Rich Galen
There is a growing battle between the
Republican-controlled House of
Representatives and the Democrat-controlled White House.
President Barack Obama is signing what are
known as "Executive Orders" to (in the minds of House Republicans) either create laws that don't exist, or ignore laws that do exist.
This is a classic fight between what, in Our
Nation's Capital is known as the Article I
Branch of Government vs. the Article II
Branch. Those are the Legislative and
Executive Branches and which Article of the U.S. Constitution describes their duties and prerogatives.
Article I, Section 1 states:
"All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States,
which shall consist of a Senate and House of
Representatives."
Article II, Section 1 states:
"The executive power shall be vested in a
President of the United States of America."
Just to keep the conversation going,
ArticleIII, Section 1 begins:
"The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
Those are the starting lineups: The
Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial
Branches.
As we learned in grammar school, the
Congress passes laws that the President is
supposed to enforce. The Supreme Court
decides on whether or not those laws are
Constitutional.
A couple of years ago, you may remember,
the Supreme Court ruled that, in the main,
Obamacare was Constitutional. Not all of it,
but enough of it to have given people like me something to talk about on TV and write
about in Mullings on a regular basis.
That's the way the system is supposed to
work.
If the President and/or Congress does
something that is extra-Constitutional, then
an aggrieved party can file a lawsuit and, if it is deemed sufficiently important, it will get to the Supreme Court and it will rule.
In 1974 President Richard Nixon claimed
Executive Privilege in refusing to turn over
the all the audio tapes that had been made
during his Presidency. Chief Justice Warren
Burger wrote, for the unanimous Court, (from Streetlaw.org):
"Absent a claim of need to protect military,
diplomatic, or sensitive national security
secrets, we find it difficult to accept the . . .
[absolute] confidentiality of presidential
communications."
More recently, the Supreme Court ruled that President Obama's claim that (essentially) anytime the Senate was not in session it was, by definition in recess and therefore he could invoke his Constitutional right to make "recess appointments" in this case to the National Labor Relations Board.
The Supreme Court, again, unanimously ruled he had overstepped his bounds with Mr. Justice Breyer writing (according to the
Washington Post coverage),
"The Senate is in session when it says it is."
The point is, Presidents can overstep their
authority without having committed an
impeachable offense which is loosely defined in Article II, Section 4 as:
"Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and
Misdemeanors."
This somewhat tedious discussion is necessary because the "I" word is being thrown around in Washington again.
In 1998 the House Impeached President Bill
Clinton although he was not convicted by the Senate. The House has impeachment
authority (think, indictment) but the Senate
must convict (think jury trial).
1998 happened to have been the year of the
mid-term election in President Clinton's
second term. We know about second term
mid-term elections: They generally are
dreadful for the party of the President.
The GOP's entire strategy was to make the
1998 elections a referendum on Clinton and
Monica Lewinsky.
Republicans chose badly. As Time Magazine
put it:
"[T]he the election that was supposed to be
another G.O.P. blowout ended with a gain of five House seats for the Democrats, no change in the Senate and the morning-after spectacle of dumbstruck Republicans."
The Democrats succeeded in making the
campaign a battle between Clinton and
Gingrich. They drove off-year turnout for the party of the President up dramatically which caught Republicans flat-footed.
That is why the White House let slip the dogs of impeachment last week saying the
Republicans might impeach President Obama over his plans to go it alone on immigration.
The Administration is trying to gin up the
Democratic base with 100 days to go before a mid-term election that might well cost them control of the Senate.
The Republicans may - in fact, probably will - sue the President for overstepping his
executive authority, but they won't institute
impeachment proceedings against him.
28 Jul 2014
THE INDONESIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION EXPLAINED
Shankari Sundararaman
Indonesia’s presidential election has heralded a change in the old guard, with Joko Widodo emerging as the winner of the mandate that took place on 9 July. The
election, that took place 16 years after Indonesia’s transition to democracy and the overthrow of the Suharto regime, indicates the consolidation of the democratic structures within this nascent democracy.
Interestingly in this election, Jokowi, as he is popularly known, represents a change from the older leadership in Indonesia – that has often been associated with political families and the military leadership. In that
context, he is a newcomer on the national political scene – with his earlier avatar in politics as the governor of Jakarta and as the mayor of Solo.
What is significant about his victory is that his opponent was Prabowo Subianto – Suharto’s son-in-law, and has been implicated for human rights violations. This is also indicative of the degree of discomfort the linkages to the past regime brings among the population, despite Prabowo Subianto being likely to allege the results to be fraudulent.
This has been an election year for Indonesia. In the May 2014 elections to the Indonesian parliament, , citizens cast their votes for four councils. Additionally, elections to local councils – created as a result of the decentralisation process that is critical to Indonesia’s democratic consolidation – too were held. The
Provincial and Regency elections too were held, on 9 April. The Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI- P) or the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the opposition party in the last government, won the elections with 18.95 per cent of the vote. This was followed by the Golongan Karya (Golkar), the is former party of the military functional groups that secured
14.75 per cent of the votes. The third largest party, the Great Indonesian Movement Party (Gerinda) that was led by Prabowo Subianto, won 11.81 per cent of the
votes.
While the aforementioned groups emerged as the leading parties in the legislative elections, neither could qualify to nominate a candidate for the presidential elections on their own. Therefore, in order to nominate a candidate, the parties had to secure coalitions with other parties in the DPR to propose a presidential candidate for direct presidential elections – that Indonesia has been following since 2004. According to
the laws governing the Presidential elections, a political party must officially secure a minimum of 25 per cent of the popular vote or 20 per cent of seats in the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR), the lower house of the parliament, to be eligible to nominate a presidential candidate.
Following the legislative elections in April 2014, the need for coalitions to secure the necessary percentage of seats and votes prompted Jokowi to request the former
Vice President of Indonesia, Jusuf Kalla, to be his running mate. This combination was critical to Jokowi’s victory because Kalla is a former Chairman of the Golkar party that came in second in the legislative election. The tie-up with Kalla was potentially the trump card for Jokowi as this was seen as a critical factor in splitting the Golkar votes – given Kalla’s considerable influence
among supporters. Interestingly Aburizal Bakrie, the current Chairman of the Golkar, had, during one of the Party’s national meetings, stated that that the party
actually backed the combination of Prabowo Subianto and his running mate, Hatta Rajasa. In fact, a split in
the Golkar was a clear sign that Prabowo Subianto may not be acceptable to many due to his views on Indonesian nationalism and the human rights violations that he has been associated with under the Suharto
regime.
In the finally tally, the Jokowi-Kalla combination won 53.16 per cent of the votes while the Prabowo-Rajasa
combination won 46.48 per cent of the votes in what emerged as the most closely contested elections since Indonesia’s transition. With the victory of the Jokowi-
Kalla group, Golkar may throw its full weight behind the new team, wanting to be on the right side of the political fault-line.
Of the electoral promises Jokowi made, the creation of ten million new jobs and continued economic reforms are the most significant challenges. Jusuf Kalla brings
with him the experience in economic reforms, which also needs to translate into the much promised subsidies to assist in poverty alleviation. Agrarian land reforms need to be addressed, as does the crucial question of environmental conservation policies – that have to be implemented to counter detrimental effects of
deforestation Indonesia has been facing. Rampant corruption and nepotism are critical factors that undermine the democratic consolidation in Indonesia.
These are also crucial challenges which the new president and his team will have to tackle.
Indonesia’s presidential election has heralded a change in the old guard, with Joko Widodo emerging as the winner of the mandate that took place on 9 July. The
election, that took place 16 years after Indonesia’s transition to democracy and the overthrow of the Suharto regime, indicates the consolidation of the democratic structures within this nascent democracy.
Interestingly in this election, Jokowi, as he is popularly known, represents a change from the older leadership in Indonesia – that has often been associated with political families and the military leadership. In that
context, he is a newcomer on the national political scene – with his earlier avatar in politics as the governor of Jakarta and as the mayor of Solo.
What is significant about his victory is that his opponent was Prabowo Subianto – Suharto’s son-in-law, and has been implicated for human rights violations. This is also indicative of the degree of discomfort the linkages to the past regime brings among the population, despite Prabowo Subianto being likely to allege the results to be fraudulent.
This has been an election year for Indonesia. In the May 2014 elections to the Indonesian parliament, , citizens cast their votes for four councils. Additionally, elections to local councils – created as a result of the decentralisation process that is critical to Indonesia’s democratic consolidation – too were held. The
Provincial and Regency elections too were held, on 9 April. The Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI- P) or the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the opposition party in the last government, won the elections with 18.95 per cent of the vote. This was followed by the Golongan Karya (Golkar), the is former party of the military functional groups that secured
14.75 per cent of the votes. The third largest party, the Great Indonesian Movement Party (Gerinda) that was led by Prabowo Subianto, won 11.81 per cent of the
votes.
While the aforementioned groups emerged as the leading parties in the legislative elections, neither could qualify to nominate a candidate for the presidential elections on their own. Therefore, in order to nominate a candidate, the parties had to secure coalitions with other parties in the DPR to propose a presidential candidate for direct presidential elections – that Indonesia has been following since 2004. According to
the laws governing the Presidential elections, a political party must officially secure a minimum of 25 per cent of the popular vote or 20 per cent of seats in the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR), the lower house of the parliament, to be eligible to nominate a presidential candidate.
Following the legislative elections in April 2014, the need for coalitions to secure the necessary percentage of seats and votes prompted Jokowi to request the former
Vice President of Indonesia, Jusuf Kalla, to be his running mate. This combination was critical to Jokowi’s victory because Kalla is a former Chairman of the Golkar party that came in second in the legislative election. The tie-up with Kalla was potentially the trump card for Jokowi as this was seen as a critical factor in splitting the Golkar votes – given Kalla’s considerable influence
among supporters. Interestingly Aburizal Bakrie, the current Chairman of the Golkar, had, during one of the Party’s national meetings, stated that that the party
actually backed the combination of Prabowo Subianto and his running mate, Hatta Rajasa. In fact, a split in
the Golkar was a clear sign that Prabowo Subianto may not be acceptable to many due to his views on Indonesian nationalism and the human rights violations that he has been associated with under the Suharto
regime.
In the finally tally, the Jokowi-Kalla combination won 53.16 per cent of the votes while the Prabowo-Rajasa
combination won 46.48 per cent of the votes in what emerged as the most closely contested elections since Indonesia’s transition. With the victory of the Jokowi-
Kalla group, Golkar may throw its full weight behind the new team, wanting to be on the right side of the political fault-line.
Of the electoral promises Jokowi made, the creation of ten million new jobs and continued economic reforms are the most significant challenges. Jusuf Kalla brings
with him the experience in economic reforms, which also needs to translate into the much promised subsidies to assist in poverty alleviation. Agrarian land reforms need to be addressed, as does the crucial question of environmental conservation policies – that have to be implemented to counter detrimental effects of
deforestation Indonesia has been facing. Rampant corruption and nepotism are critical factors that undermine the democratic consolidation in Indonesia.
These are also crucial challenges which the new president and his team will have to tackle.
27 Jul 2014
IS OBAMA TO BLAME FOR THE WORLD'S CRISES?
Steve Chapman
The world is a hot mess. Pro-Russian
separatists shot down a passenger jet over
Ukraine. Iraq is under siege from Islamic
radicals, the Taliban is rebounding in
Afghanistan and civil war grinds on in Syria.
Israel is fighting in Gaza. Negotiations on
Iran's nuclear program have come up empty.
China is bullying its neighbors.
When trouble flares up around the world,
U.S. presidents get blamed. The latest polls
show that only about 36 percent of Americans
approve of Barack Obama's handling of
foreign affairs -- down from 51 percent in
May, 2011, after the death of Osama bin
Laden.
Republicans have not been reluctant to place
responsibility on him. "Obama has presided
over a recent string of disasters that make
even (Jimmy) Carter look competent," wrote
Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for
George W. Bush. "The world is on fire -- and
Obama's foreign policy legacy is in tatters."
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
charged that "his policies are failing across
the globe."
The indictment implies that had the
administration been tougher or smarter,
Ukraine would be intact, Syria's dictator
would be gone, Iraq would be stable, Hamas
would surrender, China would be a gentle
lamb and Iran would give up its nukes.
Conservatives say Obama thinks he's king.
But they seem to confuse him with God.
It's easy to forget that planet Earth has
always been a turbulent locale. During the
Reagan administration, often fondly recalled
as a golden age, there was endless strife
hither and yon: civil wars in Central
America; Americans taken hostage in
Lebanon; a U.S. military barracks blown up
in Beirut; and Libyan terrorists bombing a
Pan Am plane.
The Soviets shot down a South Korean
passenger jet. South Africa's minority white
government tried to suppress a black revolt.
Reagan may get credit for causing the collapse
of the Soviet Union, but tranquility didn't
follow. It wasn't long before Iraq invaded
Kuwait, Yugoslavia erupted into bloody
ethnic conflict, civil war broke out in one
African country after another, famine
ravaged Somalia, Palestinians rose up against
Israeli rule, and Pakistan and India fought a
war after acquiring nuclear weapons.
And the 21st century? It did not turn the
world into a serene oasis where America
consistently got its way. The 9/11 attacks, the
war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan are
still fresh in our minds. The Russian invasion
of Georgia, al-Qaida's migration into
Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, Israel's war in
Lebanon, the civil war in Sudan -- those are
easy to forget.
North Korea cheated on a nuclear deal under
Bush. Iran took major strides in its own
nuclear quest. Vladimir Putin gutted Russian
democracy. China tried to intimidate its
neighbors.
When was this era of harmony that Obama
has somehow forfeited? It never happened.
And it's not likely to emerge under his
successor. Even at the height of our post-Cold
War power and influence, nasty events
happened all the time, and we couldn't stop
them.
The Cold War era was a bit more controlled,
because so many governments were
dependent for their security on either the
U.S. or the Soviet Union, who could often
keep them in line. But there was still plenty
of bloodshed in plenty of places -- from
Vietnam to the Indian subcontinent to
Lebanon to El Salvador. Often, neither
Washington nor Moscow got what it wanted.
Nor is it obvious Obama could have achieved much with more assertive tactics against the Russian government or the Syrian government: His options were few and unpromising. Nothing short of a NATO
military response -- which even the hawks
didn't propose -- would have stopped Putin
from seizing Crimea.
Arming the Syrian rebels could have meant
giving aid to the militants marching on our
ally in Baghdad. Staying in Iraq and
Afghanistan, as many Republicans advised,
was a formula for wasting American lives to merely delay the inevitable.
Yet the belief persists that the difference
between a bad outcome and a good outcome is a willingness by the U.S. government to exercise leadership or show toughness or otherwise get involved. In practice, our interventions often exact a terribly high price for a dismal result. If there are two ways to get a dismal result, maybe we should choose the one that doesn't cost us thousands of lives
or billions of dollars.
We like to think we can easily shape the
world to suit our preferences. But as the 19th- century historian Henry Adams pointed out, chaos is the law of nature, and order is the dream of man.
The world is a hot mess. Pro-Russian
separatists shot down a passenger jet over
Ukraine. Iraq is under siege from Islamic
radicals, the Taliban is rebounding in
Afghanistan and civil war grinds on in Syria.
Israel is fighting in Gaza. Negotiations on
Iran's nuclear program have come up empty.
China is bullying its neighbors.
When trouble flares up around the world,
U.S. presidents get blamed. The latest polls
show that only about 36 percent of Americans
approve of Barack Obama's handling of
foreign affairs -- down from 51 percent in
May, 2011, after the death of Osama bin
Laden.
Republicans have not been reluctant to place
responsibility on him. "Obama has presided
over a recent string of disasters that make
even (Jimmy) Carter look competent," wrote
Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for
George W. Bush. "The world is on fire -- and
Obama's foreign policy legacy is in tatters."
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
charged that "his policies are failing across
the globe."
The indictment implies that had the
administration been tougher or smarter,
Ukraine would be intact, Syria's dictator
would be gone, Iraq would be stable, Hamas
would surrender, China would be a gentle
lamb and Iran would give up its nukes.
Conservatives say Obama thinks he's king.
But they seem to confuse him with God.
It's easy to forget that planet Earth has
always been a turbulent locale. During the
Reagan administration, often fondly recalled
as a golden age, there was endless strife
hither and yon: civil wars in Central
America; Americans taken hostage in
Lebanon; a U.S. military barracks blown up
in Beirut; and Libyan terrorists bombing a
Pan Am plane.
The Soviets shot down a South Korean
passenger jet. South Africa's minority white
government tried to suppress a black revolt.
Reagan may get credit for causing the collapse
of the Soviet Union, but tranquility didn't
follow. It wasn't long before Iraq invaded
Kuwait, Yugoslavia erupted into bloody
ethnic conflict, civil war broke out in one
African country after another, famine
ravaged Somalia, Palestinians rose up against
Israeli rule, and Pakistan and India fought a
war after acquiring nuclear weapons.
And the 21st century? It did not turn the
world into a serene oasis where America
consistently got its way. The 9/11 attacks, the
war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan are
still fresh in our minds. The Russian invasion
of Georgia, al-Qaida's migration into
Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, Israel's war in
Lebanon, the civil war in Sudan -- those are
easy to forget.
