, muslims and dalits from expressing their dissent is very dangerous as it further escalates tensions between upper castes and lower castes. The marginalised dalits, backward castes and muslims are being forced to live in perpetual fear of being lynched at any time. This trend may continue well into the next year.

It is very likely that coming days and months would witness one of the worst forms of polarisation. People should not let things go out of control. They should try to combat communalism and religious bigotry through active discussions. Otherwise, the country may witness chaotic conditions.

The first part of next year might be crucial as the country braces for elections. Hate spreading politicians should be kept under check. Rumours should not be believed and false information should be detected quickly and effectively.

Awareness of communal harmony is crucial for peaceful atmosphere. Activists must hold meetings and seminars on the importance of tolerance, liberation from oppression, stress on secularism, socialism and ways to counter hate mongers and their divisive tactics for selfish gains.

Next year is going to be a litmus test for the people in upholding the constitutional value and democratic rights.

BJP Politics and Triple Talaq Bill

Masood Ali Mir

The Narander Modi led BJP govt passed the Muslim women ( Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017.The reworked bill to make triple talaq or instant divorce among Muslims a punishable offence was passed by Lok Sabha on Thursday, 27th of December 2018.

The Triple Talaq Bill states that the offence of pronouncing triple talaq is a cognisable and non-bailable offence( A non-cognisable offence is an offence whereby the police cannot arrest a person without a warrant. Whereas, in cognisable offences, for serious crimes, the police may not have time to get a warrant and hence the police can take cognisance of the offence and arrest the accused immediately). For a non-cognisable offence, the aggrieved person (the wife in this case), must file a complaint seeking the arrest of the accused, then the magistrate will decide whether an arrest warrant should be issued or not. However, by making the offence of triple talaq a cognisable offence, the police can arrest Muslim men without any form of judicial oversight to determine whether a warrant should be issued, and the police can take a Muslim man into custody even if the wife does not file a complaint.

The government has publicly stated that it has not consulted any Muslim organisation before drafting this bill. This indicates very poorly on the drafting procedures adopted by the law ministry. It is essential for any legislation that all stakeholders are consulted before coming to a final position. It is also disturbing to note that the Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on the same day it was introduced, raising serious questions about the manner of parliamentary deliberations while dealing with such important legislation.

The Bill is yet to be passed in the Upper House of the Indian Parliament, Rajya Sabha, where it is believed that it may face a tough opposition given the number and position of opposition political parties in this House. The government has indicated that if it failed to get it passed in the Rajya Sabha, it may try for the joint sitting of the both the Houses of Parliament.

Through this Bill the BJP government has tried it’s best to projected itself as the champion of the rights of the Muslim Women but in actual practice which they are not. The Bill is a direct interference in the Muslim faith and hence is a direct violation of so many fundamental rights provided by the Indian Constitution . It has been the core ideology of the BJP to saffronize the political landscape of India and when it failed to saffronize it through Vikass (Development) and good governance it tried the other means like coercing the minorities mainly the Muslims.

The BJP government , since its government formation in 2014, is hellbent on those very issues which are tricky and sensitive only and only for the electoral gains.

Through its younger face, Yogi, it has banned the Namaz in public parks and has changed the names of so many places because of Muslim nature .The ban on beef, cow slaughter, killings of Ikhlaq, Junaid and many more by the right wing supporters and the different slogans like love Jihad, Ghar Wapsi and Hindustan main rehna hai to Hindu bankay rehna hai are the direct indication of the hegemonic vision of this party visa – vis Muslims of India.

Although constitutionally the country has been declared secular and equality has been guaranteed but the current scenario and the post BJP electoral victory of 2014, the political spectrum of the country is mostly fragile and against all those whose forefathers chose India against Pakistan in 1947.By this fragile political scenario the whole Muslim population feels insecure in current political setup of India. Some people have acknowledged this insecurity in the public forums, the recent one being the Naseer-u- din Shah.

On one side every attempt is being made by the current establishment for the promotion and protection of Hindu faith like the proposed construction of Ram Statue at and the Sabarimilla but on the other side other religions are being coerced. The next issue which will help the BJP in next year general elections is the Babri Masjid verdict and it is believed that it too will be in BJP’s favour given the party’s dominance over the Supreme Court. The space for the minorities mainly Muslims in India is shrinking day by day in every aspect be it political, religious, social or economic.

Pakistan declares US-based Gulen’s group a terrorist organization

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Days before Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Turkey, Pakistan has declared US-based Fethullah Gulen’s FETO group a terrorist organization.

