China and India Torn Between Silk Roads and Cocked Guns

Pepe Escobar

So, once again it’s down to a face-off in the Himalayas. Beijing builds a road in the disputed territory of Doklam (if you’re Indian) or Donglang (if you’re Chinese), in the tri-junction of Sikkim, Tibet and Bhutan, and all hell breaks loose. Or does it?

The Global Times blames it on an upsurge of Hindu nationalist fervor, but selected Indian officials prefer to privilege ongoing quiet diplomacy. After all, when Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Astana last month, they struck a gentleman’s agreement; this dispute is not supposed to escalate, and there’s got to be a mutually face saving solution.

The tri-junction drama is actually a minor tremor in the much larger picture of the ongoing geopolitical tectonic shift in Eurasia. The major subplot occurs in the conjunction between the inexorable momentum of the New Silk Roads, aka China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s push, these past nine years, to assert itself as a major naval power in the Indian Ocean.

In a nutshell, India could not but be deeply disturbed by China becoming a decisive front row player across South Asia – including in that Maritime Silk Road superhighway, the Indian Ocean.

The first-ever railway in Tibet, opened eleven years ago, links Lhasa with Xining, in northwest China. This railway will inevitably proceed all the way to Kathmandu, and assuming an OK from New Delhi – not on the cards for the time being – to north India as well. The key element of the New Silk Roads is Eurasian connectivity. And Beijing is the super-connector, not Delhi, with the scale and scope of BRI implying at least US$1 trillion in short-term investment alone.

When India looks around, to its east or to its west, what it sees is China connecting everything from Dhaka in Bangladesh to Bandar Abbas in Iran.

We’re talking about the interpenetration of the China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor; the China-Indian Ocean-Africa-Mediterranean Sea Blue Economic Passage; the China-Pakistan Corridor (CPEC); and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC). To call all this an orgy of connectivity is an understatement.

Enter “BRICS-Plus”

Hindu nationalism qualifies South Asia and the Indian Ocean as an indisputable sphere of influence for Indian civilization – and one not that dissimilar to China’s in relation to the South China Sea. Borders are scrutinized to the millimeter, especially now that the success of BRI is at stake.

The Doklam/Donglang stand-off pales, however, in comparison with the real danger zone. New Delhi argues that CPEC will be transiting an illegal territory, described in India as “Pak-occupied Kashmir.”

South Asia happens to be all for BRI – with the wary self-exception of India. New Delhi refused to attend the recent BRI forum in Beijing, issuing an official statement: “No country can accept a project that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

New Delhi’s boycott actually betrays the fact it has seen the writing on the wall. Pakistan is destined to “link together a series of Eurasian economic blocs”, including the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). And this connectivity feast will also boost the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), which, crucially, both India and Pakistan have just joined.

The following proposal, from the chief economist of the Eurasian Development Bank, offers immense food for thought: the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) should be enlarged to a BRICS+ or BRICS++.  Beijing enthusiastically agrees – it has, in fact, proposed its own “BRICS-Plus” idea to unite various BRI partners. Pakistan, as host of the CPEC connectivity corridor, would certainly be in line for “BRICS-Plus” membership.

So we have China and India as members of BRICS (including the bloc’s New Development Bank), the SCO, the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), and of the G-20, and India and Pakistan as members of the SCO. And then we have all three nations as members of a future BRICS-Plus. It all points towards interpenetration, inter-connectivity and advanced Eurasian integration.

To allow Hindu nationalism to block New Delhi’s involvement in BRI would be counter-productive, to put it mildly. China-India bilateral trade was US$70.08 billion last year. China is India’s top trading partner.

Still, India launched an attempt at a counter-offensive last month when it joined the United Nations TIR convention, a global customs transit system with huge geographical coverage. India’s TIR gambit covers only Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, however. To think this might dent the appeal of BRI – with its massive funds, support from the Silk Road Fund, the AIIB and further on down the road, private financing (from East and West) – is, frankly, naïve wishful thinking.

Stuff BRI, we’ve got AAGC

BRI is a juggernaut that has evolved over the past four years and is finally ready to launch its full connectivity firepower. Compare its resources with India’s infrastructure predicament, its jungle of red-tape, its lack of funds for Eurasia-wide projects, and even the fact that its GDP growth dropped below China’s in 2016.

There’s also that pesky geopolitical open secret – that Pakistan constitutes a de facto Great Wall blocking India’s land route to the West and its expansion across Central Asia. New Delhi is trying to circumvent these facts on the ground by all means available.

These include the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), founded in September 2000 by India, Iran and Russia, and which could potentially connect India to Europe via the Persian Gulf; investing in a trade corridor between the Iranian port of Chabahar and Afghanistan; trying to copy BRI via its TIR gambit, but on the cheap, without massive investment in infrastructure. And, to counter what New Delhi brands BRI’s “Sinocentrism”, there’s its purported trump card, unveiled by Modi himself at the general meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in the capital of Gujarat last May – the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC), supported by Japan.

The AAGC has been spun by India as a project “acceptable for the banking sector,” as opposed to BRI’s “government-funded model.” In theory, the AAGC is about Asia-Africa integration. Japan brings its expertise technology and infrastructure building, India its “experience in Africa.”

The AAGC was duly derided in Beijing as a New Delhi-Tokyo scheme – aided and abetted by Washington – to sabotage China’s drive towards Eurasian integration. The case can certainly be made. New Delhi’s multiple strategies, so far, have yielded more rhetoric than action. Soon it may all come down to “if you can’t beat them, join them.” The ball is in the Hindu nationalist court.

Time to Get Out of Afghanistan

Brian Cloughley

“We will continue to look for ways to provide more assistance to the Afghans, including those farmers who have felt the impact of the ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome.”

— Secretary of State Colin Powell, reported in the New York Times May 20, 2001

“It is time to get out of Afghanistan. We are building roads and schools for people that hate us. It is not in our national interests.”