North Korea cheated on a nuclear deal under
Bush. Iran took major strides in its own
nuclear quest. Vladimir Putin gutted Russian
democracy. China tried to intimidate its
neighbors.
When was this era of harmony that Obama
has somehow forfeited? It never happened.
And it's not likely to emerge under his
successor. Even at the height of our post-Cold
War power and influence, nasty events
happened all the time, and we couldn't stop
them.
The Cold War era was a bit more controlled,
because so many governments were
dependent for their security on either the
U.S. or the Soviet Union, who could often
keep them in line. But there was still plenty
of bloodshed in plenty of places -- from
Vietnam to the Indian subcontinent to
Lebanon to El Salvador. Often, neither
Washington nor Moscow got what it wanted.
Nor is it obvious Obama could have achieved much with more assertive tactics against the Russian government or the Syrian government: His options were few and unpromising. Nothing short of a NATO
military response -- which even the hawks
didn't propose -- would have stopped Putin
from seizing Crimea.
Arming the Syrian rebels could have meant
giving aid to the militants marching on our
ally in Baghdad. Staying in Iraq and
Afghanistan, as many Republicans advised,
was a formula for wasting American lives to merely delay the inevitable.
Yet the belief persists that the difference
between a bad outcome and a good outcome is a willingness by the U.S. government to exercise leadership or show toughness or otherwise get involved. In practice, our interventions often exact a terribly high price for a dismal result. If there are two ways to get a dismal result, maybe we should choose the one that doesn't cost us thousands of lives
or billions of dollars.
We like to think we can easily shape the
world to suit our preferences. But as the 19th- century historian Henry Adams pointed out, chaos is the law of nature, and order is the dream of man.
GREAT MOMENTS IN GOVERNMENT
Daniel Mitchell
You won’t know whether to laugh or cry after perusing these stories that will be added to our “ great moments in government” collection.
For instance, did you realize that American
taxpayers were saddled with the
responsibility to micro-manage agriculture in Afghanistan? You’re probably surprised the answer is yes.
But I bet you’re not surprised that the money was flushed down a toilet. Here are some excerpts from a report on how $34 million was wasted.
American agricultural experts who
consider soybeans a superfood…have
invested tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer
dollars to try to change the way Afghans
eat. The effort, aimed at making soy a
dietary staple, has largely been a flop,
marked by mismanagement, poor
government oversight and financial waste,
according to interviews and government
audit documents obtained by the Center
for Public Integrity. Warnings by
agronomists that the effort was unwise
were ignored. The country’s climate turns
out to be inappropriate for soy cultivation
and its farming culture is ill-prepared for
large-scale soybean production. Soybeans
are now no more a viable commercial crop
in Afghanistan than they were in 2010,
when the $34 million program got
started… The ambitious effort also appears
to have been undone by a simple fact,
which might have been foreseen but was
evidently ignored: Afghans don’t like the
taste of the soy processed foods.
Sadly, this $34 million boondoggle is just the
tip of the iceberg. It’s been said that
Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.
Well, it’s also the graveyard of tax dollars.
…the project’s problems model the larger
shortcomings of the estimated $120 billion
U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan,
including what many experts depict as
ignorance of Afghan traditions,
mismanagement and poor spending
controls. No one has calculated precisely
how much the United States wasted or
misspent in Afghanistan, but a…special
auditor appointed by President Obama the
following year said he discovered nearly
$7 billion worth of Afghanistan-related
waste in just his first year on the job.
I’m guessing that most of the $120 billion was
squandered using traditional definitions of
waste.
But using a libertarian definition of waste
(i.e., money that the federal government
should not spend), we can easily calculate that
the entire $120 billion was squandered.
Let’s now discuss another example of
American taxpayer money being wasted in
other nations. I’ve written previously about
the squalid corruption at the Export-Import
Bank, but Veronique de Rugy of Mercatus is
the go-to expert on this issue, and she has a
new article at National Review about “a
project in Brazil that, if it goes bust and the
Brazilians can’t pay the American contractor,
your tax dollars will end up paying for.”
And what is this project?
…an Export-Import Bank–backed deal to
build the largest aquarium in South
America…the taxpayer exposure is
$150,000 per job “supported.” Some
people in Brazil are rightly upset about
this. The Ex-Im loan may have lower
interest rates and better terms than a
regular loan, but this is probably money
the indebted and poor Brazilian
government can’t afford. …a real problem
with the Ex-Im Bank: On one hand, it gives
cheap money to large companies who
would have access to capital markets even
in its absence. But on the other hand, it
encourages middle-income or poor
countries to take on debt that they
probably can’t afford, whether the
products purchased are “made in
America” or not.
Gee, aren’t we happy that some bureaucrats
and politicians have decided to put us on the
hook for a Brazilian aquarium.
But let’s try to make the best of a bad
situation. Here’s a depiction of what you’re
subsidizing. Enjoy.
Subsidized by American taxpayers
I hope you got your money’s worth from the
image.
Perhaps I’m being American-centric by
focusing on examples of bad policies from the
crowd in Washington.
So let’s look at an example of government
foolishness from Germany. It doesn’t involve
tax money being wasted (at least not
directly), but I can’t resist sharing this story
because it’s such a perfect illustration of
government in action.
Check out these excerpts from a British news
report on over-zealous enforcement by
German cops.
A one-armed man in Germany has
received a full apology and refund from
the police after an overzealous officer
fined him for cycling using only one arm.
Bogdan Ionescu, a theatre box office
worker from Cologne, gets around the
usually cycle-friendly city using a modified
bicycle that allows him to operate both
brakes – one with his foot. But on 25
March he was pulled over by a police
officer who, he says, told him he was
breaking the law. Under German road
safety rules, bicycles are required to have
to have two handlebar brakes. After a long
argument at the roadside, the officer
insisted that Mr Ionescu’s bike was not
roadworthy and issued him with a €25
(£20) fine.
At least this story had a happy ending, at
least if you overlook the time and aggravation
for Mr. Ionescu.
Our last (but certainly not least) example of
foolish government comes from Nebraska,
though the culprit is the federal government.
But maybe “disconcerting” would be a better word than “foolish.”
It seems that our friends on the left no longer think that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” In a very troubling display of thuggery, the Justice Department dispatched a bureaucrat to “investigate” a satirical parade float.
Here’s some of what was reported by the
Washington Times.
The U.S. Department of Justice has sent a
member of its Community Relations
Service team to investigate a Nebraska
parade float that criticized President
Obama. A Fourth of July parade
floatfeatured at the annual Independence
Day parade in Norfolk sparked criticism
when it depicted a zombie-like figure
resembling Mr. Obama standing outside
an outhouse, which was labeled the
“Obama Presidential Library.” The
Nebraska Democratic Party called the float
one of the “worst shows of racism and
disrespect for the office of the presidency
that Nebraska has ever seen.” The Omaha
World-Herald reported Friday that the
Department of Justice sent a CRSmember
who handles discrimination disputes to a
Thursday meeting about the issue. …The
float’s creator, Dale Remmich, has said the
mannequin depicted himself, not President
Obama. He said he is upset with the
president’s handling of the Veterans
Affairs Department, the World-Herald
reported. “Looking at the float, that
message absolutely did not come through,”
said NAACP chapter president Betty C.
Andrews.
If you look at the picture (and other pictures
that can be seen with an online search), I see
plenty of disrespect for the current president,
but why is that something that requires an
investigation?
There was plenty of disrespect for the
previous president. And there as also
disrespect for the president before that. And
before that. And before…well, you get the
idea.
Disrespect for politicians is called political
speech, and it’s (supposedly) protected by the
First Amendment of the Constitution.
That’s even true if the float’s creator had
unseemly motives such as racism. He would
deserve scorn if that was the case, and
parade organizers would (or at least should)
have the right to exclude him on that basis.
But you don’t lose your general right to free
speech just because you have unpopular and/
or reprehensible opinions. And the federal
government shouldn’t be doing anything that
can be construed as suppressing or
intimidating Americans who want to
“disrespect” the political class.
P.S. Since we’re on the topic of politicized
bureaucracy, we have an update to a recent
column about sleazy behavior at the IRS.
According to the Daily Caller , there’s more
and more evidence of a big fire behind all the
smoke at the IRS.
Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer
hard drive was “scratched” and the data
on it was still recoverable. But the IRS did
not try to recover the data from Lerner’s
hard drive, despite recommendations from
in-house IRS IT experts to outsource the
recovery project. The hard drive was then
“shredded,” according to a court filing the
IRS made to House Ways and Means
Committee investigators.
Gee, how convenient.
I used to dislike the IRS because of the tax
code. Now I have an additional reason to
view the bureaucrats with disdain.
P.P.S. One last comment on the controversy
surrounding the parade float. Racism is an
evil example of collectivist thinking. But it is also reprehensible for folks on the left to
make accusations of racism simply because
they disagree with someone.
You won’t know whether to laugh or cry after perusing these stories that will be added to our “ great moments in government” collection.
For instance, did you realize that American
taxpayers were saddled with the
responsibility to micro-manage agriculture in Afghanistan? You’re probably surprised the answer is yes.
But I bet you’re not surprised that the money was flushed down a toilet. Here are some excerpts from a report on how $34 million was wasted.
American agricultural experts who
consider soybeans a superfood…have
invested tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer
dollars to try to change the way Afghans
eat. The effort, aimed at making soy a
dietary staple, has largely been a flop,
marked by mismanagement, poor
government oversight and financial waste,
according to interviews and government
audit documents obtained by the Center
for Public Integrity. Warnings by
agronomists that the effort was unwise
were ignored. The country’s climate turns
out to be inappropriate for soy cultivation
and its farming culture is ill-prepared for
large-scale soybean production. Soybeans
are now no more a viable commercial crop
in Afghanistan than they were in 2010,
when the $34 million program got
started… The ambitious effort also appears
to have been undone by a simple fact,
which might have been foreseen but was
evidently ignored: Afghans don’t like the
taste of the soy processed foods.
Sadly, this $34 million boondoggle is just the
tip of the iceberg. It’s been said that
Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.
Well, it’s also the graveyard of tax dollars.
…the project’s problems model the larger
shortcomings of the estimated $120 billion
U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan,
including what many experts depict as
ignorance of Afghan traditions,
mismanagement and poor spending
controls. No one has calculated precisely
how much the United States wasted or
misspent in Afghanistan, but a…special
auditor appointed by President Obama the
following year said he discovered nearly
$7 billion worth of Afghanistan-related
waste in just his first year on the job.
I’m guessing that most of the $120 billion was
squandered using traditional definitions of
waste.
But using a libertarian definition of waste
(i.e., money that the federal government
should not spend), we can easily calculate that
the entire $120 billion was squandered.
Let’s now discuss another example of
American taxpayer money being wasted in
other nations. I’ve written previously about
the squalid corruption at the Export-Import
Bank, but Veronique de Rugy of Mercatus is
the go-to expert on this issue, and she has a
new article at National Review about “a
project in Brazil that, if it goes bust and the
Brazilians can’t pay the American contractor,
your tax dollars will end up paying for.”
And what is this project?
…an Export-Import Bank–backed deal to
build the largest aquarium in South
America…the taxpayer exposure is
$150,000 per job “supported.” Some
people in Brazil are rightly upset about
this. The Ex-Im loan may have lower
interest rates and better terms than a
regular loan, but this is probably money
the indebted and poor Brazilian
government can’t afford. …a real problem
with the Ex-Im Bank: On one hand, it gives
cheap money to large companies who
would have access to capital markets even
in its absence. But on the other hand, it
encourages middle-income or poor
countries to take on debt that they
probably can’t afford, whether the
products purchased are “made in
America” or not.
Gee, aren’t we happy that some bureaucrats
and politicians have decided to put us on the
hook for a Brazilian aquarium.
But let’s try to make the best of a bad
situation. Here’s a depiction of what you’re
subsidizing. Enjoy.
Subsidized by American taxpayers
I hope you got your money’s worth from the
image.
Perhaps I’m being American-centric by
focusing on examples of bad policies from the
crowd in Washington.
So let’s look at an example of government
foolishness from Germany. It doesn’t involve
tax money being wasted (at least not
directly), but I can’t resist sharing this story
because it’s such a perfect illustration of
government in action.
Check out these excerpts from a British news
report on over-zealous enforcement by
German cops.
A one-armed man in Germany has
received a full apology and refund from
the police after an overzealous officer
fined him for cycling using only one arm.
Bogdan Ionescu, a theatre box office
worker from Cologne, gets around the
usually cycle-friendly city using a modified
bicycle that allows him to operate both
brakes – one with his foot. But on 25
March he was pulled over by a police
officer who, he says, told him he was
breaking the law. Under German road
safety rules, bicycles are required to have
to have two handlebar brakes. After a long
argument at the roadside, the officer
insisted that Mr Ionescu’s bike was not
roadworthy and issued him with a €25
(£20) fine.
At least this story had a happy ending, at
least if you overlook the time and aggravation
for Mr. Ionescu.
Our last (but certainly not least) example of
foolish government comes from Nebraska,
though the culprit is the federal government.
But maybe “disconcerting” would be a better word than “foolish.”
It seems that our friends on the left no longer think that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” In a very troubling display of thuggery, the Justice Department dispatched a bureaucrat to “investigate” a satirical parade float.
Here’s some of what was reported by the
Washington Times.
The U.S. Department of Justice has sent a
member of its Community Relations
Service team to investigate a Nebraska
parade float that criticized President
Obama. A Fourth of July parade
floatfeatured at the annual Independence
Day parade in Norfolk sparked criticism
when it depicted a zombie-like figure
resembling Mr. Obama standing outside
an outhouse, which was labeled the
“Obama Presidential Library.” The
Nebraska Democratic Party called the float
one of the “worst shows of racism and
disrespect for the office of the presidency
that Nebraska has ever seen.” The Omaha
World-Herald reported Friday that the
Department of Justice sent a CRSmember
who handles discrimination disputes to a
Thursday meeting about the issue. …The
float’s creator, Dale Remmich, has said the
mannequin depicted himself, not President
Obama. He said he is upset with the
president’s handling of the Veterans
Affairs Department, the World-Herald
reported. “Looking at the float, that
message absolutely did not come through,”
said NAACP chapter president Betty C.
Andrews.
If you look at the picture (and other pictures
that can be seen with an online search), I see
plenty of disrespect for the current president,
but why is that something that requires an
investigation?
There was plenty of disrespect for the
previous president. And there as also
disrespect for the president before that. And
before that. And before…well, you get the
idea.
Disrespect for politicians is called political
speech, and it’s (supposedly) protected by the
First Amendment of the Constitution.
That’s even true if the float’s creator had
unseemly motives such as racism. He would
deserve scorn if that was the case, and
parade organizers would (or at least should)
have the right to exclude him on that basis.
But you don’t lose your general right to free
speech just because you have unpopular and/
or reprehensible opinions. And the federal
government shouldn’t be doing anything that
can be construed as suppressing or
intimidating Americans who want to
“disrespect” the political class.
P.S. Since we’re on the topic of politicized
bureaucracy, we have an update to a recent
column about sleazy behavior at the IRS.
According to the Daily Caller , there’s more
and more evidence of a big fire behind all the
smoke at the IRS.
Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer
hard drive was “scratched” and the data
on it was still recoverable. But the IRS did
not try to recover the data from Lerner’s
hard drive, despite recommendations from
in-house IRS IT experts to outsource the
recovery project. The hard drive was then
“shredded,” according to a court filing the
IRS made to House Ways and Means
Committee investigators.
Gee, how convenient.
I used to dislike the IRS because of the tax
code. Now I have an additional reason to
view the bureaucrats with disdain.
P.P.S. One last comment on the controversy
surrounding the parade float. Racism is an
evil example of collectivist thinking. But it is also reprehensible for folks on the left to
make accusations of racism simply because
they disagree with someone.
US-CHINA STRATEGIC AND ECONOMIC DIALOGUE: LESSONS FOR INDIA
Teshu Singh
The Sixth US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) was held in Beijing from 9-10 July 2014, amid growing tension between the US and China over the maritime disputes of the South China and the East
China Seas. This commentary highlights the major outcomes of the 2014 dialogue and delves into the lessons that can be learnt for the Sino-Indian SED.
Major Outcomes of the Dialogue
More than 300 areas of cooperation were agreed; 116 from the strategic track and 90 from the economic track. With increasing stakes in the bilateral relations, the areas of cooperation between the two countries
have risen from 91 to 116. The list covered almost all the major areas of cooperation. Of the 116 (divided into 8 areas), the outstanding ones were the developments
in the Asia Pacific, the China Garden, health, and climate change.
• Developments in the SCS have brought US-China relations to a standstill. With the increasing US role in the SCS region there is a growing notion of containing China in the region. To dispel this notion from growing
further, China was invited to the RIMPAC exercises this year. Coupled with this was the development in the Asia Pacific; ADIZ in the ECS and the developments in the
Korean Peninsula. All these issues were addressed at length during the dialogue.
• To enhance bilateral relations and to give a boost to people-to-people contact, the idea of China Garden was taken forward and it was agreed that the construction would start by 2016.
• The ten year Framework on Energy and Environment was reviewed and a joint report with sections on “Building the Foundation for Continued Partnership” and
Looking Ahead” was issued to review the progress for five years. The US department of Energy and National Energy Administration (NEA) of China held their first meeting. The fourth Advanced Bio Fuels Forum was agreed to be held in 2015.