The Supreme Court on Friday (Dec 28) directed the Ministry of Interior to declare Pak-Turk International Cag Education Foundation (PTICEF) of Gulen group as a ‘proscribed organization.’

The judgment said the Pak-Turk International Cag Education Foundation is declared a terrorist organization in the light of the decisions of OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) and Asian Parliamentary Assembly, noting that Turkey has also declared the aforementioned organization a terrorist group.

The court decision came in a constitution petition seeking directions to declare PTCIF as a terrorist outfit and handing over custody of Pak-Turk 28 schools to the Turkiye Maarif Foundation (TMF), established in 1999.

The judgment said that the evidence available to the court showed that the PTICEF was found by the investigative and judicial authorities of Turkey to have direct links and nexus with FETO (Gülenist Terror Organisation (Fethullahçı Terör Örgütü; abbreviation: FETÖ).

The order further says the step represents international commitments of the government of Pakistan towards the international community and, more importantly, towards the Republic of Turkey with which the government and the people of Pakistan enjoy close relations.

Gulen movement declared a terrorist group by Turkey

On June 1, 2016, President Erdogan officially designated the Gulen movement a terrorist group and said he would pursue its members whom he accused of trying to topple the government.

Gulen, described by Pape Escobar as a CIA asset, has long been accused by leading Justice and Development Party (AKP) lawmakers, President Erdogan and his inner circle of forming and heading a terrorist organization to topple the Turkish government through insiders in the police and other state institutions.

Critics point to a video that emerged in 1999 in which Gulen seemed to suggest that his followers should infiltrate mainstream institutions. “You must move within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centres ” You must wait until such time as you have got all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institution in Turkey.”

According to the Diplomat, in May 2015, Tajikistan had become the latest Central Asian country to close schools linked to the Gulen movement. In fact, Tajikistan’s decision to close the schools reflected a wider trend in the region. The Turkish Daily Sabah reported in mid-May 2015 that Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kazakhstan, Somalia, and Japan have all begun procedures to close Gulen-linked schools. In July 2014, Azerbaijan closed Gulen schools on fears of a parallel government. Uzbekistan shut down its Gulen schools in 1999. In Russian Chechnya and Dagestan regions Gulen-backed schools were once banned by President Putin. The Gulen website says that the schools are back in operation.

Turkish court in December 2014 issued an arrest warrant for Gulen. Turkish government has asked for his repatriation.

Gaza Freedom Flotilla

Tellingly, in 2010, Gulen shocked Turkey when he supported brutal Israeli operation on May 31, 2010 against the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of six ships of the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The Turkish led flotilla, organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (degreesHH), was carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials, with the intention of breaking the illegal and inhumane Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip.

During the raid, nine activists were killed including eight Turkish nationals and one Turkish American, and many more were wounded. Volunteers had come from over forty countries, united by the simplicity of their mission: to publicly deliver aid to Gaza in order to challenge Israel’s illegal blockade on small, densely populated Gaza strip.

In his 2010 Wall Street Journal interview, Gulen commented on the incident, saying, “It is not easy to say if they [the IHH] are politicized or not”. He continued by insisting that the IHH should have sought permission from Israel before transporting aid to Gaza.

During his interview with Cuneyt zdemir in 2010, Gulen refused to refer to the victims of the Mavi Marmara as ‘martyrs’: “It is out of the question to call these people martyrs. They knew they were going there to get killed and went at their own discretion”.

Moreover, his followers tried to portray the involvement of Mavi Marmara in the Flotilla as a form of “jihadism”, or radical militant Islamist action. Consequently, the stance of Gulen and his movement vis–vis the flotilla has been and still is a subject of criticism in Turkey.

Not surprisingly, Gulen calls for shredding five percent of Islam to make it acceptable to the West. One of his popular mantras is: “Build schools instead of mosques.”

Tellingly, “The Muslim Martin Luther? Fethullah Gulen Attempts an Islamic Reformation,” was the title of Foreign Affairs article of February 2014 on Gulen. “Gulen has tried to make actual contributions as an Islamic intellectual and develop a genuinely modern school of Islam that reconciles the religion with liberal democracy, scientific rationalism, ecumenism, and free enterprise.”

“Where the Brotherhood implies that jihad is necessarily an armed struggle, Gulen emphasized that jihad is a moral and spiritual struggle,” the article added.

FETÖ activities declared forbidden Indonesia

Saying that the ‘heretic’ Fetullah Gülen has deviated from the main pillars of Islam, the Indonesian Ulema have called on all Muslims to stay away from FETÖ, and all Muslim heads of state to ban the group

It is forbidden (haram) to be involved in all the movements and activities of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) leader Fetullah Gülen and his followers around the world, the Council of Ulema Tariqas of Indonesia said in a fatwa (decree) on Friday (Oct 5) , calling on all Muslims and heads of state of Islamic countries to unite against them.