— Donald Trump, Twitter February 27, 2012

“Taliban fighters killed 26 soldiers and wounded 13 others in an attack on an army base in the southern province of Kandahar . . . as heavy fighting raged across the country.”

— Reuters report, July 26, 2017

In Afghanistan on July 24 a Taliban suicide bomber killed forty people in the center of Kabul,  just four days after a US airstrike killed 16 Afghan policemen in Helmand Province. Both incidents of slaughter were terrible and highlighted the US State Department official warning that “Travel to all areas of Afghanistan remains unsafe due to the ongoing risk of kidnapping, hostage taking, military combat operations, landmines, banditry, armed rivalry between political and tribal groups, militant attacks, direct and indirect fire, suicide bombings, and insurgent attacks, including attacks using vehicle-borne or other improvised explosive devices. Attacks may also target official Afghan and US government convoys and compounds, foreign embassies, military installations, commercial entities, non-governmental organization offices, restaurants, hotels, airports, and educational centers.”  Is there anything left that isn’t under threat of destruction?

This is official recognition by Washington that Afghanistan is a catastrophe. It could not be made plainer that the place is a hellhole of unlimited shattering violence.  It is also terminally corrupt, and if the grief-stricken families of the dead policemen ever receive the compensation or pension due to them it will be a miracle. Out of 176 countries,Transparency International  places it at 169 in its corruption index.

Two days after the US-NATO slaughter of Afghan policemen it was announced that Médecins sans Frontières, or Doctors without Borders — known as MSF — had “reopened a small medical clinic in the Afghan city of Kunduz — its first facility there since US air strikes destroyed a hospital it ran in 2015.”

MSF is a saintly organization whose doctors, nurses and support staff “provide assistance to populations in distress, to victims of natural or man-made disasters and to victims of armed conflict.” They do so “irrespective of race, religion, creed or political convictions,” but on October 22, 2015 the MSF hospital in Kunduz was destroyed by a series of US airstrikes.

It was reported that about 2 in the morning “a blast ripped apart the intensive care unit, where patients included two children. It was the start of around an hour of airstrikes on the buildings, and strafing attacks on doctors, patients and staff desperately seeking shelter in corners of the compound, but the hellish massacre continued for over two hours.  In her eye-witness account, Australian Doctor Kathleen Thomas said “Our colleagues didn’t die peacefully like in the movies. They died painfully, slowly, some of them screaming out for help that never came, alone and terrified, knowing the extent of their own injuries and aware of their impending death. Countless other staff and patients were injured; limbs blown off, shrapnel rocketed through them, burns, pressure-wave injuries of the lungs, eyes and ears. Many of these injures have left permanent disability. It was a scene of nightmarish horror that will be forever etched in my mind.”

As to the people who planned and executed (literally) and failed to stop this slaughter —  how can they sleep at night?

The sixteen dead policemen killed by the US airstrike on 20 July had nobody to record their brief but hideous shrieking terror as missiles blasted their tiny outpost. The US National Public Radio, NPR, the most reliable source of news in America, but listened to by very few people, reported that “the US Marines guiding the strike Friday afternoon in Gereshk district thought the men gathered in the compound were Taliban, not police.”  Well, how wonderful.

What happens to the real-time intelligence gathered in Afghanistan by drones and the circling Bombardier Global 6000 electronic warfare aircraft?  (Almost all internet reference to the Bombardier Afghanistan program has been deleted, but you can find its tracks on Flight Radar if you’re patient.)

The 2017 US budget included an allocation of  $53.5 billion for the National Intelligence Program “which includes funding requested to support Overseas Contingency Operations.”  Over fifty billion dollars have been spent on staggeringly advanced intelligence systems that can’t tell if a group of Afghans are police or militants.

US and British forces invaded Afghanistan at the end of 2001 and were joined by the rest of the countries in the NATO military alliance in August 2003. NATO was desperate to find some justification for survival, as there was (and is) no reason for its continuing existence, so eagerly latched on to the Afghan war.

Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of heroin. Not only that, but there are now over three million heroin addicts in the country, thanks to the explosion in drug production after the US invasion.  When I first visited Afghanistan, in 1993, the number of addicts was inconsequential, in spite of the Western hippy legacy. Poppy growth was expanding because it was profitable, but then the Taliban forbade it. As reported by the New York Times in  May 2001, “The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded that the movement’s ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world’s largest crop in less than a year”, but now we’re back to normal.

NATO-ISAF’s objective was “to enable the Afghan government to provide effective security across the country and develop new Afghan security forces to ensure Afghanistan would never again become a safe haven for terrorists.”

There is no security in the country. As reported by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the Taliban “continue to contest district centers, threaten provincial capitals, and temporarily seize main lines of communication throughout the country, especially in high-priority areas like Kunduz and Helmand provinces.”  The last two being, not coincidentally, the regions in which US airstrikes killed so many innocent people.

National Intelligence Director Dan Coats told the US Senate on May 11 that “The intelligence community assesses that the political and security situation in Afghanistan will almost certainly deteriorate through 2018, even with a modest increase in military assistance by the United States and its partners.” So what’s the point in carrying on?

The moronic and disastrous Trump has no knowledge of military strategy or international politics, or very much else, but even he must be able to understand that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable by the forces of the corrupt, incompetent Kabul government backed by the hated foreigners whose fifteen years of interference have been a disaster.

In October 2005 I wrote that “The insurgency in Afghanistan will continue until foreign troops leave, whenever that might be. After a while, the government in Kabul will collapse, and there will be anarchy until a brutal, ruthless, drug-rich warlord achieves power. He will rule the country as it has always been ruled by Afghans: by threats, religious ferocity, deceit, bribery, and outright savagery, when the latter can be practiced without retribution. And the latest foreign occupation will become just another memory.”

Innocents have been dying in Afghanistan in ever-increasing numbers, and at least 1,662 civilians have been killed in the first half of this year, according to the UN. Could it be worse if the Afghans were left to look after themselves?  The only alternative would be for US-NATO to try to impose rule from Kabul by military might — but they couldn’t do it last time they tried.  It’s time they got out of the place.