• Disagreement between the US and China over many climate issues represent the biggest threat to climate change. Early this year, the US and China agreed to devote efforts and resources to climate change through the S&ED. China is the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide and the US has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
China expects the US to start the process of cutting down on emission first. To take the initiative of the US- China Climate Change Working Group (CCWG) established during the fifth round of the S&ED forward,
discussions were held on the issue of hydroflurocarbon (HFCs). In addition, discussions were held on the regional air quality management, control of fine material, and ozone.
On the economic track, the dialogue took the Bilateral Investment treaty (BIT) a step ahead; it was agreed to identify a ‘negative list’ for negotiations by 2015. This would open up China’s markets to foreign investments and create opportunities for US firms to participate in China.
Lessons Drawn
During the Xi-Obama meeting, it was agreed to come up with a ‘ new type of relationship’. To take this initiative
forward, a lot of positive terms such as ‘common interest’, ‘cooperation’ and ‘constructive’ were used.
The S&ED has shown to the world that two countries with different cultural and social system can cooperate. The dialogue mechanism is a unique platform to
promote understanding, expand consensus, manage differences, improve mutual trust and increase cooperation. It is the most intensive and expansive forum ever between both governments, bringing together dozens of agencies from both sides to discuss the most pressing bilateral issues, from security to energy to human rights. It illustrates the facts that even relations
as complex as US-China can be cooperative if a platform is provided. This is evident from the exhaustive list that has been drawn by expanding consensus and
narrowing their differences. Thus, a dialogue of this nature is important to address the widening mistrust in any bilateral relations and to identify future trends. It has proved that despite problems on the strategic track there can be progress on the economic front, thereby avoiding any kind of deadlock.
There are lessons to be drawn from the present S&ED for the Sino-Indian SED. The US-China S&ED was initially started as a SED and eventually a strategic track was added in 2011. The addition of the strategic
track has broadened the agenda of the dialogue and created an alternate platform to discuss issues that are irresolvable on one track. On similar lines, perhaps a
strategic track can also be considered for the the Sino Indian SED so that security and economic issue scan be linked in a strategic way . It will help in solving the impending issues in bilateral relations, which will further help in preventing the deterioration of bilateral relations.
The Sixth US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) was held in Beijing from 9-10 July 2014, amid growing tension between the US and China over the maritime disputes of the South China and the East
China Seas. This commentary highlights the major outcomes of the 2014 dialogue and delves into the lessons that can be learnt for the Sino-Indian SED.
Major Outcomes of the Dialogue
More than 300 areas of cooperation were agreed; 116 from the strategic track and 90 from the economic track. With increasing stakes in the bilateral relations, the areas of cooperation between the two countries
have risen from 91 to 116. The list covered almost all the major areas of cooperation. Of the 116 (divided into 8 areas), the outstanding ones were the developments
in the Asia Pacific, the China Garden, health, and climate change.
• Developments in the SCS have brought US-China relations to a standstill. With the increasing US role in the SCS region there is a growing notion of containing China in the region. To dispel this notion from growing
further, China was invited to the RIMPAC exercises this year. Coupled with this was the development in the Asia Pacific; ADIZ in the ECS and the developments in the
Korean Peninsula. All these issues were addressed at length during the dialogue.
• To enhance bilateral relations and to give a boost to people-to-people contact, the idea of China Garden was taken forward and it was agreed that the construction would start by 2016.
• The ten year Framework on Energy and Environment was reviewed and a joint report with sections on “Building the Foundation for Continued Partnership” and
Looking Ahead” was issued to review the progress for five years. The US department of Energy and National Energy Administration (NEA) of China held their first meeting. The fourth Advanced Bio Fuels Forum was agreed to be held in 2015.
• Disagreement between the US and China over many climate issues represent the biggest threat to climate change. Early this year, the US and China agreed to devote efforts and resources to climate change through the S&ED. China is the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide and the US has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
China expects the US to start the process of cutting down on emission first. To take the initiative of the US- China Climate Change Working Group (CCWG) established during the fifth round of the S&ED forward,
discussions were held on the issue of hydroflurocarbon (HFCs). In addition, discussions were held on the regional air quality management, control of fine material, and ozone.
On the economic track, the dialogue took the Bilateral Investment treaty (BIT) a step ahead; it was agreed to identify a ‘negative list’ for negotiations by 2015. This would open up China’s markets to foreign investments and create opportunities for US firms to participate in China.
Lessons Drawn
During the Xi-Obama meeting, it was agreed to come up with a ‘ new type of relationship’. To take this initiative
forward, a lot of positive terms such as ‘common interest’, ‘cooperation’ and ‘constructive’ were used.
The S&ED has shown to the world that two countries with different cultural and social system can cooperate. The dialogue mechanism is a unique platform to
promote understanding, expand consensus, manage differences, improve mutual trust and increase cooperation. It is the most intensive and expansive forum ever between both governments, bringing together dozens of agencies from both sides to discuss the most pressing bilateral issues, from security to energy to human rights. It illustrates the facts that even relations
as complex as US-China can be cooperative if a platform is provided. This is evident from the exhaustive list that has been drawn by expanding consensus and
narrowing their differences. Thus, a dialogue of this nature is important to address the widening mistrust in any bilateral relations and to identify future trends. It has proved that despite problems on the strategic track there can be progress on the economic front, thereby avoiding any kind of deadlock.
There are lessons to be drawn from the present S&ED for the Sino-Indian SED. The US-China S&ED was initially started as a SED and eventually a strategic track was added in 2011. The addition of the strategic
track has broadened the agenda of the dialogue and created an alternate platform to discuss issues that are irresolvable on one track. On similar lines, perhaps a
strategic track can also be considered for the the Sino Indian SED so that security and economic issue scan be linked in a strategic way . It will help in solving the impending issues in bilateral relations, which will further help in preventing the deterioration of bilateral relations.
25 Jul 2014
ISRAEL'S MANIFEST DESTINY
John Nantz
You’re either with Israel or you’re for the
Islamo-Nazi. This unqualified statement is
true simply because the nation of Israel is
fighting for survival, battling against
fanatical Islamists who are backed by Iran’s
army of insurgency, Hamas. And, the stated
purpose of Hamas and Iran is to accomplish
the total destruction of the Jewish people and Israel as a nation. It doesn’t get more black and white than that. It's the very definition of anti-semitism.
This should be a no-brainer for our ivy
league educated plutocrats, a real soft ball
foreign policy issue, but it’s not. The Obama
administration is perpetually befuddled by
reality butting in and altering their fairytale
narrative. The Islamists in Gaza and in Iran
aren't impressed by Obama's middle name
nor do they regard mere lip service to their
primitive religion. If you don't subscribe to
their brutal jihad and its genocidal objective, then you're a mortal enemy too. Still, the Obama administration's enlightened aristocrats puzzle at why their dalliance with Islamophilia hasn’t resulted in peace in the Middle East. The answer isn’t as technical as administration wonks would like you to think.
Millennia ago in Canaan, modern day Israel, an Egyptian woman named Hagar gave birth to a son of Abram (Abraham). This child's name was Ishmael. And, with the child came an ancient prophecy, "And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."
Ishmael grew and was blessed and lived in
the ancient region of Param, which is now
Arabia. Abraham had another son Isaac, the
father of Israel. The antipathy between Israel and the peoples of the Levant runs through ancient bloodlines and represents the opposing forces battling for survival (Israel) and dominance (the Palestinians backed by the ancient Persians (Iran)) in the Middle East. This isn't just ancient history, it is the basis for conflict in the Middle East and is readily acknowledged by both sides of the struggle.
However, Israel occupies Palestine by right,
Isaac was the son of promise, and has yet to
fulfill its manifest destiny. Indeed, much of
the constant conflict is the result of Israel's
failure to fulfill its Divinely appointed
manifest destiny. The specific dimensions of the Promised Land have varied in relation to Israel’s obedience to God but the Gaza strip and the West Bank fall within territory that is indisputably Israeli. The territory occupied during the time of King David and King Solomon represents, more or less, Israel's proper boundaries as described in the book of Numbers, chapter 34.
Aside from strictly Biblical arguments, Israel lays claim to Palestine by precedence. Based on secular historical sources, Joshua began his campaign to occupy Palestine in the 13th century B.C., predating the Arab incursion by millennia. Qur’anic literature mentions Joshua as a God fearing man.
Today, Israel's struggle is purely one of self-
defense. Israel responds to a mortal threat
from an immoral and radical element as any individual or as any other nation would.
America's response to Islamist terrorist
attacks was swift and overwhelming,
prosecuted by force of arms where diplomacy was less than useless. Israel faces the same evil that America did on 9/11 and is engaging terrorist elements supported by a not so clandestine Iran.
It is beyond question that Hamas initiated
this latest round of atrocities by lobbing the
Syrian made M-302 and crude, locally made
rockets. Rocket payloads vary depending on
the type of rocket but may, thus far, contain
as much as 350 pounds of explosive.
The Obama administration's hostility toward Israel and lack of positive action is rooted in the administration's sympathy for the Muslim world. Obama has demonstrated an affinity for things Muslim by making statements such as, " The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim
call to prayer ." Obama’s formative years
were spent under the tutelage of his Muslim
father. Furthermore, Obama’s religion was
listed as “Muslim”on his enrollment
documents at Santo Fransiskus Assisis, an
Indonesian Catholic school situated in a
predominantly Muslim country. Despite
Obama's lame attempt at trivializing his
middle name, there is no escaping the
assumption that his allegiances, theologically, are questionable.
Not coincidentally, Obama's closest advisor,
Valerie Jarrett, was born and raised in Iran.
Perhaps, what is most revealing is the
intimate relationship of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) with the
Obama administration. CAIR is a front
organization with documented ties to Hamas. Considering the foregoing with Obama’s loathsome effrontery directed toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and it becomes obvious that Obama is deliberately posturing American foreign policy Islamocentrically.
The liberal mind finds an affinity with the
totalitarianism inherent in Islam. At first
glance, it seems contradictory that liberalism and Islam should find common ground. But, war often makes strange bed-fellows. Here, the old saw, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" holds true. Both liberalism and Islam are at war with Christianity, both on doctrinal grounds. Liberalism is a complex of disjointed maxims adhered by the fanaticism
of self-indulgence. It's an intellectual mask
for lasciviousness, noting more. Its mortal
enemy is Christianity. Islam is fueled by the
doctrine of Jihad and is advanced
intellectually or by force depending on the
degree of orthodoxy. Though Christians are
considered to be "people of the Book,"
ultimately, Christians are infidels that must
be brought to heel.
It's the combination of the Obama
administration's Islamophilia and Obama's
own conviction regarding America's
imperialism that has resulted in the wholesale withdrawal of American influence in the Middle East and in the administration's seeming ambivalence toward the assault on Israel.
Israel occupies territory granted to it by
Divine proclamation. And, no amount of
radical liberal dithering changes that
controlling fact. Hamas is a criminal,
terrorist entity that wages an unjust war on a peaceful people and anything less than full support of Israel in its struggle is a betrayal of justice and an affront to God's Word. It is Israel's destiny, by right, to occupy Palestine and Israel is right to pursue this objective and to defend its people from death and mayhem.
The Obama administration may side with the wicked, but the Bible records an ominous warning for those who do, "And I will bless them that bless thee (Israel), and curse him that curseth thee..." (Genesis 12:3) On this issue, God is on Israel's side and the Obama administration is on the other.
You’re either with Israel or you’re for the
Islamo-Nazi. This unqualified statement is
true simply because the nation of Israel is
fighting for survival, battling against
fanatical Islamists who are backed by Iran’s
army of insurgency, Hamas. And, the stated
purpose of Hamas and Iran is to accomplish
the total destruction of the Jewish people and Israel as a nation. It doesn’t get more black and white than that. It's the very definition of anti-semitism.
This should be a no-brainer for our ivy
league educated plutocrats, a real soft ball
foreign policy issue, but it’s not. The Obama
administration is perpetually befuddled by
reality butting in and altering their fairytale
narrative. The Islamists in Gaza and in Iran
aren't impressed by Obama's middle name
nor do they regard mere lip service to their
primitive religion. If you don't subscribe to
their brutal jihad and its genocidal objective, then you're a mortal enemy too. Still, the Obama administration's enlightened aristocrats puzzle at why their dalliance with Islamophilia hasn’t resulted in peace in the Middle East. The answer isn’t as technical as administration wonks would like you to think.
Millennia ago in Canaan, modern day Israel, an Egyptian woman named Hagar gave birth to a son of Abram (Abraham). This child's name was Ishmael. And, with the child came an ancient prophecy, "And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."
Ishmael grew and was blessed and lived in
the ancient region of Param, which is now
Arabia. Abraham had another son Isaac, the
father of Israel. The antipathy between Israel and the peoples of the Levant runs through ancient bloodlines and represents the opposing forces battling for survival (Israel) and dominance (the Palestinians backed by the ancient Persians (Iran)) in the Middle East. This isn't just ancient history, it is the basis for conflict in the Middle East and is readily acknowledged by both sides of the struggle.
However, Israel occupies Palestine by right,
Isaac was the son of promise, and has yet to
fulfill its manifest destiny. Indeed, much of
the constant conflict is the result of Israel's
failure to fulfill its Divinely appointed
manifest destiny. The specific dimensions of the Promised Land have varied in relation to Israel’s obedience to God but the Gaza strip and the West Bank fall within territory that is indisputably Israeli. The territory occupied during the time of King David and King Solomon represents, more or less, Israel's proper boundaries as described in the book of Numbers, chapter 34.
Aside from strictly Biblical arguments, Israel lays claim to Palestine by precedence. Based on secular historical sources, Joshua began his campaign to occupy Palestine in the 13th century B.C., predating the Arab incursion by millennia. Qur’anic literature mentions Joshua as a God fearing man.
Today, Israel's struggle is purely one of self-
defense. Israel responds to a mortal threat
from an immoral and radical element as any individual or as any other nation would.
America's response to Islamist terrorist
attacks was swift and overwhelming,
prosecuted by force of arms where diplomacy was less than useless. Israel faces the same evil that America did on 9/11 and is engaging terrorist elements supported by a not so clandestine Iran.
It is beyond question that Hamas initiated
this latest round of atrocities by lobbing the
Syrian made M-302 and crude, locally made
rockets. Rocket payloads vary depending on
the type of rocket but may, thus far, contain
as much as 350 pounds of explosive.
The Obama administration's hostility toward Israel and lack of positive action is rooted in the administration's sympathy for the Muslim world. Obama has demonstrated an affinity for things Muslim by making statements such as, " The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim
call to prayer ." Obama’s formative years
were spent under the tutelage of his Muslim
father. Furthermore, Obama’s religion was
listed as “Muslim”on his enrollment
documents at Santo Fransiskus Assisis, an
Indonesian Catholic school situated in a
predominantly Muslim country. Despite
Obama's lame attempt at trivializing his
middle name, there is no escaping the
assumption that his allegiances, theologically, are questionable.
Not coincidentally, Obama's closest advisor,
Valerie Jarrett, was born and raised in Iran.
Perhaps, what is most revealing is the
intimate relationship of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) with the
Obama administration. CAIR is a front
organization with documented ties to Hamas. Considering the foregoing with Obama’s loathsome effrontery directed toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and it becomes obvious that Obama is deliberately posturing American foreign policy Islamocentrically.
The liberal mind finds an affinity with the
totalitarianism inherent in Islam. At first
glance, it seems contradictory that liberalism and Islam should find common ground. But, war often makes strange bed-fellows. Here, the old saw, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" holds true. Both liberalism and Islam are at war with Christianity, both on doctrinal grounds. Liberalism is a complex of disjointed maxims adhered by the fanaticism
of self-indulgence. It's an intellectual mask
for lasciviousness, noting more. Its mortal
enemy is Christianity. Islam is fueled by the
doctrine of Jihad and is advanced
intellectually or by force depending on the
degree of orthodoxy. Though Christians are
considered to be "people of the Book,"
ultimately, Christians are infidels that must
be brought to heel.
It's the combination of the Obama
administration's Islamophilia and Obama's
own conviction regarding America's
imperialism that has resulted in the wholesale withdrawal of American influence in the Middle East and in the administration's seeming ambivalence toward the assault on Israel.
Israel occupies territory granted to it by
Divine proclamation. And, no amount of
radical liberal dithering changes that
controlling fact. Hamas is a criminal,
terrorist entity that wages an unjust war on a peaceful people and anything less than full support of Israel in its struggle is a betrayal of justice and an affront to God's Word. It is Israel's destiny, by right, to occupy Palestine and Israel is right to pursue this objective and to defend its people from death and mayhem.
The Obama administration may side with the wicked, but the Bible records an ominous warning for those who do, "And I will bless them that bless thee (Israel), and curse him that curseth thee..." (Genesis 12:3) On this issue, God is on Israel's side and the Obama administration is on the other.
IS PUTIN WORSE THAN STALIN
Pat Buchanan
In 1933, the Holodomor was playing out in
Ukraine. After the "kulaks," the independent farmers, had been liquidated in the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, a genocidal famine was imposed on Ukraine through seizure of her food production.
Estimates of the dead range from two to nine million souls. Walter Duranty of the New York Times, who called reports of the famine "malignant propaganda," won a Pulitzer for his mendacity.