The Indonesian Ulema decree emphasized: “Fetullah Gülen has deviated a lot in interpreting the verses of the Qur’an, and his teachings and thoughts can damage the Islamic Aqedah (faith) based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad.”

Underscoring that the FETÖ is not just a movement or a socio-religious organization, the council further reiterated that it is indeed “more directed to the form of terrorist organizations hiding behind a mask of social and religious movements that have closeness to the Zionists.”

Recommending to the President of Indonesia, all heads of state in Islamic countries and Muslim scholars in every country in the world “to be able to unite and jointly stop all forms of Fetullah Gülen activities in their respective countries, including by prohibiting the circulation of books by Fetullah Gülen,” the body said these measures were important to protect the people from Gülen’s distortion of Islamic teachings.

Land Swap between Ankara and Damascus to Avoid Standoff over Manbij

Nauman Sadiq

The regions currently administered by the Kurds in Syria include the Kurdish-majority Qamishli and al-Hasakah in northeastern Syria, and the Arab-majority towns of Manbij to the west of the Euphrates River in northern Syria and Kobani to the east of the Euphrates River along the Turkish border.

The oil- and natural gas-rich Deir al-Zor governorate in eastern Syria has been contested between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and it also contains a few pockets of the remnants of the Islamic State militants alongside both eastern and western banks of the Euphrates River.

The Turkish “east of Euphrates” military doctrine basically means that the Turkish armed forces would not tolerate the presence of the Syrian PYD/YPG Kurds – which the Turks regard as “terrorists” allied to the PKK Kurdish separatist group in Turkey – in Manbij and Kobani, in line with the longstanding Turkish policy of denying the Kurds any Syrian territory to the west of the Euphrates River in northern Syria along Turkey’s southern border.

On Friday, the Syrian army said it entered Manbij for the first time in years, after the Syrian Kurds urged Damascus to protect the town from the threat of impending Turkish military offensive, though Turkish President Erdogan has termed the handover a “psyops” by the Kurds.

According to a report by RT: “A high-ranking Turkish delegation arrived in Moscow on Saturday, only a day after international media broke news on Kurdish militias inviting Syrian forces to enter Manbij before the Turks do. Syria’s military proclaimed they ‘raised the flag’ over Manbij, but there have been no independent reports confirming the moving of troops into the city.”

The report notes: “The Saturday Moscow meeting was key to preventing all actors of the Syrian war from locking horns over the Kurdish enclave, Middle East experts believe.”

“Obviously, Turkey will insist that it is their forces that should enter Manbij, Russia will of course insist the city should be handed over to Assad’s forces,” Kirill Semenov, an Islamic studies expert with Russia’s Institute for Innovative Development, told RT.

The report further adds: “Realpolitik, of course, plays a role here as various locations across Syria might be used as a bargaining chip by all parties to the conflict. Semenov suggested the Turks may agree on Syrian forces taking some parts of Idlib province in exchange for Damascus’ consent for a Turkish offensive toward Manbij or Kobani.”

It becomes abundantly clear after reading the RT report that a land swap agreement between Ankara and Damascus under the auspices of Moscow is in the offing to avoid standoff over Manbij.

The agreement would likely stipulate that Damascus would give Ankara free hand to mount offensives in the Kurdish-occupied Manbij and Kobani in northern Syria in return for Ankara withdrawing its militant proxies from Maarat al-Numan, Khan Sheikhoun and Jisr al-Shughour, all of which are strategically located in the south of Idlib governorate.

Just as Ankara cannot tolerate the presence of the Kurds in northern Syria along Turkey’s southern border in line with its “east of Euphrates” military doctrine, similarly even Ankara would acknowledge the fact that Damascus cannot possibly conceive the long-term presence of Ankara’s jihadist proxies in the aforementioned strategic locations in the south of Idlib governorate threatening the Alawite heartland of coastal Latakia.

If such a land swap agreement is concluded between Ankara and Damascus, it would be a win-win for all parties to the Syrian conflict, excluding the Kurds, of course. But the response of Damascus and Moscow to the concerns of the Kurds has been tepid of late.

Not only have the Kurds committed the perfidy of acting as the proxies of Washington during the Syrian conflict which abandoned them after Trump’s announcement of withdrawal of American troops from Syria, but we must also recall another momentous event that took place in Deir al-Zor governorate in February.