Plastic Chokes the Seas

Robert Hunziker

Plastic is not recycled.

One of the great myths of modern-day society is that people recycle in earnest… saving the environment. Au contraire! Check out the ocean. It’s filled with plastic. Fish and seabirds eat it by gobs and gobs. Furthermore, according to a World Economic Forum presentation, The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics, February 2016, by 2050 there will likely be more plastic than fish in the seas, unless socio-economic policies change drastically. But, where’s the leadership?

Only recently National Geographic magazine posted news about a new discovery of massive quantities of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, July 25th, 2017, entitled: Plastic Garbage Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in Pacific, stating, “Yet another floating mass of microscopic plastic has been discovered in the ocean, and it is mind-blowingly vast.”

The magazine also shatters the myth that people recycle, in earnest. According to the article, “a whopping 91% of plastic isn’t recycled,” which lends tremendous credence to the prediction at the World Economic Forum that the seas will carry more plastic than fish.

Consider the Great Acceleration, epitomized by plastic’s exponential growth, does not hesitate, onwards and upwards, production and profits, Wall Street and Trump, prosperity only hopefully, but not for most, for as long as the planet holds up… cough, ahem!

The focus of scientific research on plastic destructiveness prompts analyses “how much plastic has been produced, discarded, burned or put in landfills… horrified by the sheer size of the numbers.” (Source: Laura Parker, A Whopping 91% of Plastic Isn’t Recycled, National Geographic, July 19, 2017.)

Even more breathtakingly yet: “Plastic takes more than 400 years to degrade, so most of it still exists in some form.” Following the dictum that “you can’t manage what you don’t measure,” scientists set out over two years ago to study the issue. The results published just last week a landmark study in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. It is the first ever global-wide analysis, and hands down, it is sobering. (Source: Roland Geyer, et al, Production, Use, and Fate of All Plastics Ever Made, Science Advances, Vol. 3, No. 7, July 19, 2017.)

For example, according to the study, of the 8.3 billion metric tons produced so far, 6.3 billion metric tons is now waste product, and of that, only 9% has been recycled. Yes Mr. and Mrs. Green of the World your recycling efforts are not totally for naught but seriously challenged in the worst possible fashion, people don’t really care that much, and that is a tragedy in a world filled with instant recognition of everything and anything bad or good, except for incessant care of the planet. (Oh yeah, by the way, the Environmental Protection Agency “EPA” and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “NOAA” are now subject t0 unprecedented slash and burn politics. A huge sharpened axe overhangs our only biosphere under the raging influence of a rebirth of primitive Neolithic thought.)

The Great Acceleration, humans reshaping the ecosystem by displacing nature, is handily at work. Here’s proof: Half of the ingredients used to produce plastic have been produced over the last 13 years. That’s great acceleration, and then some. Not only that, half of all plastic becomes trash within a year. That’s acceleration of usage. By way of contrast, most of the steel produced still supports structures.

According to Jenna Jambeck, University of Georgia, environmental engineer specializing in ocean plastic waste, the U.S. is a distant third in recycling at a measly (9%) behind Europe (30%) and China (25%). As for U.S, environmental concerns/morals, Americans salute and flag wave and honor the country like America is great but at what?

According to National Geographic: “The problem of plastic pollution is becoming ubiquitous in the oceans, with 90 percent of sea birds consuming it and over eight million pounds of new plastic trash finding its way into the oceans every year.”

In the 1960s plastic was found in the stomachs of fewer than 5% of seabirds. By 1980 it jumped to 80%, now 90%. What’s left? National Geographic says that seabird populations dropped 67% between 1950 and 2010 but without a clear understanding of why. It is under study. Is plastic one of the threats to seabirds? We’ll find out in due course but likely too late for far too many.

Indeed, plastic trash is ubiquitous. Uninhabited Henderson Island in the South Pacific, a United Nations World Heritage site and one of the world’s biggest marine reserves described by UNESCO as “a gem and one of the world’s best remaining examples of coral atoll, practically untouched by human presence,” has the world’s highest density of trash, according to National Geographic. It’s a record-setter.

Henderson’s sandy white beaches carry the signatures of Russia, the U.S., the Philippines, the EU, Brazil, Japan, Malaysia, China, Indonesia, and so forth. All of it is trash, mostly plastic via the South Pacific gyre, which is a circular ocean current that moves water like a conveyor belt and collects trash along the way to the garbage dump Henderson Island at the rate of 3,500 pieces every day or 105,000 pieces monthly and still increasing.

Fortunately, the South Pacific’s Henderson Island is uninhabited. People would be completely overwhelmed.

Middle East Chaos

Conn Hallinan

The splintering of the powerful Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) into warring camps—with Qatar, supported by Turkey and Iran, on one side, and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), supported by Egypt, on the other—has less to do with disagreements over foreign policy and religion than with internal political and economic developments in the Middle East. The ostensible rationale the GCC gave on June 4 for breaking relations with Qatar and placing the tiny country under a blockade is that Doha is aiding “terrorist’ organizations. The real reasons are considerably more complex, particularly among the major players.

Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn once described the Syrian civil war as a three-dimensional chess game with five players and no rules. In the case of the Qatar crisis, the players have doubled and abandoned the symmetry of the chessboard for “Go,” Mahjong, and Bridge.

Tensions among members of the GCC are longstanding. In the case of Qatar, they date back to 1995, when the father of the current ruler, Emir Tamin Al Thani, shoved his own father out of power. According Simon Henderson to of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Saudi Arabia and the UAE “regarded the family coup as a dangerous precedent to Gulf ruling families” and tried to organize a counter coup. The coup was exposed, however, and called off.

Riyadh is demanding that Qatar sever relations with Iran—an improbable outcome given that the two countries share a natural gas field in the Persian Gulf—and end Doha’s cozy ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, if there is any entity in the Middle East that the Saudis hate—and fear—more than Iran, it is the Brotherhood. Riyadh was instrumental in the 2013 overthrow of the Brotherhood government in Egypt and has allied itself with the Israelis to marginalize Hamas, the Palestinian version of the Brotherhood that dominates Gaza.