In November 1933, during the Holodomor,
the greatest liberal of them all, FDR, invited
Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov to receive
official U.S. recognition of his master Stalin's murderous regime.
On August 1, 1991, just four months before
Ukraine declared its independence of Russia, George H. W. Bush warned Kiev's legislature:
"Americans will not support those who seek
independence in order to replace a far-off
tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred."
In short, Ukraine's independence was never
part of America's agenda. From 1933 to 1991, it was never a U.S. vital interest. Bush I was against it.
When then did this issue of whose flag flies
over Donetsk or Crimea become so crucial
that we would arm Ukrainians to fight
Russian-backed rebels and consider giving a NATO war guarantee to Kiev, potentially
bringing us to war with a nuclear-armed
Russia?
From FDR on, U.S. presidents have felt that
America could not remain isolated from the
rulers of the world's largest nation.
Ike invited Khrushchev to tour the USA after he had drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. After Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba, JFK was soon calling for a new detente at American University.
Within weeks of Warsaw Pact armies
crushing the Prague Spring in August 1968,
LBJ was seeking a summit with Premier
Alexei Kosygin.
After excoriating Moscow for the downing of KAL 007 in 1983, that old Cold Warrior
Ronald Reagan was fishing for a summit
meeting. The point: Every president from FDR through George H. W. Bush, even after collisions with Moscow far more serious than this clash over Ukraine, sought to re-engage the men in the Kremlin.
Whatever we thought of the Soviet dictators
who blockaded Berlin, enslaved Eastern
Europe, put rockets in Cuba and armed Arabs to attack Israel, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush 1 all sought to engage Russia's rulers.
Avoidance of a catastrophic war demanded
engagement. How then can we explain the clamor of today's U.S. foreign policy elite to confront, isolate, and cripple Russia, and make of Putin a moral and political leper with whom honorable statesmen can never deal?
What has Putin done to rival the forced
famine in Ukraine that starved to death
millions, the slaughter of the Hungarian
rebels or the Warsaw Pact's crushing of
Czechoslovakia?
In Ukraine, Putin responded to a U.S. backed coup, which ousted a democratically elected political ally of Russia, with a bloodless seizure of the pro-Russian Crimea where Moscow has berthed its Black Sea fleet since the 18th century. This is routine Big Power geopolitics.
And though Putin put an army on Ukraine's
border, he did not order it to invade or
occupy Luhansk or Donetsk. Does this really look like a drive to reassemble either the Russian Empire of the Romanovs or the Soviet Empire of Stalin that reached to the Elbe?
As for the downing of the Malaysian airliner, Putin did not order that. Sen. John Cornyn says U.S. intelligence has not yet provided any "smoking gun" that ties the missile-firing to Russia.
Intel intercepts seem to indicate that
Ukrainian rebels thought they had hit an
Antonov military transport plane.
Yet, today, the leading foreign policy voice of the Republican Party, Sen. John McCain, calls Obama's White House "cowardly" for not arming the Ukrainians to fight the Russian- backed separatists.
But suppose Putin responded to the arrival of U.S. weapons in Kiev by occupying Eastern Ukraine. What would we do then?
John Bolton has the answer: Bring Ukraine
into NATO.
Translation: The U.S. and NATO should go to war with Russia, if necessary, over Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea, though no U.S. president has ever thought Ukraine itself was worth a war with Russia.
What motivates Putin seems simple and
understandable. He wants the respect due a
world power. He sees himself as protector of the Russians left behind in his "near abroad."
He relishes playing Big Power politics.
History is full of such men. He allows U.S. overflights to Afghanistan, cooperates in the P5+1 on Iran, helped us rid Syria of chemical weapons, launches our
astronauts into orbit, collaborates in the war on terror and disagrees on Crimea and Syria. But what motivates those on our side who seek every opportunity to restart the Cold War?
Is it not a desperate desire to appear once
again Churchillian, once again heroic, once
again relevant, as they saw themselves in the Cold War that ended so long ago?
Who is the real problem here?
In 1933, the Holodomor was playing out in
Ukraine. After the "kulaks," the independent farmers, had been liquidated in the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, a genocidal famine was imposed on Ukraine through seizure of her food production.
Estimates of the dead range from two to nine million souls. Walter Duranty of the New York Times, who called reports of the famine "malignant propaganda," won a Pulitzer for his mendacity.
In November 1933, during the Holodomor,
the greatest liberal of them all, FDR, invited
Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov to receive
official U.S. recognition of his master Stalin's murderous regime.
On August 1, 1991, just four months before
Ukraine declared its independence of Russia, George H. W. Bush warned Kiev's legislature:
"Americans will not support those who seek
independence in order to replace a far-off
tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred."
In short, Ukraine's independence was never
part of America's agenda. From 1933 to 1991, it was never a U.S. vital interest. Bush I was against it.
When then did this issue of whose flag flies
over Donetsk or Crimea become so crucial
that we would arm Ukrainians to fight
Russian-backed rebels and consider giving a NATO war guarantee to Kiev, potentially
bringing us to war with a nuclear-armed
Russia?
From FDR on, U.S. presidents have felt that
America could not remain isolated from the
rulers of the world's largest nation.
Ike invited Khrushchev to tour the USA after he had drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. After Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba, JFK was soon calling for a new detente at American University.
Within weeks of Warsaw Pact armies
crushing the Prague Spring in August 1968,
LBJ was seeking a summit with Premier
Alexei Kosygin.
After excoriating Moscow for the downing of KAL 007 in 1983, that old Cold Warrior
Ronald Reagan was fishing for a summit
meeting. The point: Every president from FDR through George H. W. Bush, even after collisions with Moscow far more serious than this clash over Ukraine, sought to re-engage the men in the Kremlin.
Whatever we thought of the Soviet dictators
who blockaded Berlin, enslaved Eastern
Europe, put rockets in Cuba and armed Arabs to attack Israel, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush 1 all sought to engage Russia's rulers.
Avoidance of a catastrophic war demanded
engagement. How then can we explain the clamor of today's U.S. foreign policy elite to confront, isolate, and cripple Russia, and make of Putin a moral and political leper with whom honorable statesmen can never deal?
What has Putin done to rival the forced
famine in Ukraine that starved to death
millions, the slaughter of the Hungarian
rebels or the Warsaw Pact's crushing of
Czechoslovakia?
In Ukraine, Putin responded to a U.S. backed coup, which ousted a democratically elected political ally of Russia, with a bloodless seizure of the pro-Russian Crimea where Moscow has berthed its Black Sea fleet since the 18th century. This is routine Big Power geopolitics.
And though Putin put an army on Ukraine's
border, he did not order it to invade or
occupy Luhansk or Donetsk. Does this really look like a drive to reassemble either the Russian Empire of the Romanovs or the Soviet Empire of Stalin that reached to the Elbe?
As for the downing of the Malaysian airliner, Putin did not order that. Sen. John Cornyn says U.S. intelligence has not yet provided any "smoking gun" that ties the missile-firing to Russia.
Intel intercepts seem to indicate that
Ukrainian rebels thought they had hit an
Antonov military transport plane.
Yet, today, the leading foreign policy voice of the Republican Party, Sen. John McCain, calls Obama's White House "cowardly" for not arming the Ukrainians to fight the Russian- backed separatists.
But suppose Putin responded to the arrival of U.S. weapons in Kiev by occupying Eastern Ukraine. What would we do then?
John Bolton has the answer: Bring Ukraine
into NATO.
Translation: The U.S. and NATO should go to war with Russia, if necessary, over Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea, though no U.S. president has ever thought Ukraine itself was worth a war with Russia.
What motivates Putin seems simple and
understandable. He wants the respect due a
world power. He sees himself as protector of the Russians left behind in his "near abroad."
He relishes playing Big Power politics.
History is full of such men. He allows U.S. overflights to Afghanistan, cooperates in the P5+1 on Iran, helped us rid Syria of chemical weapons, launches our
astronauts into orbit, collaborates in the war on terror and disagrees on Crimea and Syria. But what motivates those on our side who seek every opportunity to restart the Cold War?
Is it not a desperate desire to appear once
again Churchillian, once again heroic, once
again relevant, as they saw themselves in the Cold War that ended so long ago?
Who is the real problem here?
HAMAS' TRIUMPH
Mona Charen
Hamas, with perhaps unwitting help from
President Barack Obama, is achieving its war aim: to legitimize Islamic supremacism and Jew-hatred, and take it global. Jews are no longer safe in Europe or even in some places in the U.S.
Who now recalls that when Hamas was
elected, the world responded with disgust?
Hamas was on everyone's terrorist list.
Flailing, the European Union, Russia, the
United Nations and United States asked
Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce terror
and agree to live by previous agreements
between Israel and the Palestinian National
Authority. Hamas refused. Nevertheless, its
image is much improved.
Hamas enjoys killing Israelis and Jews -- "By
God, we will not leave one Jew in Palestine,"
one of its leaders, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, told
Al Jazeera -- but thanks to Israel's self-
defense, opportunities for that pleasure are
limited. Hamas has successfully terrorized
southern Israel -- and more recently, central
Israel -- with its deliberate missile attacks on civilians, and they take satisfaction in that.
But their chief aim and greatest victory is in
forcing Israelis to kill Palestinians. It's almost a matter of indifference to Hamas whether a dead child is an Israeli killed by a Hamas rocket deliberately aimed at a village or a Palestinian child killed because Israel returned fire and the launcher was located in a kindergarten. If it's the latter, the child's image becomes part of the psychological war on Israel.
This script has been followed year after year. Elite world opinion seems incapable of seeing the truth -- that every dead Palestinian civilian (and, of course, every Israeli) is a victim of Hamas. Maybe it's just too pleasurable to indulge in guilt-free anti-
Semitism. Notice that attacks in Europe have targeted synagogues, not Israeli embassies.
Hamas has been successful at libeling Israel
and stirring anti-Semitism globally. Obama
ought to speak for our values and forcefully
push back against this dark, spreading stain, but he doesn't. He hasn't spoken up for Christians persecuted throughout the world, either.
Rather than denouncing Hamas' depravity, he has issued tepid endorsements of Israel's
right to self-defense (undermined by
privately delivered warnings). Canada's
Stephen Harper, who has lately seemed, by
default, the leader of the free world, was
stalwart. "It is evident that Hamas is
deliberately using human shields to further
terror in the region." In light of that, "Canada calls on its allies and partners to recognize that these terrorist acts are unacceptable and that solidarity with Israel is the best way of stopping the conflict."
Obama, by contrast, has slid into the role
Hamas practically scripted for him, calling
the Israeli prime minister twice in three days to express his "serious concern about the growing number of casualties."
No country on Earth takes more care to
minimize civilian casualties than Israel. It
sends text messages, phone calls and even
"taps on the roof" (small firecrackers) to
warn residents. And no government on Earth does more to ensure that civilians will be casualties than Hamas. "They have nowhere to go!" reported a U.N. official from Gaza on PBS television. That's because rather than building bomb shelters, schools or homes with the 800,000 tons of concrete at its disposal, Hamas has built miles of highly sophisticated, reinforced tunnels to infiltrate Israel. The world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai, Tablet Magazine notes, used only 110,000 tons of concrete.
Israel has taken precautions about civilians,
despite being under ceaseless rocket and
terror infiltration attack from Hamas for
years. Obama understands the need to fight terror.
He has conducted a drone war against
suspected terrorists throughout his term. The Long War Journal estimates that U.S. drones have killed 2,555 leaders and activists in terrorist groups as well as 153 civilians in Pakistan alone. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that drones have killed between 2,528 and 3,648 individuals, including as many as 948 civilians.
The U.S. has not experienced a large-scale
terror attack since 2001. Obama has
dispatched drones not in retaliation for
attacks but on suspicion that the targets were terrorists plotting future attacks. "Turns out I'm really good at killing people," Obama boasted to a journalist. "Didn't know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine."
In May of 2013, the president defended his
actions at the National Defense University:
"Let us remember that the terrorists we are
after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes."
Benjamin Netanyahu might quote those
words back to him, when he next phones.
Hamas, with perhaps unwitting help from
President Barack Obama, is achieving its war aim: to legitimize Islamic supremacism and Jew-hatred, and take it global. Jews are no longer safe in Europe or even in some places in the U.S.
Who now recalls that when Hamas was
elected, the world responded with disgust?
Hamas was on everyone's terrorist list.
Flailing, the European Union, Russia, the
United Nations and United States asked
Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce terror
and agree to live by previous agreements
between Israel and the Palestinian National
Authority. Hamas refused. Nevertheless, its
image is much improved.
Hamas enjoys killing Israelis and Jews -- "By
God, we will not leave one Jew in Palestine,"
one of its leaders, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, told
Al Jazeera -- but thanks to Israel's self-
defense, opportunities for that pleasure are
limited. Hamas has successfully terrorized
southern Israel -- and more recently, central
Israel -- with its deliberate missile attacks on civilians, and they take satisfaction in that.
But their chief aim and greatest victory is in
forcing Israelis to kill Palestinians. It's almost a matter of indifference to Hamas whether a dead child is an Israeli killed by a Hamas rocket deliberately aimed at a village or a Palestinian child killed because Israel returned fire and the launcher was located in a kindergarten. If it's the latter, the child's image becomes part of the psychological war on Israel.
This script has been followed year after year. Elite world opinion seems incapable of seeing the truth -- that every dead Palestinian civilian (and, of course, every Israeli) is a victim of Hamas. Maybe it's just too pleasurable to indulge in guilt-free anti-
Semitism. Notice that attacks in Europe have targeted synagogues, not Israeli embassies.
Hamas has been successful at libeling Israel
and stirring anti-Semitism globally. Obama
ought to speak for our values and forcefully
push back against this dark, spreading stain, but he doesn't. He hasn't spoken up for Christians persecuted throughout the world, either.
Rather than denouncing Hamas' depravity, he has issued tepid endorsements of Israel's
right to self-defense (undermined by
privately delivered warnings). Canada's
Stephen Harper, who has lately seemed, by
default, the leader of the free world, was
stalwart. "It is evident that Hamas is
deliberately using human shields to further
terror in the region." In light of that, "Canada calls on its allies and partners to recognize that these terrorist acts are unacceptable and that solidarity with Israel is the best way of stopping the conflict."
Obama, by contrast, has slid into the role
Hamas practically scripted for him, calling
the Israeli prime minister twice in three days to express his "serious concern about the growing number of casualties."
No country on Earth takes more care to
minimize civilian casualties than Israel. It
sends text messages, phone calls and even
"taps on the roof" (small firecrackers) to
warn residents. And no government on Earth does more to ensure that civilians will be casualties than Hamas. "They have nowhere to go!" reported a U.N. official from Gaza on PBS television. That's because rather than building bomb shelters, schools or homes with the 800,000 tons of concrete at its disposal, Hamas has built miles of highly sophisticated, reinforced tunnels to infiltrate Israel. The world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai, Tablet Magazine notes, used only 110,000 tons of concrete.
Israel has taken precautions about civilians,
despite being under ceaseless rocket and
terror infiltration attack from Hamas for
years. Obama understands the need to fight terror.
He has conducted a drone war against
suspected terrorists throughout his term. The Long War Journal estimates that U.S. drones have killed 2,555 leaders and activists in terrorist groups as well as 153 civilians in Pakistan alone. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that drones have killed between 2,528 and 3,648 individuals, including as many as 948 civilians.
The U.S. has not experienced a large-scale
terror attack since 2001. Obama has
dispatched drones not in retaliation for
attacks but on suspicion that the targets were terrorists plotting future attacks. "Turns out I'm really good at killing people," Obama boasted to a journalist. "Didn't know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine."
In May of 2013, the president defended his
actions at the National Defense University:
"Let us remember that the terrorists we are
after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes."
Benjamin Netanyahu might quote those
words back to him, when he next phones.
JAMMU AND KASHMIR: THE NEW BATTLE
Shujaat Bukhari
With Congress and National Conference deciding to go alone in the forthcoming Assembly elections, the electoral battle in Jammu and Kashmir is poised for an
interesting contest. In both the Kashmir and Jammu divisions a triangular contest could throw up some surprises. The ruling coalition partners are, however, making some “thought provoking” statements as to why they parted ways. The NC holds the view that it was not possible to transfer the votes of their respective cadres but Congress has made some interesting points.
Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Saifuddin Soz blamed the government inefficiency and corruption for the debacle both the parties had to taste in the recent
parliamentary elections.
Generally the coalition parties should have been highlighting the joint achievements and even if they had to fight elections on their own, the reasons could be different. But this is perhaps the only coalition in India that is parting ways on the basis of misgovernance. Soz blames the government, of which his party is a part, as
corrupt. That means whole lot is indulging in corruption.
But if NC leaders are to be believed they maintain that Congress ministers were more corrupt. One thing is clear that both NC and Congress have vindicated the
people’s verdict they gave in recent elections. It reversed all the decisions it had taken in past five years proving that it had no competence to comprehend what was good for state. Coalition government’s failure to tackle the corruption was main reason for misgovernance and that is why the people rejected them in Lok Sabha elections. In normal circumstances it
would have been ideal for both parties to join hands and go to polls with the “achievements” of six years but they are instead blaming each other for the failures.