On February 7, the US B-52 bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor that reportedly killed and wounded scores of Russian military contractors working for the Russian private security firm, the Wagner group.

The survivors described the bombing as an absolute massacre, and Kremlin lost more Russian citizens in one day than it had lost throughout its more than three-year-long military campaign in support of the Syrian government since September 2015.

The reason why Washington struck Russian contractors working in Syria was that the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which is mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – had reportedly handed over the control of some areas east of Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military Council (DMC), which is the Arab-led component of SDF, and had relocated several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the onslaught of the Turkish armed forces and allied Syrian militant proxies during Ankara’s “Operation Olive Branch” in Syria’s northwest that lasted from January to March 2017.

Syrian forces with the backing of Russian contractors took advantage of the opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil refinery located to the east of Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of Deir al-Zor.

The US Air Force responded with full force, knowing well the ragtag Arab component of SDF – mainly comprised of local Arab tribesmen and mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more representative and inclusive – was simply not a match for the superior training and arms of Syrian troops and Russian military contractors, consequently causing a carnage in which scores of Russian citizens lost their lives. Clearly, Moscow and Damascus hold the Kurds responsible for the atrocity along with Washington.

Regarding the dominant group of Syrian militants in the Idlib governorate, according to a May 2017 report by CBC Canada, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was formerly known as al-Nusra Front until July 2016 and then as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) until January 2017, had been removed from the terror watch-list of the US after it merged with fighters from Zenki Brigade and hardline jihadists from Ahrar al-Sham and rebranded itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in January 2017.

The US State Department is hesitant to label Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) a terror group, despite the group’s links to al-Qaeda, as the US government had directly funded and armed the Zenki Brigade, one of the constituents of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), with sophisticated weaponry including the US-made antitank missiles.

The purpose behind the rebranding of al-Nusra Front, first as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) and then as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and purported severing of ties with al-Qaeda, was to legitimize itself and to make it easier for its patrons to send money and arms.

Washington blacklisted al-Nusra Front in December 2012 and persuaded its regional allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey to ban it, too. Although al-Nusra Front’s name has been in the list of proscribed organizations of Saudi Arabia and Turkey since 2014, it kept receiving money and arms from its regional patrons.

Finally, regarding the deep ideological ties between the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, although the current al-Nusra Front has been led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, he was appointed as the emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, in January 2012. In fact, al-Jolani’s Nusra Front is only a splinter group of the Islamic State, which split from its parent organization in April 2013 over a leadership dispute between the two organizations.

Will Kurds Keep American Weapons After Syria Withdrawal?

Nauman Sadiq

The US commanders planning for the withdrawal of the American troops from Syria are recommending that the Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State be allowed to keep the US-supplied weapons, a move that would likely anger NATO-ally Turkey, according to an exclusive report by Reuters.

The report adds: “The proposal to leave the US-supplied weapons with the Kurdish YPG militia, which could include anti-tank missiles, armored vehicles and mortars, would reassure Kurdish allies that they were not being abandoned.”

During the initial years of the Syrian conflict, although the US openly provided the American-made antitank (TOW) weapons to the Syrian militant groups, it strictly forbade its clients from providing anti-aircraft weapons (MANPADS) to the militants, because Israel frequently flies surveillance aircrafts and drones and occasionally carries out airstrikes in Syria, and had such weapons fallen into the wrong hands, they could have become a long term security threat to the Israeli Air Force.

In the final years of the Syrian proxy war, some anti-aircraft weapons from Gaddafi’s looted arsenal in Libya made their way into the hands of the Syrian militants, but for the initial years of the conflict, there was an absolute prohibition on providing such weapons to the insurgents.

Last year, a report by the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) on the Islamic State’s weapons found in Iraq and Syria was prominently featured in the mainstream media. Before the story was picked up by the media, it was first published in the Wired News in December 2017, which has a history of spreading dubious stories and working in close collaboration with the Pentagon and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

The Britain-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR) is a relatively unknown company of less than 20 employees. Its one-man Iraq and Syria division was headed by a 31-year-old Belgian researcher Damien Spleeters.

The main theme of Spleeters’ investigation was to discover the Islamic State’s homegrown armaments industry and how the jihadist group’s technicians had adapted the East European munitions to be used in the weapons available to the Islamic State. Spleeters had listed 1,832 weapons and 40,984 pieces of ammunition recovered in Iraq and Syria in the CAR’s database.