But fault lines in the GCC do not run only between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Oman, at the Gulf’s mouth, has always marched to its own drummer, maintaining close ties with Saudi Arabia’s regional nemesis, Iran, and refusing to go along with Riyadh’s war against the Houthi in Yemen. Kuwait has also balked at Saudi dominance of the GCC, has refused to join the blockade against Doha, and is trying to play mediator in the current crisis.

The siege of Qatar was launched shortly after Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, when the Saudi’s put on a show for the U.S. President that was over the top even by the monarchy’s standards. Wooed with massive billboards and garish sword dances, Trump soaked up the Saudi’s view of the Middle East, attacked Iran as a supporter of terrorism and apparently green-lighted the blockade of Qatar. He even tried to take credit for it.

Saudi Arabia, backed by Bahrain, Egypt, and the UAE, along with a cast of minor players, made 13 demands on Doha that it could only meet by abandoning its sovereignty. They range from the impossible—end all contacts with Iran—to the improbable—close the Turkish base—to the unlikely—dismantle the popular and lucrative media giant, Al Jazeera. The “terrorists” Doha is accused of supporting are the Brotherhood, which the Saudi’s and the Egyptians consider a terrorist organization, an opinion not shared by the U.S. or the European Union.

On the surface this is about Sunni Saudi Arabia vs. Shiite Iran, but while religious differences do play an important role in recruiting and motivating some of the players, this is not a battle over a schism in Islam. Most importantly, it is not about “terrorism,” since many of the countries involved are up to their elbows in supporting extremist organizations. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s reactionary Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is the root ideology for groups like the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, and all the parties are backing a variety of extremists in Syria and Libya’s civil wars.

The attack on Qatar is part of Saudi Arabia’s aggressive new foreign policy that is being led by Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman. Since being declared “monarch-in-waiting” by King Salman Al Saud, Mohammed has launched a disastrous war in Yemen that has killed more than 10,000 civilians, sparked a country-wide cholera epidemic, and drains at least $700 million a month from Saudi Arabia’s treasury. Given the depressed price for oil and a growing population—70 percent of which is under 30 and much of it unemployed—it is not a cost the monarchy can continue sustain, especially with the Saudi economy falling into recession.

Underlying the Saudi’s new-found aggression is fear. First, fear that the kind of Islamic governance modeled by the Muslim Brotherhood poses a threat to the absolutism of the Gulf monarchs. Fear that Iran’s nuclear pact with the U.S., the EU and the UN is allowing Tehran to break out of its economic isolation and turn itself into a rival power center in the Middle East. And fear that anything but a united front by the GCC—led by Riyadh—will encourage the House of Saud’s internal and external critics.

So far, the attempt to blockade Qatar has been more an annoyance than a serious threat to Doha. Turkey and Iran are pouring supplies into Qatar, and the Turks are deploying up to 1,000 troops at a base near the capital. There are also some 10,000 U.S. troops at Qatar’s Al Udeid Airfield, Washington’s largest base in the Middle East and one central to the war on the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Any invasion aimed at overthrowing the Qatar regime risks a clash with Turkey and the U.S.

While Egypt is part of the anti-Qatari alliance—the Egyptians are angry at Doha for not supporting Cairo’s side in the Libyan civil war, and the Egyptian regime also hates the Brotherhood—it is hardly an enthusiastic ally. Saudi Arabia keeps Egypt’s economy afloat, and so long as the Riyadh keeps writing checks, Cairo is on board. But Egypt is keeping the Yemen war at arm’s length—it flat out refused to contribute troops and is not comfortable with Saudi Arabia’s version of Islam. Cairo is currently in a nasty fight with its own Wahhabist-inspired extremists. Egypt also maintains diplomatic relations with Iran.

Besides the UAE, the other Saud allies don’t count for much in this fight. Sudan will send troops—if Riyadh pays for them—but not very many. Bahrain is on board, but only because the Saudi and UAE armies are sitting on local Shiite opposition. Yemen and Libya are part of the anti-Qatar alliance, but both are essentially failed states. And while the Maldives is a nice place to vacation, it doesn’t have a lot of weight to throw around.

On the other hand, long-time Saudi ally Pakistan has made it clear it is not part of this blockade, nor will it break with Qatar or downgrade relations with Iran. When Riyadh asked for Pakistan troops in Yemen, the national parliament voted unanimously to have nothing to do with Riyadh’s jihad on the poorest country in the Middle East.

The largely Muslim nations of Malaysia and Indonesia are also maintaining relations with Qatar, and Saudi ally Morocco offered to send food to Doha. In brief, it is not clear who is more isolated here.

While President Trump supports the Saudis, his Defense Department and State Department are working to resolve the crisis.  U.S. Sec. of State Rex Tillerson just finished a trip to the Gulf in an effort to end the blockade, and the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is threatening to hold up arms sales to Riyadh unless the dispute is resolved. The latter is no minor threat. Saudi Arabia would have serious difficulties carrying out the war in Yemen without U.S. weaponry.

And the reverse of the coin?

Doha’s allies have a variety of agendas, not all of which mesh.

Iran has correct, but hardly warm, relations with Qatar. Both countries need to cooperate to exploit the South Pars gas field, and Tehran appreciated that Doha was always a reluctant member of the anti-Iran coalition, telling the U.S. it could not use Qatari bases to attack Iran.

Iran is certainly interested in anything that divides the GCC. The Iranians would also like Qatar to invest in upgrading Iran’s energy industry and maybe cutting them in on the $177 billion in construction projects that Doha is lining up in preparation for hosting the 2022 World Cup Games. Also, some 30,000 Iranians live in Qatar.

Figuring out Turkey these days can reduce one to reading tea leaves.

On one hand, Ankara’s support for Qatar seems obvious. Qatar backs the Brotherhood, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party is a Turkish variety of the Brotherhood, albeit one focused more on power than ideology. Erdogan was a strong supporter of the Egyptian Brotherhood and relations between Cairo and Ankara went into the deep freeze when Egypt’s military overthrew the Islamist organization.