Now that the scene is clear all the parties have their knives out to realize the dream of governing the state until 2020. The magic number of “44” is lurking in the minds of these political parties and some of them claim they will achieve it on their own. What is surprising is that the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party has been talking more about “44” given the fact that the results of recently held parliament elections bolstered its confidence. The opposition People’s Democratic Party, though not publicly, is also counting the same figure
and is confident to repeat the performance it showed in the parliamentary elections.
But Congress and NC are two parties, which are yet to make a tall claim of reaching the magic number.
Demoralized with the rout they faced in the elections, they even changed the language generally used to nail the opponents. Whatever way the campaign goes but
one thing is clear that the dynamics of the electoral politics has certainly changed in the state. With people making a beeline to join PDP, it has become clear that
the results of the parliamentary elections are being taken seriously and the party is rather expected to repeat the performance in the Assembly elections.
It is very difficult to predict any clear situation as the previous elections were fought for parliamentary seats and the forthcoming one is meant for Assembly.
Though not much difference is expected, it largely is the election, which has lot to do with the local candidate, whether from NC, PDP, Congress or BJP. If the reports are to be believed, one of the strongest candidates of Congress in Jammu shut his eyes for people voting for BJP candidate in parliament elections thus giving a
stunning lead of over 50,000 to Jugal Kishore in this particular segment. But when it comes to his own election it may be different even as it will be difficult for
him to reverse the trend to which he contributed himself.
If the claims of BJP and the independent assessments are taken into consideration, Modi wave still exists in Jammu and in case the BJP’s plan of sending 22 Union Ministers and the Prime Minister for campaigning
materializes it surely will have its own impact. BJP is trying its best to appease its vote bank by continuously talking about the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits, refugees and the other contentious issues to lure the
voters ahead of the Assembly elections. It may not be in a position to fulfill its wish list but it surely will gain and that will be at the cost of Congress and to some extent the NC. It has also started roping in some new
faces in Valley to make inroads. It’s working on an arithmetic that may suit it in view of boycott, particularly in Srinagar city. Riding on the goodwill the party has among KPs it is concentrating on a few seats in Srinagar so that the bulk of KPs would vote for its
candidates who could sail through in view of near total boycott.
In case the trend that had been set after 2002 in Jammu and Kashmir gets reversed, Congress will no longer be in a position of being the “King Maker” in state politics. Since 2002 the state has seen the coalition politics thriving and smaller parties and even individuals emerging as potential gainers. Congress with substantial numbers played the role of having the key to
formation of governments. It did pave way for Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to become Chief Minister in 2002 despite his party PDP having only 16 members against Congress’s 20. And in 2008 it joined hands with NC to
form the government. In both these tenures Congress used, rather misused, its position to get the maximum.
First by running away with important and “lucrative” portfolios and then “black mailing” the chief ministers of PDP and NC on almost every issue. This time, however, Congress seems to be on the back foot as the rout the party faced at national level and in
the six parliamentary constituencies of J&K has given a severe jolt to its morale. Political pundits are not predicting immediate revival in its fortunes. If that
would be the case then a new dynamic will be thrown up in the state. But it depends a lot on how NC will fare in the assembly elections. If it goes down drastically on its existing number of 28, that would be
advantage PDP.
The concern rather a threat that will emerge in case voters do not prefer both NC and Congress is that BJP will have an edge in deciding the future coalition. The
coalitions even with Congress, presumably the secular party, have turned out to be very unfriendly for Kashmir.
If one would go to the extent of saying that Congress ministers have proved to be more communal than BJP it would be fair. In their 12 years of rule, Congress ministers, mostly from Jammu have not allowed any
Muslim to hold an important position such as that of a head of a department or equivalent in Jammu region.
There are many more examples like that. But in case a single party from Kashmir does not get a comfortable majority on its own, then it will be at the mercy of BJP
and other forces who are essentially nurturing anti- Kashmir feeling in Jammu.
Imagine BJP winning nearly 20 seats and a party from Kashmir left with no choice but to join hands with them to form a government. BJP is eyeing 44 seats, which is
very difficult to comprehend at this stage. Since NC conceded its whole space in Jammu to Congress, the voters both Muslims and those who don’t support BJP’s
agenda were left with no choice but to go with them.
Congress’s misrule and its failure to replace a regional party like NC in Jammu paved way more for BJP than for another regional party PDP, which has surely improved its vote bank in the region. In both Kashmir
and Jammu it is going to be a triangular contest with BJP, Congress and NC fighting a tough battle in Jammu along with PDP in certain areas, in Kashmir the battle is
mainly between NC and PDP with Congress having strong base in few constituencies.
While all the prophecies about the results are premature at this stage, 44 and 2020 are important figurative signs for the health of Jammu and Kashmir for next six years.
With Congress and National Conference deciding to go alone in the forthcoming Assembly elections, the electoral battle in Jammu and Kashmir is poised for an
interesting contest. In both the Kashmir and Jammu divisions a triangular contest could throw up some surprises. The ruling coalition partners are, however, making some “thought provoking” statements as to why they parted ways. The NC holds the view that it was not possible to transfer the votes of their respective cadres but Congress has made some interesting points.
Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Saifuddin Soz blamed the government inefficiency and corruption for the debacle both the parties had to taste in the recent
parliamentary elections.
Generally the coalition parties should have been highlighting the joint achievements and even if they had to fight elections on their own, the reasons could be different. But this is perhaps the only coalition in India that is parting ways on the basis of misgovernance. Soz blames the government, of which his party is a part, as
corrupt. That means whole lot is indulging in corruption.
But if NC leaders are to be believed they maintain that Congress ministers were more corrupt. One thing is clear that both NC and Congress have vindicated the
people’s verdict they gave in recent elections. It reversed all the decisions it had taken in past five years proving that it had no competence to comprehend what was good for state. Coalition government’s failure to tackle the corruption was main reason for misgovernance and that is why the people rejected them in Lok Sabha elections. In normal circumstances it
would have been ideal for both parties to join hands and go to polls with the “achievements” of six years but they are instead blaming each other for the failures.
Now that the scene is clear all the parties have their knives out to realize the dream of governing the state until 2020. The magic number of “44” is lurking in the minds of these political parties and some of them claim they will achieve it on their own. What is surprising is that the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party has been talking more about “44” given the fact that the results of recently held parliament elections bolstered its confidence. The opposition People’s Democratic Party, though not publicly, is also counting the same figure
and is confident to repeat the performance it showed in the parliamentary elections.
But Congress and NC are two parties, which are yet to make a tall claim of reaching the magic number.
Demoralized with the rout they faced in the elections, they even changed the language generally used to nail the opponents. Whatever way the campaign goes but
one thing is clear that the dynamics of the electoral politics has certainly changed in the state. With people making a beeline to join PDP, it has become clear that
the results of the parliamentary elections are being taken seriously and the party is rather expected to repeat the performance in the Assembly elections.
It is very difficult to predict any clear situation as the previous elections were fought for parliamentary seats and the forthcoming one is meant for Assembly.
Though not much difference is expected, it largely is the election, which has lot to do with the local candidate, whether from NC, PDP, Congress or BJP. If the reports are to be believed, one of the strongest candidates of Congress in Jammu shut his eyes for people voting for BJP candidate in parliament elections thus giving a
stunning lead of over 50,000 to Jugal Kishore in this particular segment. But when it comes to his own election it may be different even as it will be difficult for
him to reverse the trend to which he contributed himself.
If the claims of BJP and the independent assessments are taken into consideration, Modi wave still exists in Jammu and in case the BJP’s plan of sending 22 Union Ministers and the Prime Minister for campaigning
materializes it surely will have its own impact. BJP is trying its best to appease its vote bank by continuously talking about the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits, refugees and the other contentious issues to lure the
voters ahead of the Assembly elections. It may not be in a position to fulfill its wish list but it surely will gain and that will be at the cost of Congress and to some extent the NC. It has also started roping in some new
faces in Valley to make inroads. It’s working on an arithmetic that may suit it in view of boycott, particularly in Srinagar city. Riding on the goodwill the party has among KPs it is concentrating on a few seats in Srinagar so that the bulk of KPs would vote for its
candidates who could sail through in view of near total boycott.
In case the trend that had been set after 2002 in Jammu and Kashmir gets reversed, Congress will no longer be in a position of being the “King Maker” in state politics. Since 2002 the state has seen the coalition politics thriving and smaller parties and even individuals emerging as potential gainers. Congress with substantial numbers played the role of having the key to
formation of governments. It did pave way for Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to become Chief Minister in 2002 despite his party PDP having only 16 members against Congress’s 20. And in 2008 it joined hands with NC to
form the government. In both these tenures Congress used, rather misused, its position to get the maximum.
First by running away with important and “lucrative” portfolios and then “black mailing” the chief ministers of PDP and NC on almost every issue. This time, however, Congress seems to be on the back foot as the rout the party faced at national level and in
the six parliamentary constituencies of J&K has given a severe jolt to its morale. Political pundits are not predicting immediate revival in its fortunes. If that
would be the case then a new dynamic will be thrown up in the state. But it depends a lot on how NC will fare in the assembly elections. If it goes down drastically on its existing number of 28, that would be
advantage PDP.
The concern rather a threat that will emerge in case voters do not prefer both NC and Congress is that BJP will have an edge in deciding the future coalition. The
coalitions even with Congress, presumably the secular party, have turned out to be very unfriendly for Kashmir.
If one would go to the extent of saying that Congress ministers have proved to be more communal than BJP it would be fair. In their 12 years of rule, Congress ministers, mostly from Jammu have not allowed any
Muslim to hold an important position such as that of a head of a department or equivalent in Jammu region.
There are many more examples like that. But in case a single party from Kashmir does not get a comfortable majority on its own, then it will be at the mercy of BJP
and other forces who are essentially nurturing anti- Kashmir feeling in Jammu.
Imagine BJP winning nearly 20 seats and a party from Kashmir left with no choice but to join hands with them to form a government. BJP is eyeing 44 seats, which is
very difficult to comprehend at this stage. Since NC conceded its whole space in Jammu to Congress, the voters both Muslims and those who don’t support BJP’s
agenda were left with no choice but to go with them.
Congress’s misrule and its failure to replace a regional party like NC in Jammu paved way more for BJP than for another regional party PDP, which has surely improved its vote bank in the region. In both Kashmir
and Jammu it is going to be a triangular contest with BJP, Congress and NC fighting a tough battle in Jammu along with PDP in certain areas, in Kashmir the battle is
mainly between NC and PDP with Congress having strong base in few constituencies.
While all the prophecies about the results are premature at this stage, 44 and 2020 are important figurative signs for the health of Jammu and Kashmir for next six years.
RISE OF DEMOCRATIC ANARCHISTS
D Suba Chandran
Democratic anarchists? How can anyone be a democrat, and yet be an anarchist? How else can one explain what Imran Khan is attempting to impose in Pakistan, one
year after accepting the election results? How else can one explain what Tahirul Qadri is attempting to pursue as an option against the status quo? In India, after a
successful elections to the State Legislative Assembly in New Delhi, Kejriwal attempted something similar, but as a Chief Minister, he proudly called himself in public as
an anarchist. A similar example could be cited in Afghanistan as well, as Abdulah Abdullah attempted to form a parallel government when he came to know that
the election commission results were not in favour of his claim.
Why do our leaders, who earn the trust of many of us (as could be seen from the votes polled in Pakistan for Imran Khan, and for Kejriwal in Delhi) suddenly want to upset the system through which they came up? Though Imran Khan and his party – the PTI have been contesting elections for the last two decades, never before he and his party received so many votes in the elections, and also so many seats at the National Assembly and the provincial assembly of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa. In fact his party’s performance was sufficient enough to form a government in the KP.
Similarly, Kejriwal’s performance in Delhi legislative assembly elections was sufficient enough to form the government. But then, they were not satisfied with what they got. An un-corrupt system, good and clean
electoral structure, and an inclusive political process – undoubtedly are good ends, and everyone deserves to reach that goal.
But at what costs and through what means? Through revolutions, million marches and anarchist methodologies? If the end goal is an establishment of a system with inclusive politics, such an objective should be pursued through an evolutionary process, with adequate consultations with everyone. More importantly, the process should be positive and acceptable to everyone. Any system achieved through non-democratic,
extortion and nihilist means is unlikely to remain stable.
Ends will never justify the means here.
In Pakistan, Imran Khan has to be read along with another self proclaimed reformer – Tahirul Qadri, a cleric who wants electoral reforms to change the
present system in Pakistan, which he considers as corrupt and moth-eaten. He wants to organise million men marches and bring a revolution.
Are they being immature? Or are they being impatient? Perhaps they see a clear picture, which appears convoluted and complicated for the rest of us. What do they want? And what do they intend to achieve?
One explanation could be – perhaps there is an over confidence about their perceived role in reforming the political system and establish a true democracy. Unfortunately such leaders fail to understand that the
human history has witnessed numerous such political messiahs, who presumed that they are the ultimate choice of destiny and history. To their dismay, the history has withstood such claims and silently buried
them and bulldozed their reputation under its feet.
Second explanation could be impatience. These leaders just do not have the patience to achieve what they want. Or maybe they consider a particular momentum
as the most opportune, which should not be allowed to pass by. Remember the timing of Tahirual Qadri and Imran Khan; Qadri’s earlier attempt to change the system came just before the elections, with Zardari and
the PPP at their weakest moment.
Today, perhaps Qadri and Imran Khan consider that the political situation as the most opportune, with growing dis-satisfaction against Nawaz Sharif, and more
importantly the nature of civil-military relations at this juncture. The military and its ISI are certainly upset with the Musharraf trial. Though there is a strong anti- Musharraf sentiment within the civil society, media and even amongst the legal community, the military is unlikely to remain a mute spectator and watch its
former Chief being harassed and hounded in the courts and in the media. The Establishment was also unhappy with the political dialogue vis-a-vis Pakistani Taliban.
Both these issues did affect the civil-military relations. For Qadri and Imran Khan, this was an opportunity to strike. So why not? The calculations are perhaps, that the military and intelligence agencies may even silently support such a political onslaught. Obviously, all in the name of revolution and protection of democracy. A last and final reason could be – that these leaders are
playing to a script, already written by the Establishment.
For the reasons mentioned above, the military and intelligence agencies are unhappy with Nawaz Sharif. Worse was the public confrontation that one of the
leading news groups – the Jang picked up, targeting the serving ISI, after one of its lead anchor and senior journalist – Hamid Mir was attacked. Both Mir and his
employers were convinced it was carried out by the intelligence agencies and started a public campaign against the ISI. Never before in the history of Pakistan, was the ISI hounded by the media and civilians in
public. The intelligence agencies went into a damage control mode. Suddenly, a section within the media and in the civil society started talking about the virtues of the
military and the ISI, and their services to the nation.
Nawaz Sharif was seen as soft towards the Jang group, and perhaps the Establishment considered him as a part of the anti-ISI campaign. The announcements of Imran
Khan and Tahirul Qadri came precisely during this period. It appears that both are being used as a trump by the military to get back at Sharif. Though such “revolutions” and “million men marches” with 50,000 people may not end up overthrowing Sharif
government, it may very well create political instability.
Such a development may even suit the military. In the long run, such a confrontational approach would neither
benefit the democratic process, nor those how are planning to pursue it such as Qadri and Khan. It was after a long chequered history, Pakistan today is witnessing a process of democracy. For the first time in
its history, an elected government completed its term, organised elections and handed it over the next government. The process is not complete and democracy in Pakistan is still work in progress.
Instead of strengthening the process, Qadri and Khan may end up derailing it. In the long run, ironically, such an outcome would not be helping these two leaders as well. They should look at Kejriwal and what happened to him, when he decided to be an anarchist and wreck the system that had elected him. If there is an election again, the AAP may not get that kind response from the people. In Pakistan’s case, Qadri and Khan have an additional disadvantage; the Establishment, which seems to be silently backing their onslaught, will not blink twice to overthrow them. Not long ago, Nawaz
Sharif was considered as their man! Instead of organising revolutions and million men marches, the leaders should help the process to continue. Such a process is bound to bring them up.
Democratic anarchists? How can anyone be a democrat, and yet be an anarchist? How else can one explain what Imran Khan is attempting to impose in Pakistan, one
year after accepting the election results? How else can one explain what Tahirul Qadri is attempting to pursue as an option against the status quo? In India, after a
successful elections to the State Legislative Assembly in New Delhi, Kejriwal attempted something similar, but as a Chief Minister, he proudly called himself in public as
an anarchist. A similar example could be cited in Afghanistan as well, as Abdulah Abdullah attempted to form a parallel government when he came to know that
the election commission results were not in favour of his claim.
Why do our leaders, who earn the trust of many of us (as could be seen from the votes polled in Pakistan for Imran Khan, and for Kejriwal in Delhi) suddenly want to upset the system through which they came up? Though Imran Khan and his party – the PTI have been contesting elections for the last two decades, never before he and his party received so many votes in the elections, and also so many seats at the National Assembly and the provincial assembly of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa. In fact his party’s performance was sufficient enough to form a government in the KP.
Similarly, Kejriwal’s performance in Delhi legislative assembly elections was sufficient enough to form the government. But then, they were not satisfied with what they got. An un-corrupt system, good and clean
electoral structure, and an inclusive political process – undoubtedly are good ends, and everyone deserves to reach that goal.