But Spleeters had only tangentially touched upon the subject of the Islamic State’s weapons supply chain, documenting only a single PG-9 rocket found at Tal Afar in Iraq bearing a lot number of 9,252 rocket-propelled grenades which were supplied by Romania to the US military, and mentioning only a single shipment of 12 tons of munitions which was diverted from Saudi Arabia to Jordan in his supposedly ‘comprehensive report.’

In fact, the CAR’s report was so misleading that of thousands of pieces of munitions investigated by Spleeters, less than 10% were found to be compatible with NATO’s weapons and more than 90% were found to have originated from Russia, China and the East European countries, Romania and Bulgaria in particular.

By comparison, a joint investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) uncovered the Pentagon’s $2.2 billion arms pipeline to the Syrian militants.

It bears mentioning that $2.2 billion were earmarked only by Washington for training and arming the Syrian militants, and tens of billions of dollars that Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf states had pumped into Syria’s proxy war have not been documented by anybody so far.

More significantly, a Bulgarian investigative reporter, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, authored a report for Bulgaria’s national newspaper, Trud News, which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company, Silk Way Airlines, was regularly transporting weapons to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program to supply militant groups in Syria.

Gaytandzhieva documented 350 such ‘diplomatic flights’ and was subsequently fired from her job for uncovering the story. Not surprisingly, both these well-researched and groundbreaking reports didn’t even merit a passing mention in any mainstream news outlet.

It’s worth noting, moreover, that the Syrian militant groups, including the Islamic State, were no ordinary bands of ragtag jihadist outfits. They were trained and armed to the teeth by their patrons in the security agencies of Washington, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the training camps located in Syria’s border regions with Turkey and Jordan.

Along with Saddam’s and Egypt’s armies, the Syrian Baathist armed forces are one of the most capable fighting forces in the Arab world. But the onslaught of militant groups during the first three years of the proxy war was such that had it not been for the Russian intervention in September 2015, the Syrian defenses would have collapsed.

The only feature that distinguished the Syrian militants from the rest of regional jihadist groups was not their ideology but their weapons arsenals that were bankrolled by the Gulf’s petro-dollars and provided by the CIA in collaboration with regional security agencies of Washington’s traditional allies in the Middle East.

Fact of the matter is that the distinction between Islamic jihadists and purported ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria was more illusory than real. Before it turned rogue and overran Mosul in Iraq in June 2014, Islamic State used to be an integral part of the Syrian opposition and enjoyed close ideological and operational ties with other militant groups in Syria.

It bears mentioning that although turf wars were common not just between the Islamic State and other militant groups operating in Syria but also among rebel groups themselves, the ultimate objective of the Islamic State and the rest of militant outfits operating in Syria was the same: to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Regarding the Syrian opposition, a small fraction of it was comprised of defected Syrian soldiers who go by the name of Free Syria Army, but the vast majority was comprised of Islamic jihadists and armed tribesmen who were generously funded, trained, armed and internationally legitimized by their regional and global patrons.

Islamic State was nothing more than one of numerous Syrian militant outfits, others being: al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al Islam etc. All the militant groups that were operating in Syria were just as fanatical and brutal as the Islamic State. The only feature that differentiated the Islamic State from the rest was that it was more ideological and independent-minded.

The reason why the US turned against the Islamic State was that all other Syrian militant outfits only had local ambitions that were limited to fighting the Syrian government, while the Islamic State established a global network of transnational terrorists that included hundreds of Western citizens who became a national security risk to the Western countries.

Notwithstanding, Damien Spleeters of the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) has authored another report last month in which he has stated that South Sudan’s neighbors, Uganda in particular, have breached an arms embargo by funneling East European weapons to the South Sudan conflict.

South Sudan is the world’s youngest nation which gained independence from Sudan in 2011. The United States is often said to have midwifed South Sudan by leading the negotiations for its independence from Sudan, because it is an oil-rich country producing about half a million barrels crude oil per day.

But a civil war began in 2013 between Dinka tribal group of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and Nuer rebels led by warlord Riek Machar, and has triggered one of the world’s largest humanitarian emergencies. Millions of South Sudanese have sought refuge in displacement camps in the country or in neighboring countries.

The Conflict Armament Research’s report on the weapons found in South Sudan notes: “One of the most astonishing findings is that 99 percent of the ammunition tracked by CAR is of Chinese origin. Some of it was legally transferred to South Sudan, but much of it was delivered secretly to the opposition via Sudan in 2015 and is still being used.”

Unsurprisingly, the Britain-based monitoring group has implicated China, East Europeans and South Sudan’s neighbors for defying the embargo and providing weapons to the belligerents, and has once again given a free pass to the Western powers in its supposedly ‘comprehensive and credible’ report.