Qatar is also an important source of finances for Ankara, whose fragile economy needs every bit of help it can get. Turkey’s large construction industry would like to land some of the multi-billion construction contracts the World Cup games will generate. Turkish construction projects in Qatar already amount to $13.7 billion.

On the other hand, Turkey is also trying to woo Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies for their investments. Erdogan even joined in the GCC’s attacks on Iran last spring, accusing Tehran of “Persian nationalist expansion,” a comment that distressed Turkey’s business community. As the sanctions on Iran ease, Turkish firms see that country’s big, well-educated population as a potential gold mine.

The Turkish President has since turned down the anti-Iran rhetoric, and Ankara and Tehran have been consulting over the Qatar crisis. The first supportive phone call Erdogan took during the attempted coup last year was from Qatar’s emir, and the prickly Turkish President has not forgotten that some other GCC members were silent for several days. Erdogan recently suggested that the UAE had a hand in the coup.

Is this personal for Turkey’s president? No, but Erdogan is the Middle East leader who most resembles Donald Trump: he shoots from the hip and holds grudges. The difference is that he is far smarter and better informed than the U.S. President and knows when to cut his losses.

His apology to the Russians after shooting down one of their fighter-bombers is a case in point. Erdogan first threatened Moscow with war, but eventually trotted off to St. Petersburg, hat in hand, to make nice with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And after hinting that the Americans were behind the 2016 coup, he recently met with Tillerson in Istanbul to smooth things out.  Turkey recognizes that it will need Moscow and Washington to settle the war in Syria.

The Russians have been carefully neutral, consulted with Turkey and Iran, and have called on all parties to peacefully resolve their differences.

There is not likely to be a quick end to the Qatar crisis, because Saudi Arabia keeps doubling down on one disastrous foreign policy decision after another, including breaking up the Arab world’s only viable economic bloc. But there are developments in the region that may eventually force Riyadh to back off.

The Syrian War looks like it is headed for a solution, although the outcome is anything but certain. The Yemen War has reached crisis proportions—the UN describes it as the number one human emergency on the globe—and pressure is growing for the U.S. and Britain to wind down their support for the Saudi alliance. And Iran is slowly but steadily reclaiming its role as a leading force in the Middle East and Central Asia.

There is much that could go wrong. There could be a disastrous war with Iran, currently being pushed by Saudi Arabia, Israel and neo-conservatives in the U.S. and Russia, the U.S. and Turkey could fall out over Syria.  The Middle East is an easy place to get into trouble. But if there are dangers, so too are there possibilities, and from those springs hope.

Collateral Damage: U.S. Sanctions Aimed at Russia Strike Western European Allies

Diana Johnstone

Do they know what they are doing?  When the U.S. Congress adopts draconian sanctions aimed mainly at disempowering President Trump and ruling out any move to improve relations with Russia, do they realize that the measures amount to a declaration of economic war against their dear European “friends”?

Whether they know or not, they obviously don’t care.  U.S. politicians view the rest of the world as America’s hinterland, to be exploited, abused and ignored with impunity.

The Bill H.R. 3364 “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” was adopted on July 25 by all but three members of the House of Representatives.  An earlier version was adopted by all but two Senators. Final passage at veto-overturning proportions is a certainty.

This congressional temper tantrum flails in all directions. The main casualties are likely to be America’s dear beloved European allies, notably Germany and France.  Who also sometimes happen to be competitors, but such crass considerations don’t matter in the sacred halls of the U.S. Congress, totally devoted to upholding universal morality.

Economic “Soft Power” Hits Hard

Under U.S. sanctions, any EU nation doing business with Russia may find itself in deep trouble.  In particular, the latest bill targets companies involved in financing Nord Stream 2, a pipeline designed to provide Germany with much needed natural gas from Russia.

By the way, just to help out, American companies will gladly sell their own fracked natural gas to their German friends, at much higher prices.

That is only one way in which the bill would subject European banks and enterprises to crippling restrictions, lawsuits and gigantic fines.

While the U.S. preaches “free competition”, it constantly takes measures to prevent free competition at the international level.

Following the July 2015 deal ensuring that Iran could not develop nuclear weapons, international sanctions were lifted, but the United States retained its own previous ones. Since then, any foreign bank or enterprise contemplating trade with Iran is apt to receive a letter from a New York group calling itself “United Against Nuclear Iran” which warns that “there remain serious legal, political, financial and reputational risks associated with doing business in Iran, particularly in sectors of the Iranian economy such as oil and gas”.  The risks cited include billions of dollars of (U.S.) fines, surveillance by “a myriad of regulatory agencies”, personal danger, deficiency of insurance coverage, cyber insecurity, loss of more lucrative business, harm to corporate reputation and a drop in shareholder value.

The United States gets away with this gangster behavior because over the years it has developed a vast, obscure legalistic maze, able to impose its will on the “free world” economy thanks to the omnipresence of the dollar, unrivaled intelligence gathering and just plain intimidation.

European leaders reacted indignantly to the latest sanctions.  The German foreign ministry said it was “unacceptable for the United States to use possible sanctions as an instrument to serve the interest of U.S. industry”.  The French foreign ministry denounced the “extraterritoriality” of the U.S. legislation as unlawful, and announced that “To protect ourselves against the extraterritorial effects of US legislation, we will have to work on adjusting our French and European laws”.

In fact, bitter resentment of arrogant U.S. imposition of its own laws on others has been growing in France, and was the object of a serious parliamentary report delivered to the French National Assembly foreign affairs and finance committees last October 5, on the subject of “the extraterritoriality of American legislation”.

Extraterritoriality

The chairman of the commission of enquiry, long-time Paris representative Pierre Lellouche, summed up the situation as follows:

“The facts are very simple.  We are confronted with an extremely dense wall of American legislation whose precise intention is to use the law to serve the purposes of the economic and political imperium with the idea of gaining economic and strategic advantages. As always in the United States, that imperium, that normative bulldozer operates in the name of the best intentions in the world since the United States considers itself a ‘benevolent power’, that is a country that can only do good.”