But at what costs and through what means? Through revolutions, million marches and anarchist methodologies? If the end goal is an establishment of a system with inclusive politics, such an objective should be pursued through an evolutionary process, with adequate consultations with everyone. More importantly, the process should be positive and acceptable to everyone. Any system achieved through non-democratic,
extortion and nihilist means is unlikely to remain stable.
Ends will never justify the means here.
In Pakistan, Imran Khan has to be read along with another self proclaimed reformer – Tahirul Qadri, a cleric who wants electoral reforms to change the
present system in Pakistan, which he considers as corrupt and moth-eaten. He wants to organise million men marches and bring a revolution.
Are they being immature? Or are they being impatient? Perhaps they see a clear picture, which appears convoluted and complicated for the rest of us. What do they want? And what do they intend to achieve?
One explanation could be – perhaps there is an over confidence about their perceived role in reforming the political system and establish a true democracy. Unfortunately such leaders fail to understand that the
human history has witnessed numerous such political messiahs, who presumed that they are the ultimate choice of destiny and history. To their dismay, the history has withstood such claims and silently buried
them and bulldozed their reputation under its feet.
Second explanation could be impatience. These leaders just do not have the patience to achieve what they want. Or maybe they consider a particular momentum
as the most opportune, which should not be allowed to pass by. Remember the timing of Tahirual Qadri and Imran Khan; Qadri’s earlier attempt to change the system came just before the elections, with Zardari and
the PPP at their weakest moment.
Today, perhaps Qadri and Imran Khan consider that the political situation as the most opportune, with growing dis-satisfaction against Nawaz Sharif, and more
importantly the nature of civil-military relations at this juncture. The military and its ISI are certainly upset with the Musharraf trial. Though there is a strong anti- Musharraf sentiment within the civil society, media and even amongst the legal community, the military is unlikely to remain a mute spectator and watch its
former Chief being harassed and hounded in the courts and in the media. The Establishment was also unhappy with the political dialogue vis-a-vis Pakistani Taliban.
Both these issues did affect the civil-military relations. For Qadri and Imran Khan, this was an opportunity to strike. So why not? The calculations are perhaps, that the military and intelligence agencies may even silently support such a political onslaught. Obviously, all in the name of revolution and protection of democracy. A last and final reason could be – that these leaders are
playing to a script, already written by the Establishment.
For the reasons mentioned above, the military and intelligence agencies are unhappy with Nawaz Sharif. Worse was the public confrontation that one of the
leading news groups – the Jang picked up, targeting the serving ISI, after one of its lead anchor and senior journalist – Hamid Mir was attacked. Both Mir and his
employers were convinced it was carried out by the intelligence agencies and started a public campaign against the ISI. Never before in the history of Pakistan, was the ISI hounded by the media and civilians in
public. The intelligence agencies went into a damage control mode. Suddenly, a section within the media and in the civil society started talking about the virtues of the
military and the ISI, and their services to the nation.
Nawaz Sharif was seen as soft towards the Jang group, and perhaps the Establishment considered him as a part of the anti-ISI campaign. The announcements of Imran
Khan and Tahirul Qadri came precisely during this period. It appears that both are being used as a trump by the military to get back at Sharif. Though such “revolutions” and “million men marches” with 50,000 people may not end up overthrowing Sharif
government, it may very well create political instability.
Such a development may even suit the military. In the long run, such a confrontational approach would neither
benefit the democratic process, nor those how are planning to pursue it such as Qadri and Khan. It was after a long chequered history, Pakistan today is witnessing a process of democracy. For the first time in
its history, an elected government completed its term, organised elections and handed it over the next government. The process is not complete and democracy in Pakistan is still work in progress.
Instead of strengthening the process, Qadri and Khan may end up derailing it. In the long run, ironically, such an outcome would not be helping these two leaders as well. They should look at Kejriwal and what happened to him, when he decided to be an anarchist and wreck the system that had elected him. If there is an election again, the AAP may not get that kind response from the people. In Pakistan’s case, Qadri and Khan have an additional disadvantage; the Establishment, which seems to be silently backing their onslaught, will not blink twice to overthrow them. Not long ago, Nawaz
Sharif was considered as their man! Instead of organising revolutions and million men marches, the leaders should help the process to continue. Such a process is bound to bring them up.
SRI LANKA : UNDERSTANDING THE BUDDHIST- MUSLIM COMMUNAL CLASHES
Zarin Ahmad
In June 2014, history repeated itself when three Muslims were killed and over 50 injured in Aluthgama, Sri Lanka. Almost 100 years ago, in May 1915, communal violence erupted between Sinhala Buddhists and Muslims in Kandy, Sri Lanka.
The 1915 riot was a spontaneous expression of deep economic hostilities with Muslim traders. This time the island’s Muslim community finds itself at the receiving
end of a concerted and well thought-out attack by the jubilant Sinhala-Buddhists in a post-war Sri Lanka. The militant Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), an off-shoot of another hard-line Sinhala organisation the Jathika Hela
Urumaya (JHU) is spearheading a movement against Muslims. Over the past two years, the BBS has organised a systematic and structured attack on Muslim
places of worship, dress-code, dietary practices, and business establishments. In February 2013, the BBS went on an aggressive campaign against ‘halal’
certification of foods that follow Islamic dietary guidelines. Later, the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama withdrew the ‘halal’ certification in the domestic market
‘in the interest of peace’. Soon after, the Islamic dress- code of the ‘abaya’ became the new bone of contention and drew the ire and disdain of the BBS. Since 2012, the
BBS has been distributing pamphlets to discourage people from buying products from Muslim-owned establishments.
Why has there been this aggressive campaign against Muslims, and what has been the Muslim response in the island’s politics? The answer lies in the island’s
complex political history. Muslim identity in Sri Lanka grew within and as a result of competing Sinhala and Tamil identity assertions. Muslims are the third largest
community in the island-nation. According to the 2011 census, they constitute 9.7 per cent of the country’s population. Despite a sizeable number, they are scattered across the country, particularly in the eastern
province, and in Colombo. Ethnically they comprise Sri Lankan Moors, Indian Moors, Malays, Memons and Bohras. The term ‘Moor’ was used by the Portuguese,
and later the Dutch, to refer to Muslims of mixed Arab origin living in the coastal cities of Sri Lanka. A majority of the island’s Muslims claim their ancestral connection to Arab maritime traders – that predates the
birth of Islam. Except southern Muslims who are bilingual (i.e they speak Tamil and Sinhala), Muslims are predominantly Tamil-speaking. In a country sharply divided along linguistic lines, they formed an identity on the basis of religion.
Due to a history of persecution (under Portuguese and Dutch rules from the 1600s to the beginning of the 1900s), scattered geography, and competing Sinhala
and Tamil nationalisms, Muslims have by and large maintained a low-profile in the complex dynamics of the island’s politics. However, in the 1980s, when the fight
for a Tamil homeland was happening literally in their backyard, Muslims could not remain out of the fray.
They opposed a merger of Northern and Eastern Provinces fearing that they would become a ‘minority within a minority’.
They demanded that the predominantly Muslim areas in the Eastern Province should be linked together as a single political and administrative entity. This was also the period when their political and electoral identity crystallised with the formation of the island’s first effective Muslim political party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) under the aegis of the late MHM Ashraff. Socially, Muslims expressed an identity based on their religion to distinguish themselves from Tamils.
However, despite being geo-politically located in the locus of the war, Muslims did not resort to militancy like their Tamil counterparts. In the immediate post-war political dynamics, the SLMC initially supported the opposition coalition. However, the lasting impact of the total obliteration of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 and the
overwhelming electoral victories of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) hereafter put minorities, particularly Muslims, on the political back foot and an
end to a viable opposition. The SLMC joined the ruling coalition in 2010.
This brings us back to our initial question – why is there a systematic attack against Sri Lankan Muslims? First, this could be yet another reflection of rising Islamophobia in the Indian Ocean region as asserted by
Justice Minister and SLMC leader, Rauf Hakeem.
Second, the demographic number game has been critical in Sri Lankan politics. The 2011 census indicated a positive curve in the Muslim population. This growth is
perceived as an upsurge of growing Muslim domination. Third, the military victory over the LTTE in 2009 gave the Sinhala Buddhist hardliners a strong ‘imagined’ sense of preserving the ‘homeland’ for themselves.
In a much delayed response to the riots of June 2014, Hakeem threatened Muslim radicalisation and claimed that Sri Lanka could become a fertile ground for 'outside' forces. Going by the history of Sri Lankan
Muslims, this may well be another strong statement by the SLMC to assert to its electorate that it is the only party that stands up for Muslim rights. But what is
more disturbing is the growing latent hostility in a section of the majority mind-set.
In June 2014, history repeated itself when three Muslims were killed and over 50 injured in Aluthgama, Sri Lanka. Almost 100 years ago, in May 1915, communal violence erupted between Sinhala Buddhists and Muslims in Kandy, Sri Lanka.
The 1915 riot was a spontaneous expression of deep economic hostilities with Muslim traders. This time the island’s Muslim community finds itself at the receiving
end of a concerted and well thought-out attack by the jubilant Sinhala-Buddhists in a post-war Sri Lanka. The militant Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), an off-shoot of another hard-line Sinhala organisation the Jathika Hela
Urumaya (JHU) is spearheading a movement against Muslims. Over the past two years, the BBS has organised a systematic and structured attack on Muslim
places of worship, dress-code, dietary practices, and business establishments. In February 2013, the BBS went on an aggressive campaign against ‘halal’
certification of foods that follow Islamic dietary guidelines. Later, the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama withdrew the ‘halal’ certification in the domestic market
‘in the interest of peace’. Soon after, the Islamic dress- code of the ‘abaya’ became the new bone of contention and drew the ire and disdain of the BBS. Since 2012, the
BBS has been distributing pamphlets to discourage people from buying products from Muslim-owned establishments.
Why has there been this aggressive campaign against Muslims, and what has been the Muslim response in the island’s politics? The answer lies in the island’s
complex political history. Muslim identity in Sri Lanka grew within and as a result of competing Sinhala and Tamil identity assertions. Muslims are the third largest
community in the island-nation. According to the 2011 census, they constitute 9.7 per cent of the country’s population. Despite a sizeable number, they are scattered across the country, particularly in the eastern
province, and in Colombo. Ethnically they comprise Sri Lankan Moors, Indian Moors, Malays, Memons and Bohras. The term ‘Moor’ was used by the Portuguese,
and later the Dutch, to refer to Muslims of mixed Arab origin living in the coastal cities of Sri Lanka. A majority of the island’s Muslims claim their ancestral connection to Arab maritime traders – that predates the
birth of Islam. Except southern Muslims who are bilingual (i.e they speak Tamil and Sinhala), Muslims are predominantly Tamil-speaking. In a country sharply divided along linguistic lines, they formed an identity on the basis of religion.
Due to a history of persecution (under Portuguese and Dutch rules from the 1600s to the beginning of the 1900s), scattered geography, and competing Sinhala
and Tamil nationalisms, Muslims have by and large maintained a low-profile in the complex dynamics of the island’s politics. However, in the 1980s, when the fight
for a Tamil homeland was happening literally in their backyard, Muslims could not remain out of the fray.
They opposed a merger of Northern and Eastern Provinces fearing that they would become a ‘minority within a minority’.
They demanded that the predominantly Muslim areas in the Eastern Province should be linked together as a single political and administrative entity. This was also the period when their political and electoral identity crystallised with the formation of the island’s first effective Muslim political party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) under the aegis of the late MHM Ashraff. Socially, Muslims expressed an identity based on their religion to distinguish themselves from Tamils.
However, despite being geo-politically located in the locus of the war, Muslims did not resort to militancy like their Tamil counterparts. In the immediate post-war political dynamics, the SLMC initially supported the opposition coalition. However, the lasting impact of the total obliteration of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 and the
overwhelming electoral victories of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) hereafter put minorities, particularly Muslims, on the political back foot and an
end to a viable opposition. The SLMC joined the ruling coalition in 2010.
This brings us back to our initial question – why is there a systematic attack against Sri Lankan Muslims? First, this could be yet another reflection of rising Islamophobia in the Indian Ocean region as asserted by
Justice Minister and SLMC leader, Rauf Hakeem.
Second, the demographic number game has been critical in Sri Lankan politics. The 2011 census indicated a positive curve in the Muslim population. This growth is
perceived as an upsurge of growing Muslim domination. Third, the military victory over the LTTE in 2009 gave the Sinhala Buddhist hardliners a strong ‘imagined’ sense of preserving the ‘homeland’ for themselves.
In a much delayed response to the riots of June 2014, Hakeem threatened Muslim radicalisation and claimed that Sri Lanka could become a fertile ground for 'outside' forces. Going by the history of Sri Lankan
Muslims, this may well be another strong statement by the SLMC to assert to its electorate that it is the only party that stands up for Muslim rights. But what is
more disturbing is the growing latent hostility in a section of the majority mind-set.
SRI LANKA AND MYANMAR: UNDERSTANDING THE RISE OF BUDDHIST RADICALISM
Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy
Over the past three years, there has been an evident surge of Buddhist radicalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, with the clergy being increasingly involved in violence
against minorities, especially Muslims. Both countries have sizeable Muslim populations, and while the situation in Myanmar is the worse of the two, Sri Lanka
is not too far behind.
The general deduction is that the current state-of- affairs is a consequence of paranoia over losing one’s culture, Islamophobia, and a typical assertion of the
majority over the minority. However, there must also be a closer examination. How did the practitioners of Buddhism – widely perceived as the most peaceful religion in the world – come to resort to violence? Given how a majority of victims in both countries have been Muslims, how much of a role has Islamophobia played?
Is there a non-theological reason for the proliferation of religious violence?
The Situation Today In Myanmar, a large section of the society comprises monks, given the large-scale enlisting to monasteries that took place during the Junta years. The clergy holds a moral high ground in Myanmarese society, and has a
strong social standing. Throughout the decades of military dictatorship, Myanmar’s clergy fought another issue – the high global attrition rate among schools of
Theravada Buddhism. Therefore, protecting the culture became the mainstay, and, knowingly and/or unknowingly, aided the cultivation of non-violent radicalisation among the monks. When this met
Islamophobia, it resulted in a violent campaign against 400,000 Rohingya Muslims. Naypyidaw could have
easily intervened but it has its own agenda: to wash its hands off the economic costs of providing for thousands of people when its resource basket is already heavily strained. There is a strong ethnic bias element too.
Rohingyas do not find favour with the Rakhine Buddhists for their ethnic origins, and given their Muslim faith, Islamophobia has been a side-effect.This, combined with the high social position occupied by the
clergy, has resulted in a plausible tacit deal.
In Sri Lanka, action and literature against religious minorities began 40 years ago, soon after the government decided to stop funding the Sangha.
Although the victims were not Muslims alone at the start, since the early 2000s, the focus of violent Buddhist radical actions has been Sri Lanka’s Muslim population.
In Sri Lanka, three key ethnicities are identified: Sinhalas, Tamils and Muslims. This makes it evident that despite being a religious and not an ethnic construct, Muslims (who have ancestral links to Arab
traders, Tamils, and Malays) are considered to be of another ethnicity – one that is identified by the their religious faith. However, the Sri Lankan Buddhist radical
clergy does not target Muslims alone. They began by targeting minorities, and with increasing Islamophobia, they have concentrated their attacks primarily on
Muslims. In Sri Lanka, almost all political parties have monks in their membership. The monks’ entry into the political arena they otherwise shunned began just before
World War II, and has today become a part of Sri Lankan politics. Myanmar and Sri Lanka: Situational Differences The basic difference in the nature of nexus between the Buddhist clergy and the political class in Myanmar and Sri Lanka is that in Myanmar, the clergy has strong socio-political standing and cannot be ignored, and is therefore co-opted; and in Sri Lanka, the clergy – fairly strong but one that is also influenced by modern Sinhala nationalist ideology – is used by the political class as pawns during election campaigns and/or
employed to legitimise various government decisions.
However, the split that the Sri Lankan Sangha went through, over three decades ago, resulted in the fragmentation of the clergy. With no direct material support from the government, each group tries to outdo the other to ensure funding that is provided only by wealthy benefactors – who fund only the most radical groups.
In Myanmar, the Buddhist clergy is united and has an upper hand to an extent – or at least an even hand – and the government is in a quid pro quo arrangement with them to secure their individual interests. In Sri
Lanka, the Buddhist clergy is becoming increasingly radicalised due to competition for sources of funds – a problem that arose primarily due to ideological differences in the Sangha itself and its implications on
political preferences – and the government’s use of the monks for political benefit. Furthermore, in Myanmar, violence against Rohingya Muslims has a lot to do with their ethnic and historical Bengali origins than their faith alone while that is not the case in Sri Lanka.
There are indeed several other factors at play in Sri Lanka, such as the 2004 Anti-Conversion Bill, and the politics and politicisation of the Ministry of Buddha
Sasana, among others, and in Myanmar, its citizenship laws. Understanding the core differences between what is unfolding in Myanmar and Sri Lanka is crucial therefore to develop custom-made solutions for each.
Evidently, the central factor sustaining these crises is money and/or the lack of it. Financial factors being the bulwark for the sustenance of violence only means it will
be easier to resolve than if it were purely ideological.