Always in the name of “the fight against corruption” or “the fight against terrorism”, the United States righteously pursues anything legally called a “U.S. person”, which under strange American law can refer to any entity doing business in the land of the free, whether by having an American subsidiary, or being listed on the New York stock exchange, or using a U.S.-based server, or even by simply trading in dollars, which is something that no large international enterprise can avoid.

In 2014, France’s leading bank, BNP-Paribas, agreed to pay a whopping fine of nearly nine billion dollars, basically for having used dollar transfers in deals with countries under U.S. sanctions.  The transactions were perfectly legal under French law.  But because they dealt in dollars, payments transited by way of the United States, where diligent computer experts could find the needle in the haystack.  European banks are faced with the choice between prosecution, which entails all sorts of restrictions and punishments before a verdict is reached, or else, counseled by expensive U.S. corporate lawyers, and entering into the obscure “plea bargain” culture of the U.S. judicial system, unfamiliar to Europeans.  Just like the poor wretch accused of robbing a convenience store, the lawyers urge the huge European enterprises to plea guilty in order to escape much worse consequences.

Alstom, a major multinational corporation whose railroad section produces France’s high speed trains, is a jewel of French industry.  In 2014, under pressure from U.S. accusations of corruption (probably bribes to officials in a few developing countries), Alstom sold off its electricity branch to General Electric.

The underlying accusation is that such alleged “corruption” by foreign firms causes U.S. firms to lose markets.  That is possible, but there is no practical reciprocity here.  A whole range of U.S. intelligence agencies, able to spy on everyone’s private communications, are engaged in commercial espionage around the world.  As an example, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, devoted to this task, operates with 200 employees on an annual budget of over $30 million. The comparable office in Paris employs five people.

This was the situation as of last October.  The latest round of sanctions can only expose European banks and enterprises to even more severe consequences, especially concerning investments in the vital Nord Stream natural gas pipeline.

This bill is just the latest in a series of U.S. legislative measures tending to break down national legal sovereignty and create a globalized jurisdiction in which anyone can sue anyone else for anything, with ultimate investigative capacity and enforcement power held by the United States.

Wrecking the European Economy

Over a dozen European Banks (British, German, French, Dutch, Swiss) have run afoul of U.S. judicial moralizing, compared to only one U.S. bank: JP Morgan Chase.

The U.S. targets the European core countries, while its overwhelming influence in the northern rim – Poland, the Baltic States and Sweden – prevents the European Union from taking any measures (necessarily unanimous) contrary to U.S. interests.

By far the biggest catch in Uncle Sam’s financial fishing expedition is Deutsche Bank.  As Pierre Lellouche warned during the final hearing of the extraterritorial hearings last October, U.S. pursuits against Deutsche Bank risk bringing down the whole European banking system.  Although it had already paid hundreds of millions of dollars to the State of New York, Deutsche Bank was faced with a “fine of 14 billion dollars whereas it is worth only five and a half. … In other words, if this is carried out, we risk a domino effect, a major financial crisis in Europe.”

In short, U.S. sanctions amount to a sword of Damocles threatening the economies of the country’s main trading partners.  This could be a Pyrrhic victory, or more simply, the blow that kills the goose that lays the golden eggs.  But hurrah, America would be the winner in a field of ruins.

Former justice minister Elisabeth Guigou called the situation shocking, and noted that France had told the U.S. Embassy that the situation is “insupportable” and insisted that “we must be firm”.

Jacques Myard said that “American law is being used to gain markets and eliminate competitors.  We should not be naïve and wake up to what is happening.”

This enquiry marked a step ahead in French awareness and resistance to a new form of “taxation without representation” exercised by the United States against its European satellites. They committee members all agreed that something must be done.

That was last October.  In June, France held parliamentary elections.  The commission chairman, Pierre Lellouche (Republican), the rapporteur Karine Berger (Socialist), Elisabeth Guigou (a leading Socialist) and Jacques Myard (Republican) all lost their seats to inexperienced newcomers recruited into President Emmanuel Macron’s République en marche party.  The newcomers are having a hard time finding their way in parliamentary life and have no political memory, for instance of the Rapport on Extraterritoriality.

As for Macron, as minister of economics, in 2014 he went against earlier government rulings by approving the GE purchase of Alstom.  He does not appear eager to do anything to anger the United States.

However, there are some things that are so blatantly unfair that they cannot go on forever.

The Cardinal, The Church And Legal Theatre

Binoy Kampmark

“The world is watching.”

Cathy Kezelman, Blue Knot Foundation president, The Washington Post, Jul 25, 2017

The show on Wednesday was grim, busy, crowded.  Cardinal George Pell, the highest Vatican official thus far to be brought within the legal fold of accusation and accountability for historical crimes of sex abuse, fronted for the briefest of shows at a lowly Magistrates Court in Melbourne.

There was much chatter prior to his arrival on Wednesday morning as to what would happen. For one, a taster was provided that the number of police was simply not enough to contain matters.  Ringed by the boys and girls in blue, he seemed in a floating daze, though officially committed to the task at hand.

The other point was that the media outlets seemed indifferent to the linguistic differences of “historic” and “historical” in terms of designating the alleged crimes.  Would historical sex abuse charges become historic in due course?

A bigger court room, one that would have enabled more spectators to sit, was not in the offing. An ordinary magistrates setting seating up to 80 was going to supply distinct shock treatment, a cold shower of immensity far from the plushness of the Vatican setting.  Some journalists grumbled that a more expansive setting should have been provided.

The press were also keen to run snippets and biographies prior to the Wednesday stomp, with the defence team revealed for being proficient in having defended the less savoury elements of society.  Robert Richter QC, Pell’s main barrister, was written up in The Age as, “One of Australia’s top criminal barristers who has represented his share of controversial figures.”

Ruth Shann, assisting, was also noted as having previously “represented killer Sean Price, and former St. Kilda footballer Stephen Milne, who was charged with sex offences.” Paul Galbally, completing the charming triumvirate, was quoted as happy to represent those accused of the most serious crimes.  “You either have a disposition or a personality that can deal with this work or you don’t.” All too true.

The wily and seasoned Richter, chocked with grand wizard experience, realises that the game is afoot.  Keep matters as staggered as possible, possibly over the course of three separate trials.  Frustrate the burrowing journalists, those squirreling for information about specific matters.

This, after all, is the steal of the decade, a high figure of the Vatican, effectively the Pope’s accountant.  The question is whether his client has the stamina to last such legal wrangling, given the fact that a fate worse than the privations of prison is one permanently engulfed by the sallies of lawyers.

“For the avoidance of doubt,” submitted Richter in court, “and because of the interest, might I indicate that Cardinal Pell will plead not guilty to all the charges and will maintain his presumed innocence that he has.”

Strict control would be maintained over reporting on Pell’s situation.  Prosecutor and senior counsel Andrew Tinney was rebuking and stern. There was to be no slack behaviour in observing protocol in terms of protecting the accused and his innocence.

“Any publication of material speculating about the strength or otherwise of the case, the prospect of a fair trial or trials being had, whether the accused should or should not have been charged, the likelihood of conviction or acquittal, or any such matters would be in contempt of court.”

But there was little giving: Leaving aside the fizzling pyrotechnics is the sheer secrecy at play. “My apologies,” wrote a disappointed David Marr, short changed on what was being provided.  “I can’t tell you what’s going on.”

It had been several months, and the charges were still not clear. “Even if they fell into my lap,” scribbled Marr, “I would not say a word.  Why not?  Sorry, that’s a secret too.” Outlets such as The Washington Post noted that Pell had made “his first court appearance in Australia on Wednesday on charges of sexual abuse” but were none the wiser as to what they were.

When the Cardinal appeared, he did so in impassive fashion. It was undeniably the Pell show.  He had only one ultimate incentive to attend the hearing, something he did not need to: defeat the case against him, and tidy up a sullied name.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton claimed that Pell might be taken through an underground entrance in October, given the sheer magnitude of the crush.  “There’s a couple of different options that we’ll look at, certainly won’t rule that out.”  There was just one snag: “One of the issues going underneath through the roller doors is you’ve got a lot of prisoners down there.  We’ve got to get those prisoners up to court.”

The international and local contingents of the press were essentially paying homage to a display with one significant meaning: the imposition of the law over the Church, the temporal order casting its net over a representative of the supposedly divine.  But they were also being kept in a darkness that may only partially abate, and if so, over a lengthy period of time.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Steps Down

Abdus Sattar Ghazali 

Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif’s third term in power ended Friday (July 28) unceremoniously after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding public office in a landmark unanimous decision on the so-called Panama Papers case.

“The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) shall issue a notification disqualifying Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif from being a member of the Parliament with immediate effect, after which he shall cease to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan,” Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan told the packed courtroom Friday afternoon.

The prime minister was disqualified from holding his office as the judges ruled that he had been dishonest to parliament and the courts and could not be deemed fit for his office.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and son-in-law of Nawaz Sharif, Captain Safdar, who is a member of parliament, were also declared unfit for office. Dar was disqualified for being unable to explain his ownership of assets beyond his means.

The judges ruled that Nawaz had been dishonest to the parliament and the courts in not disclosing his employment in the Dubai-based Capital FZE company in his 2013 nomination papers, and thus, could not be deemed fit for his office.

“It is hereby declared that having failed to disclose his un-withdrawn receivables constituting assets from Capital FZE Jebel Ali, UAE in his nomination papers filed for the General Elections held in 2013 in terms of Section 12(2)(f) of the Representation of the People Act, 1976 (ROPA), and having furnished a false declaration under solemn affirmation respondent No. 1 Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is not honest in terms of Section 99(f) of ROPA and Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973and therefore he is disqualified to be a Member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament).”

Tellingly, Nawaz Sharif has been ousted on graft charges once before, sacked by the country´s then-president during the first of his three terms as prime minister in 1993.

Shortly after the Supreme Court Order, the PM House issued a notification saying that Nawaz Sharif, despite having “strong reservations” on the SC’s verdict, has stepped down from his post as the premier.

Reacting to the court’s order, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz spokesperson said that the party will utilize all legal and constitutional means to contest the verdict.

The federal cabinet was dissolved after Nawaz Sharif relinquished his responsibilities as the prime minister of Pakistan.

As the head of the ruling PML-N, he will still be able to nominate his successor. Sharif’s chosen candidate will be put to a vote in the National Assembly — a rubber stamp affair as the PML-N holds a strong majority in the house.

Joint Investigation Team

On April 20 the Supreme Court appointed a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe the case and collect evidence, if any, showing that Nawaz Sharif or any of his dependents or benamidar owns, possesses or acquired assets or any interest therein disproportionate to their known means of income.

The six-member JIT’s damning report, submitted after a 60-day investigation that sought answers to 13 questions raised by the Supreme Court’s larger bench, had maintained that Prime Minister’s family owned assets beyond its known sources of income. It declared that his sons, Hussain and Hassan Nawaz, were used as proxies to build family assets.

Consequently, the six-man JIT concluded that it was compelled to refer to sections 9(a)(v) and 14(c) of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999, which deal with corruption and corrupt practices, though such charges are yet to be proven in an accountability court.

The JIT pointed out failure on the part of the Sharifs to produce the required information that would confirm their “known sources of income”, saying that prima facie, it amounted to saying that they were not able to reconcile their assets with their means of income.

References in accountability courts

Justice Khan said that the bench had recommended that all material collected by the joint investigation team (JIT) tasked with probing the Sharif family’s financial dealings be sent to an accountability court within six weeks.

The bench said that on the basis of this information, cases would be opened against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar; MNA Captain Muhammad Safdar (son-in-law); Maryam (daughter, Hassan and Hussain Nawaz (sons); as well as the premier.