Over the past three years, there has been an evident surge of Buddhist radicalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, with the clergy being increasingly involved in violence
against minorities, especially Muslims. Both countries have sizeable Muslim populations, and while the situation in Myanmar is the worse of the two, Sri Lanka
is not too far behind.
The general deduction is that the current state-of- affairs is a consequence of paranoia over losing one’s culture, Islamophobia, and a typical assertion of the
majority over the minority. However, there must also be a closer examination. How did the practitioners of Buddhism – widely perceived as the most peaceful religion in the world – come to resort to violence? Given how a majority of victims in both countries have been Muslims, how much of a role has Islamophobia played?
Is there a non-theological reason for the proliferation of religious violence?
The Situation Today In Myanmar, a large section of the society comprises monks, given the large-scale enlisting to monasteries that took place during the Junta years. The clergy holds a moral high ground in Myanmarese society, and has a
strong social standing. Throughout the decades of military dictatorship, Myanmar’s clergy fought another issue – the high global attrition rate among schools of
Theravada Buddhism. Therefore, protecting the culture became the mainstay, and, knowingly and/or unknowingly, aided the cultivation of non-violent radicalisation among the monks. When this met
Islamophobia, it resulted in a violent campaign against 400,000 Rohingya Muslims. Naypyidaw could have
easily intervened but it has its own agenda: to wash its hands off the economic costs of providing for thousands of people when its resource basket is already heavily strained. There is a strong ethnic bias element too.
Rohingyas do not find favour with the Rakhine Buddhists for their ethnic origins, and given their Muslim faith, Islamophobia has been a side-effect.This, combined with the high social position occupied by the
clergy, has resulted in a plausible tacit deal.
In Sri Lanka, action and literature against religious minorities began 40 years ago, soon after the government decided to stop funding the Sangha.
Although the victims were not Muslims alone at the start, since the early 2000s, the focus of violent Buddhist radical actions has been Sri Lanka’s Muslim population.
In Sri Lanka, three key ethnicities are identified: Sinhalas, Tamils and Muslims. This makes it evident that despite being a religious and not an ethnic construct, Muslims (who have ancestral links to Arab
traders, Tamils, and Malays) are considered to be of another ethnicity – one that is identified by the their religious faith. However, the Sri Lankan Buddhist radical
clergy does not target Muslims alone. They began by targeting minorities, and with increasing Islamophobia, they have concentrated their attacks primarily on
Muslims. In Sri Lanka, almost all political parties have monks in their membership. The monks’ entry into the political arena they otherwise shunned began just before
World War II, and has today become a part of Sri Lankan politics. Myanmar and Sri Lanka: Situational Differences The basic difference in the nature of nexus between the Buddhist clergy and the political class in Myanmar and Sri Lanka is that in Myanmar, the clergy has strong socio-political standing and cannot be ignored, and is therefore co-opted; and in Sri Lanka, the clergy – fairly strong but one that is also influenced by modern Sinhala nationalist ideology – is used by the political class as pawns during election campaigns and/or
employed to legitimise various government decisions.
However, the split that the Sri Lankan Sangha went through, over three decades ago, resulted in the fragmentation of the clergy. With no direct material support from the government, each group tries to outdo the other to ensure funding that is provided only by wealthy benefactors – who fund only the most radical groups.
In Myanmar, the Buddhist clergy is united and has an upper hand to an extent – or at least an even hand – and the government is in a quid pro quo arrangement with them to secure their individual interests. In Sri
Lanka, the Buddhist clergy is becoming increasingly radicalised due to competition for sources of funds – a problem that arose primarily due to ideological differences in the Sangha itself and its implications on
political preferences – and the government’s use of the monks for political benefit. Furthermore, in Myanmar, violence against Rohingya Muslims has a lot to do with their ethnic and historical Bengali origins than their faith alone while that is not the case in Sri Lanka.
There are indeed several other factors at play in Sri Lanka, such as the 2004 Anti-Conversion Bill, and the politics and politicisation of the Ministry of Buddha
Sasana, among others, and in Myanmar, its citizenship laws. Understanding the core differences between what is unfolding in Myanmar and Sri Lanka is crucial therefore to develop custom-made solutions for each.
Evidently, the central factor sustaining these crises is money and/or the lack of it. Financial factors being the bulwark for the sustenance of violence only means it will
be easier to resolve than if it were purely ideological.
COMBATING MAOISM: LESSONS FROM JHARKHAND
Saneya Arif
According to the Jharkhand assessment 2014 report by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) data base, Jharkhand today stands second, after Andhra Pradesh,
in countering Maoism in the country.This commentary tries to analyse the positive changes that shows a decline in Maoism in the state, changes in the central government’s policy responsible for the aforementioned achievement, and the lessons that other states of India
can learn from Jharkhand to combat Maoism in their states.
What are the positive changes?
According to the SATP assessment, the figures show that the total number of Maoist related incidents in the state has come down to 4 incidents in 2014 from 383
incidents in 2013. No death has been recorded among the civilians and security force personnel in the current year. In 2013, the deaths stood at 120 and 30 respectively. There has also been a decrease in the
number of Maoist deaths, which has come down to 2 deaths in 2014 from 12 in 2013.
The report also records that Maoist attacks on economic targets such as railways, telephone exchanges, mines, transmission poles, panchayat bhawans and school buildings have also reduced, which
testify that Maoists have not been involved in any major incidents in Jharkhand after 2013. According to former Director General of Police (DGP) GS Rath, the police force in Jharkhand today has the greatest number of
mine resistant vehicles, which has helped in bringing down the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) killings due to land mines laid by Maoist outfits. Electoral success in the state allegedly owes much to the nexus
between politicians and Maoists, which has also contributed to Maoist mainstreaming. Publicly, however, politicians present an anti-Maoist agenda, as observed by Professor BK Sinha of the Political Science
department of St Xavier’s College, Ranchi. During election season, Maoists release statements about not voting, which prompt the politicians to initiate bargaining with them.
What changes in central government policy could have led to this success?
In 2006, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Maoism the biggest challenge to India’s internal security. He stated that any development in tribal areas must also ensure that the tribal population has a stake
in it, even after it has been adequately compensated for displacement. Jharkhand, after Andhra Pradesh, has been the only state to take this very seriously. Soon
after, the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) was implemented in Jharkhand. It ensured
rights over minor forest produce to Gram Sabhas and removed interference by the government departments.
The government of Jharkhand has also achieved remarkable success in persuading around a dozen hardcore Maoists to join mainstream society by ensuring their rehabilitation through the programme,
Nayi Disha. According to Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Pravin Kumar, the volume of CRPF deployment in Jharkhand, which used to be three battalions six years
ago, has today increased to fourteen battalions.
According to him, the state government has taken the setting up of a unified command for joint action against Maoism seriously. Even the funds received under the
integrated action plan (IAP) for development in the Maoism-affected areas in Jharkhand have been fully utilised.
What lesson can other states learn from the Jharkhand experience?
Other Maoists-affected states can learn valuable lessons from operation Anaconda conducted by the state in Saranda forest. Paramilitary forces established camps here for the first time. In Saranda, massive
recoveries were made and at least five Maoist training camps were busted. As a result, the outfit was disbanded and all senior leaders left the area. Similar
camps were also established near the Chandwa- Daltenganj route and with a similar level of success.
Furthermore, the government of Jharkhand has laid stress on police modernisation. It strengthened its intelligence, granted promotions to personnel, imparted
training and strengthened police stations in affected areas, all of which also brought down the number of kangaroo courts operating in the area.
According to the Jharkhand assessment 2014 report by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) data base, Jharkhand today stands second, after Andhra Pradesh,
in countering Maoism in the country.This commentary tries to analyse the positive changes that shows a decline in Maoism in the state, changes in the central government’s policy responsible for the aforementioned achievement, and the lessons that other states of India
can learn from Jharkhand to combat Maoism in their states.
What are the positive changes?
According to the SATP assessment, the figures show that the total number of Maoist related incidents in the state has come down to 4 incidents in 2014 from 383
incidents in 2013. No death has been recorded among the civilians and security force personnel in the current year. In 2013, the deaths stood at 120 and 30 respectively. There has also been a decrease in the
number of Maoist deaths, which has come down to 2 deaths in 2014 from 12 in 2013.
The report also records that Maoist attacks on economic targets such as railways, telephone exchanges, mines, transmission poles, panchayat bhawans and school buildings have also reduced, which
testify that Maoists have not been involved in any major incidents in Jharkhand after 2013. According to former Director General of Police (DGP) GS Rath, the police force in Jharkhand today has the greatest number of
mine resistant vehicles, which has helped in bringing down the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) killings due to land mines laid by Maoist outfits. Electoral success in the state allegedly owes much to the nexus
between politicians and Maoists, which has also contributed to Maoist mainstreaming. Publicly, however, politicians present an anti-Maoist agenda, as observed by Professor BK Sinha of the Political Science
department of St Xavier’s College, Ranchi. During election season, Maoists release statements about not voting, which prompt the politicians to initiate bargaining with them.
What changes in central government policy could have led to this success?
In 2006, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Maoism the biggest challenge to India’s internal security. He stated that any development in tribal areas must also ensure that the tribal population has a stake
in it, even after it has been adequately compensated for displacement. Jharkhand, after Andhra Pradesh, has been the only state to take this very seriously. Soon
after, the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) was implemented in Jharkhand. It ensured
rights over minor forest produce to Gram Sabhas and removed interference by the government departments.
The government of Jharkhand has also achieved remarkable success in persuading around a dozen hardcore Maoists to join mainstream society by ensuring their rehabilitation through the programme,
Nayi Disha. According to Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Pravin Kumar, the volume of CRPF deployment in Jharkhand, which used to be three battalions six years
ago, has today increased to fourteen battalions.
According to him, the state government has taken the setting up of a unified command for joint action against Maoism seriously. Even the funds received under the
integrated action plan (IAP) for development in the Maoism-affected areas in Jharkhand have been fully utilised.
What lesson can other states learn from the Jharkhand experience?
Other Maoists-affected states can learn valuable lessons from operation Anaconda conducted by the state in Saranda forest. Paramilitary forces established camps here for the first time. In Saranda, massive
recoveries were made and at least five Maoist training camps were busted. As a result, the outfit was disbanded and all senior leaders left the area. Similar
camps were also established near the Chandwa- Daltenganj route and with a similar level of success.
Furthermore, the government of Jharkhand has laid stress on police modernisation. It strengthened its intelligence, granted promotions to personnel, imparted
training and strengthened police stations in affected areas, all of which also brought down the number of kangaroo courts operating in the area.
CAN IRAQ DISINTEGRATION BE PREVENTED?
KP Fabian
At present, it is difficult to see how the ongoing implosion of Iraq can be stalled and reversed. The world started taking note of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who
has been declared as ‘caliph’ of an ‘Islamic State’ claiming sovereignty over a stretch of territory from Aleppo in north-western Syria to Diyala in north-eastern Iraq only when Mosul fell on June 20. But, his forces
had taken over Raqqa, Syria, in March 2013, and Falluja, Iraq, in January 2014.
ISIL, a breakaway group from al Qaeda in Iraq, is basically a part of the Sunni Resistance to the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The US had made
unsuccessful, half-hearted, and not always judicious attempts to build an Iraq that could accommodate the three main groups: the Shias, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. But, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who took
office in 2006 with support from the US and Iran carried out a policy of alienating the Sunnis and the Kurds. His reckless partisan policies created the conditions for the emergence of a formation called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) to grow and derive support from the Sunni population.
Once the situation in Syria was found favorable, the ISI extended its operations to Syria and changed its name to the ISIL. Levant essentially comprises Syria, Jordan,
pre-Israel Palestine, and Lebanon.
The ISIL has approximately $2 billion, weapons mainly of US origin, and many of their men are in US army combat uniforms, even with interceptor body armour. They have Humvees and Black Hawk helicopters. Their manpower comprises young men from Chechnya, UK, France, Jordan and elsewhere who have joined them,
reminiscent of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
While the ‘caliphate’ might not have the strength to take over Baghdad, the fact remains that it will be enormously difficult for the government in Baghdad, under al-Maliki or his successor, to recapture the
territory already under the control of the ‘caliphate’.
This means there is already a Sunnistan in Iraq with a part of Syria also in it. The Kurds spread across Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran number about 30 million. They have their national ambitions. Saladin the Great who fought the Christians during the Crusades and captured Jerusalem in 1187
was a Kurd. After World War I, the Kurds were promised autonomy under the Treaty of Sevres (1920), but it was never implemented. Following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, the US imposed a no-fly zone in Iraqi Kurdistan enabling the Kurds to progressively assert independence
from Saddam Hussein’s central government in Baghdad. Under the US occupation, Iraqi Kurds gained further and the current constitution provides for virtual autonomy.
There is much tension with al-Maliki who has withheld money from the regional government that dug a pipe line to Ceyhan in Turkey to sell oil, without permission.
The first tanker reached Israel recently.
Since the 1960s, Israel has been cultivating the Kurds and now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly endorsed an independent state for Iraqi Kurds.
They might hold a referendum soon on independence.
The main reason the US has sent military to Iraq is to ensure safety of its embassy. US President Barack Obama does not want a repeat of the humiliating helicopter escape of its ambassador from Saigon in 1975. If Baghdad witnesses carnage with Sunnis and Shias killing each other, it will reflect badly on Obama’s performance as commander in chief. The US might not
mind a disintegrated Iraq in the long run. Iran too might conclude that it is not worth sacrificing men and money to retain Iraq as a single entity. Thus, Iraq might have a
Kurdistan, one or more Sunnistans, and a Shiistan. The Shiistan will remain Iran’s protectorate.
The Arab Spring, when it started in 2011 as a move towards democracy, did not affect India’s interests adversely. India had reasons to welcome a move towards democracy. But when the Spring lost its way, except in Tunisia, and political instability with civil war fuelled by extremist violence and ideology set in, India
realised that it had reasons to worry on many counts. First, there are over 7 million Indians in the Arab world, most of them in the Gulf where currently there is no
political instability. The difficulty in arranging for evacuation of 44 nurses from Kerala held up in Tikrit is an example of the problems to be confronted from time
to time. India did arrange for evacuating 176,000 of its nationals from Kuwait and Iraq in 1990-1991. Second, the oil prices have shot up forcing an increase in petrol
prices, boosting inflation. Third, the worsening Shia- Sunni tension can have an adverse impact on the two groups who have hitherto lived in peace in India. There
are reports of some young Shia men wanting to go to Iraq. The government should be able to prevent them from going.
India has no means of influencing the course of events in Iraq or Syria, but that is not exactly India's fault as external intervention has so far only aggravated the
crisis. There are about ten thousand Indians in Iraq with the majority in Kurdistan and Basra. Fortunately, there is no immediate danger to them.
At present, it is difficult to see how the ongoing implosion of Iraq can be stalled and reversed. The world started taking note of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who
has been declared as ‘caliph’ of an ‘Islamic State’ claiming sovereignty over a stretch of territory from Aleppo in north-western Syria to Diyala in north-eastern Iraq only when Mosul fell on June 20. But, his forces
had taken over Raqqa, Syria, in March 2013, and Falluja, Iraq, in January 2014.
ISIL, a breakaway group from al Qaeda in Iraq, is basically a part of the Sunni Resistance to the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The US had made
unsuccessful, half-hearted, and not always judicious attempts to build an Iraq that could accommodate the three main groups: the Shias, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. But, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who took
office in 2006 with support from the US and Iran carried out a policy of alienating the Sunnis and the Kurds. His reckless partisan policies created the conditions for the emergence of a formation called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) to grow and derive support from the Sunni population.
Once the situation in Syria was found favorable, the ISI extended its operations to Syria and changed its name to the ISIL. Levant essentially comprises Syria, Jordan,
pre-Israel Palestine, and Lebanon.
The ISIL has approximately $2 billion, weapons mainly of US origin, and many of their men are in US army combat uniforms, even with interceptor body armour. They have Humvees and Black Hawk helicopters. Their manpower comprises young men from Chechnya, UK, France, Jordan and elsewhere who have joined them,
reminiscent of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
While the ‘caliphate’ might not have the strength to take over Baghdad, the fact remains that it will be enormously difficult for the government in Baghdad, under al-Maliki or his successor, to recapture the
territory already under the control of the ‘caliphate’.
This means there is already a Sunnistan in Iraq with a part of Syria also in it. The Kurds spread across Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran number about 30 million. They have their national ambitions. Saladin the Great who fought the Christians during the Crusades and captured Jerusalem in 1187
was a Kurd. After World War I, the Kurds were promised autonomy under the Treaty of Sevres (1920), but it was never implemented. Following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, the US imposed a no-fly zone in Iraqi Kurdistan enabling the Kurds to progressively assert independence
from Saddam Hussein’s central government in Baghdad. Under the US occupation, Iraqi Kurds gained further and the current constitution provides for virtual autonomy.
There is much tension with al-Maliki who has withheld money from the regional government that dug a pipe line to Ceyhan in Turkey to sell oil, without permission.
The first tanker reached Israel recently.
Since the 1960s, Israel has been cultivating the Kurds and now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly endorsed an independent state for Iraqi Kurds.
They might hold a referendum soon on independence.