A judgment on these references should be announced within six months, he said. One judge will oversee the implementation of this order.

Panama Papers

The controversy erupted last year with the publication of 11.5 million secret documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca documenting the offshore dealings of many of the world´s rich and powerful.

Three of Sharif´s four children — Maryam, his daughter, and his sons Hasan and Hussein — were implicated in the papers.

At the heart of the case is the legitimacy of the funds used by the Sharif family to purchase several high-end London properties via offshore companies.

The PML-N insists the wealth was acquired legally, through Sharif family businesses in Pakistan and the Persian Gulf.

Pak politicians, businessmen own companies abroad

According to investigating reporter Umer Cheema of The News:

The names found in the secret files range from those of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s relatives; from Benazir Bhutto to Javed Pasha; from Senator Rehman Malik to Senator Osman Saifullah’s family; and from Waseem Gulzar (a relative of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat) to Zain Sukhera, who was co-accused with former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s son in the Haj scandal.

Businessmen featured in the record range from hotel tycoon Sadruddin Hashwani to real estate czar Malik Riaz Hussain’s son; from the Hussain Dawood family to the Abdullah family of Sapphire Textiles, Gul Muhammad Tabba of Lucky Textiles as well as Shahid Nazir of Masood Textiles and from Zulfiqar Ali Lakhani to Zulfiqar Paracha.

Members from the bar and the bench were also spotted in the documents include one serving judge of the Lahore High Court, Justice Farrukh Irfan; and one retired judge, Malik Qayyum. Owner of Hilton Pharma, Shehbaz Yasin Malik opened the company for a Swiss bank account. Chairman ABM Group of Companies Azam Sultan, Pizza Hut owner Aqeel Hussain and Chairman Soorty Enterprise Abdul Rashid Soorty were also identified along with the family members.

Records spanning four decades buried behind the tight wall of secrecy are on open display now confirming doubts and fuelling debate about the offshore jurisdictions like the British Virgin Island, Panama and Seychelles etc. Data made available is of one little known but a big law firm based in Panama, Mossack Fonseca, having global footprints in terms of its offshore clients.

Over 200 Pakistanis have been identified and the counting is still in progress. The data under examination covers nearly 40 years from 1977 through the end of 2015. Pakistanis started figuring in the record from 1990 onward.

Not a single PM completed five-year term in Pakistan

Not a single prime minister in Pakistan has been allowed to complete his tenure since the country’s inception 70 years ago.

According to investigating reporter Usman Manzoor of The News:

Pakistan’s first prime minister was murdered in Rawalpindi on October 16, 1951. He had assumed the charge of the premier on August 15, 1947. Then the second PM Khawaja Nazimuddin was sent home by Governor General Ghulam Muhammad on April 17, 1953. Nazimuddin knocked the doors of the Supreme Court where Justice Munir had to invent the doctrine of necessity to validate Ghulam Muhammad’s illegal act. Then came Muhammad Ali Bogra who too was dismissed by Ghulam Muhammad in 1954 but later was again appointed as PM but he did not enjoy majority in the Constituent Assembly therefore Governor General Iskender Mirza dismissed his government in 1955. Chaudhary Muhammad Ali succeeded in becoming the PM in 1955 but because of his conflict with Iskender Mirza who had become president as a result of 1956 constitution, Muhammad Ali resigned on September 12, 1956. Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy was the leader of Awami League and led the party through a victory in the 1954 elections for Constituent Assembly. He was the first person from another party than Muslim League to be appointed as a Prime Minister in 1956. He was deposed in 1957, due to differences with Iskander Mirza.

Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar was appointed by Iskander Mirza after the resignation of Suhrawardy. He remained prime minister for almost two months. Chundrigar resigned from the post in December 1957. Then Mirza appointed Feroz Khan Noon as the seventh prime minister of Pakistan. He was dismissed after Martial Law was declared in 1958 by Ayub Khan.

After thirteen years of Martial Law, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto succeeded to power. Bhutto remained President under special arrangement till 1973 Constitution was passed. He resigned as president to become the prime minister of Pakistan after the 1973 Constitution. He went in to elections in 1977 and succeeded but was deposed the same year through coup d’état by General Muhammad Ziaul Haq in July 1977. He was hanged in 1979 by all powerful military-judicial nexus.

In 1985 non-party elections, Muhammad Khan Junejo was elected as PM of Pakistan under the worst dictators of Pakistan. As he was a political breed, he remained a threat to the dictator therefore his government was dismissed on May 29, 1988, just days after Junejo announced to probe the Ojhri Camp incident in Rawalpindi in which military’s weapons depot was exploded killing around 100 people and injuring thousands.

In 2012, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani was convicted in a contempt of court case in Supreme Court for not writing a letter against the sitting president to the Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases. Gilani remained PM of Pakistan from March 25, 2008 to June 19, 2012. The remaining term of PPP government was completed by Raja Pervaiz Ashraf who held the office from June 2012 to March 2013 when general election was held and Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League got sweeping majority in the National Assembly.

Nawaz Sharif is the third Prime Minister who resigned after Panama Leaks scandal

On April 5, 2016, Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsso rerisgned after appearance of his name in Panama Leaks. Gunnlaugsso and his wife had an offshore company. Likewise, Panama Leaks controversy forced Ukrainian Prime Minister to abdicate on April 10, 2016.

On April 15, 2016, Spanish industrial minister resigned as his name was mentioned in the leaks.

Others key names who resigned on moral grounds include Chile Transparency International President Gonzalo Delaveu, FIFA Ethics Committee member Juan Pedro Damiani  of Uruguay and ABN AMRO Bank Member of Supervisory Board Bert Meerstadt of Netherlands.

The Panama leaks, comprising 11.5 million documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, shows how some of the world’s most powerful people have secreted their money offshore.

The documents from around 214,000 offshore entities covered almost 40 years.

Among those named in the documents are Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family , friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, relatives of the leaders of China, Britain, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.