The main reason the US has sent military to Iraq is to ensure safety of its embassy. US President Barack Obama does not want a repeat of the humiliating helicopter escape of its ambassador from Saigon in 1975. If Baghdad witnesses carnage with Sunnis and Shias killing each other, it will reflect badly on Obama’s performance as commander in chief. The US might not
mind a disintegrated Iraq in the long run. Iran too might conclude that it is not worth sacrificing men and money to retain Iraq as a single entity. Thus, Iraq might have a
Kurdistan, one or more Sunnistans, and a Shiistan. The Shiistan will remain Iran’s protectorate.
The Arab Spring, when it started in 2011 as a move towards democracy, did not affect India’s interests adversely. India had reasons to welcome a move towards democracy. But when the Spring lost its way, except in Tunisia, and political instability with civil war fuelled by extremist violence and ideology set in, India
realised that it had reasons to worry on many counts. First, there are over 7 million Indians in the Arab world, most of them in the Gulf where currently there is no
political instability. The difficulty in arranging for evacuation of 44 nurses from Kerala held up in Tikrit is an example of the problems to be confronted from time
to time. India did arrange for evacuating 176,000 of its nationals from Kuwait and Iraq in 1990-1991. Second, the oil prices have shot up forcing an increase in petrol
prices, boosting inflation. Third, the worsening Shia- Sunni tension can have an adverse impact on the two groups who have hitherto lived in peace in India. There
are reports of some young Shia men wanting to go to Iraq. The government should be able to prevent them from going.
India has no means of influencing the course of events in Iraq or Syria, but that is not exactly India's fault as external intervention has so far only aggravated the
crisis. There are about ten thousand Indians in Iraq with the majority in Kurdistan and Basra. Fortunately, there is no immediate danger to them.
INDIA: XVII MOUNTAIN CORPS
Amit Saksena
On 1 January 2014, the flag of the newly sanctioned XVII Corps was hoisted at its interim headquarters in Ranchi, which kick-started the process of fielding a
credible Indian deterrent force on the Northeastern front, from Arunachal Pradesh to Ladakh in Jammu &
Kashmir. In a largely Pakistan-centric architecture of troop distribution, this Mountain Strike Corps (MSC) is the first China-oriented offensive formation to be
deployed by India. However, based on the Indian experience in weapon procurement, as well as the disjointed collaboration between auxiliary agencies, the viability of this endeavour is doubtful. The feasibility of playing catch-up, at the expense of modernisation and strategic development on other fronts, must be validated
by the Government of India.
Fiscal Constraints Monetary apprehension is a very strong factor against the operationalisation of this corps, and an analysis of the 2014-15 defense budget validate these concerns.
The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has reportedly commissioned a massive INR 64,000 crore over the next 7 financial years to float the MSC. This fund will cover all the major expenses of the project, from infrastructure to recruitment and logistical
expenditure of the additional 80,000 troops that the Army intends to commit to this corps. With an alarmingly high revenue expenditure (almost 82 per cent) vis-Ã -vis its existing force of 12,00,000 troops, the
addition of a further 80,000 troops will send the fiscal budget through the ceiling. Out of the INR 73,444 crore capital allocation for the three forces, 96 per cent has already been earmarked for installments on previous purchases, leaving a meager INR 2955 crore free for new acquisitions. Compared to the annualINR 8,000 crore needed to float the MSC, there is no overt
indication of where the rest of the money is coming from.
Logistical Development and Topographical Constraints Till very recently, one of the major stumbling blocks in military infrastructure development along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) has been the delay in environmental clearance. This project will require close collaboration between the Ministries of Finance and Environment, the Border Roads Organisation, and the Indian Army and Air Force (IAF). It should be noted that China presently fields five fully-operational airbases, an extensive rail network and over 58,000 km of roads in
the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). This allows Beijing to move over 30 divisions (each with over 15,000 soldiers) to the LAC, outnumbering Indian forces by at least 3:1.
In addition to the roads, the Army and the Air Force will require credible contractors to take on the task of building and developing military-centric installments in
the region. High-altitude bases for light and stationary artillery, barracks for troops, ammunition, intelligence and logistics nodes, and training centres will have to be
developed. The inhospitable weather conditions in which contractors may be unwilling to work can prove to be a
serious roadblock. For instance, since 2009 the IAF has been trying to recruit contractors for upgrading the
existing Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) along the Chinese border, with no success.
Empowering the Mountain Strike Corps
India, despite being the largest importer of defense equipment, does not have an ironed-out procurement policy. The military industrial complex in India fares
worse than most other countries.
A Hasty Decision? Many strategists and defense personnel have noted the
impetuous nature of the decision to instate a MSC. If Chinese incursions have acted as a catalyst for raising this strike corps, then the government should have better evaluated other alternatives before making this decision. As articulated by Rear Adm (Retd) K Raja Menon, “A geographically limited one axis offensive will not destabilise the PLA, but a flotilla of nuclear
submarines and a three carrier air group in the Indian Ocean can economically cripple mainland China.”
Another concern is the increasingly ‘infantry heavy’ nature of the Indian Army. Most major militaries of the world today are concentrating on modernisation efforts
rather than adding extra boots on the ground. In the last three decades, the PLA has reduced and restructured its divisional formations to slash troop count by almost half. The Ministry of Defense’s ambitious Future-Infantry Soldier as a System (F-
INSAS) programme initiated in 2007 is past its 2013 deadline as the government continues to spend on projects such as the MSC.
Indeed, looking ahead, a conventional war between India and China in the future appears to be a unlikely prospect. China recently overtook the UAE as India’s
largest economic partner, with bilateral trade reaching US$49.5 billion halfway through the 2013-14 fiscal year. Both India and China also have in place countless
bilateral treaties, and are collaborators in many international forums on economic development and scientific research. A border dispute spawning into a war would be detrimental to both. In the same vein, the concept of a MSC against China is a necessary routine threat assessment exercise, and should go forward.
What is paramount to this endeavour is a clear and transparent synergy of all the involved parties, and a well-structured, time-stamped blueprint for its successful implementation and operationalisation.
On 1 January 2014, the flag of the newly sanctioned XVII Corps was hoisted at its interim headquarters in Ranchi, which kick-started the process of fielding a
credible Indian deterrent force on the Northeastern front, from Arunachal Pradesh to Ladakh in Jammu &
Kashmir. In a largely Pakistan-centric architecture of troop distribution, this Mountain Strike Corps (MSC) is the first China-oriented offensive formation to be
deployed by India. However, based on the Indian experience in weapon procurement, as well as the disjointed collaboration between auxiliary agencies, the viability of this endeavour is doubtful. The feasibility of playing catch-up, at the expense of modernisation and strategic development on other fronts, must be validated
by the Government of India.
Fiscal Constraints Monetary apprehension is a very strong factor against the operationalisation of this corps, and an analysis of the 2014-15 defense budget validate these concerns.
The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has reportedly commissioned a massive INR 64,000 crore over the next 7 financial years to float the MSC. This fund will cover all the major expenses of the project, from infrastructure to recruitment and logistical
expenditure of the additional 80,000 troops that the Army intends to commit to this corps. With an alarmingly high revenue expenditure (almost 82 per cent) vis-Ã -vis its existing force of 12,00,000 troops, the
addition of a further 80,000 troops will send the fiscal budget through the ceiling. Out of the INR 73,444 crore capital allocation for the three forces, 96 per cent has already been earmarked for installments on previous purchases, leaving a meager INR 2955 crore free for new acquisitions. Compared to the annualINR 8,000 crore needed to float the MSC, there is no overt
indication of where the rest of the money is coming from.
Logistical Development and Topographical Constraints Till very recently, one of the major stumbling blocks in military infrastructure development along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) has been the delay in environmental clearance. This project will require close collaboration between the Ministries of Finance and Environment, the Border Roads Organisation, and the Indian Army and Air Force (IAF). It should be noted that China presently fields five fully-operational airbases, an extensive rail network and over 58,000 km of roads in
the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). This allows Beijing to move over 30 divisions (each with over 15,000 soldiers) to the LAC, outnumbering Indian forces by at least 3:1.
In addition to the roads, the Army and the Air Force will require credible contractors to take on the task of building and developing military-centric installments in
the region. High-altitude bases for light and stationary artillery, barracks for troops, ammunition, intelligence and logistics nodes, and training centres will have to be
developed. The inhospitable weather conditions in which contractors may be unwilling to work can prove to be a
serious roadblock. For instance, since 2009 the IAF has been trying to recruit contractors for upgrading the
existing Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) along the Chinese border, with no success.
Empowering the Mountain Strike Corps
India, despite being the largest importer of defense equipment, does not have an ironed-out procurement policy. The military industrial complex in India fares
worse than most other countries.
A Hasty Decision? Many strategists and defense personnel have noted the
impetuous nature of the decision to instate a MSC. If Chinese incursions have acted as a catalyst for raising this strike corps, then the government should have better evaluated other alternatives before making this decision. As articulated by Rear Adm (Retd) K Raja Menon, “A geographically limited one axis offensive will not destabilise the PLA, but a flotilla of nuclear
submarines and a three carrier air group in the Indian Ocean can economically cripple mainland China.”
Another concern is the increasingly ‘infantry heavy’ nature of the Indian Army. Most major militaries of the world today are concentrating on modernisation efforts
rather than adding extra boots on the ground. In the last three decades, the PLA has reduced and restructured its divisional formations to slash troop count by almost half. The Ministry of Defense’s ambitious Future-Infantry Soldier as a System (F-
INSAS) programme initiated in 2007 is past its 2013 deadline as the government continues to spend on projects such as the MSC.
Indeed, looking ahead, a conventional war between India and China in the future appears to be a unlikely prospect. China recently overtook the UAE as India’s
largest economic partner, with bilateral trade reaching US$49.5 billion halfway through the 2013-14 fiscal year. Both India and China also have in place countless
bilateral treaties, and are collaborators in many international forums on economic development and scientific research. A border dispute spawning into a war would be detrimental to both. In the same vein, the concept of a MSC against China is a necessary routine threat assessment exercise, and should go forward.
What is paramount to this endeavour is a clear and transparent synergy of all the involved parties, and a well-structured, time-stamped blueprint for its successful implementation and operationalisation.
22 Jul 2014
THE DAY OF THE HAWK
Pat Buchanan
The bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie
was premeditated mass murder. Gadhafi was taking revenge for Reagan's raid on Tripoli in 1986.
The downing of KAL 007, flying from
Anchorage to Seoul, was mass murder in thebsecond degree. Seeing an aircraft intrude into Russian air space, Soviet officers brutally ordered it shot down.
The downing of the Malaysian airliner that
took the lives of 298 men, women and
children was not deliberate terrorism. No one wanted to massacre those women and
children.
It was a horrendous military blunder, like the U.S. shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus by the Vincennes in 1988.
That U.S. cruiser thought it was coming under attack. And Ukraine's separatists thought they were firing at an army plane.
The distinctions are as important as those
between first- and second-degree murder,
and manslaughter.
The respective reactions confirm this.
Gadhafi concealed his role in the Scotland
slaughter. Moscow was defiant in the KAL
case. America was apologetic over the
Iranian airliner.
Today, Vladimir Putin, with an indictment
being drawn up against him, is blaming
Ukraine for the war out of which the tragedy came.
But though Putin did not order the plane shot down, the horror of it all has put him in a box. And the course he pursues could
determine the future of U.S.-Russian relations for his tenure.
For the rebels in Ukraine are seen as Putin's
proxies. They have been armed and advised
by Russia. And it was a Russian SA-11 that
brought the airliner down.
While the separatists say they got the surface- to-air missiles from an army depot, there is evidence the missile was provided by Russia, and Russians may have advised or assisted in the fatal launch.
This crisis has caused President Obama to
insist that Putin cut off the rebels. And if he
does not rein them in, and abandon their
cause, Putin is likely to face new U.S.-EU
sanctions that could cripple his economy and push his country further out into the cold.
And the ostracism of Putin and the sinking of Russia's economy is what some in the West have long had in mind.
The Day of the Hawk is at hand.
John McCain and John Bolton are calling for
punitive sanctions, declaring Russia an
adversary, putting defensive missiles and U.S.
troops in Eastern Europe, and arming Kiev.
"That's just for openers," says McCain, who
wants "the harshest possible sanctions on
Vladimir Putin and Russia."
"So first, give the Ukrainians weapons to
defend themselves and regain their
territory," McCain adds, "Second of all, move some of our troops into areas that are being threatened by Vladimir Putin."
Right. Let's get eyeball to eyeball with the
Russians again.
In this "moment of moral and strategic clarity about the threat that Vladimir Putin's regime poses to world order," the Wall Street Journal said this weekend, we should send "arms to Ukraine until Mr. Putin stops arming the separatists."
The Washington Post urges "military
assistance to Ukraine" and sanctions "to force Mr. Putin to choose between continued aggression in Ukraine and saving the Russian economy."
But if aiding rebels in overthrowing their
government is "aggression," is that not
exactly what we are doing in Syria?
Hopefully, those who prodded the U.S. to send surface-to-air missiles to the Syrian rebels are having second thoughts today.
But before we sink the Russian economy and send weapons to Ukraine, perhaps we should consider the potential consequences.
If Kiev, bolstered by U.S. weapons, decides to go in for the kill in Eastern Ukraine, Putin
will face a choice: Back down and let his
allies be defeated and routed, or move his
army into Ukraine to protect them.
Heretofore, Putin has not done so, clearly
because he does not wish to annex Luhansk
and Donetsk, which would have been a
cakewalk for the army he had on Ukraine's
border after the Crimea crisis.
And should Ukraine, with U.S. arms, win its
war in the east, what is to stop it from
sending troops to recapture Crimea, which
would surely cross any "red line" of Vladimir Putin.
Arming Ukraine, and putting U.S. prestige on the line for a victory by Kiev over the rebels in the east and Russians in the south, is a formula for a war Ukraine cannot win, unless the United States comes in to win it for them.
Then we could be on the escalator to
something unthinkable. Sanctions on Russia can cripple her economy.
But Russia can also cripple the economies of
Ukraine and Europe. Declaring Putin persona non grata may make
us feel good about ourselves, but it could also mean Russia tightening ties to Beijing, and breaking up the U.S.-led sanctions regime on Iran.
Russia is on the other side in Ukraine, but in
battling the Taliban and Islamic State, al-
Qaida and the al-Nusra Front, she is on our
side. That "moral and strategic clarity" exists only in uncomplicated minds.
The bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie
was premeditated mass murder. Gadhafi was taking revenge for Reagan's raid on Tripoli in 1986.
The downing of KAL 007, flying from
Anchorage to Seoul, was mass murder in thebsecond degree. Seeing an aircraft intrude into Russian air space, Soviet officers brutally ordered it shot down.
The downing of the Malaysian airliner that
took the lives of 298 men, women and
children was not deliberate terrorism. No one wanted to massacre those women and
children.
It was a horrendous military blunder, like the U.S. shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus by the Vincennes in 1988.
That U.S. cruiser thought it was coming under attack. And Ukraine's separatists thought they were firing at an army plane.
The distinctions are as important as those
between first- and second-degree murder,
and manslaughter.
The respective reactions confirm this.
Gadhafi concealed his role in the Scotland
slaughter. Moscow was defiant in the KAL
case. America was apologetic over the
Iranian airliner.
Today, Vladimir Putin, with an indictment
being drawn up against him, is blaming
Ukraine for the war out of which the tragedy came.
But though Putin did not order the plane shot down, the horror of it all has put him in a box. And the course he pursues could
determine the future of U.S.-Russian relations for his tenure.
For the rebels in Ukraine are seen as Putin's
proxies. They have been armed and advised
by Russia. And it was a Russian SA-11 that
brought the airliner down.
While the separatists say they got the surface- to-air missiles from an army depot, there is evidence the missile was provided by Russia, and Russians may have advised or assisted in the fatal launch.
This crisis has caused President Obama to
insist that Putin cut off the rebels. And if he
does not rein them in, and abandon their
cause, Putin is likely to face new U.S.-EU
sanctions that could cripple his economy and push his country further out into the cold.
And the ostracism of Putin and the sinking of Russia's economy is what some in the West have long had in mind.
The Day of the Hawk is at hand.
John McCain and John Bolton are calling for
punitive sanctions, declaring Russia an
adversary, putting defensive missiles and U.S.
troops in Eastern Europe, and arming Kiev.
"That's just for openers," says McCain, who
wants "the harshest possible sanctions on
Vladimir Putin and Russia."
"So first, give the Ukrainians weapons to
defend themselves and regain their
territory," McCain adds, "Second of all, move some of our troops into areas that are being threatened by Vladimir Putin."
Right. Let's get eyeball to eyeball with the
Russians again.
In this "moment of moral and strategic clarity about the threat that Vladimir Putin's regime poses to world order," the Wall Street Journal said this weekend, we should send "arms to Ukraine until Mr. Putin stops arming the separatists."
The Washington Post urges "military
assistance to Ukraine" and sanctions "to force Mr. Putin to choose between continued aggression in Ukraine and saving the Russian economy."
But if aiding rebels in overthrowing their
government is "aggression," is that not
exactly what we are doing in Syria?
Hopefully, those who prodded the U.S. to send surface-to-air missiles to the Syrian rebels are having second thoughts today.
But before we sink the Russian economy and send weapons to Ukraine, perhaps we should consider the potential consequences.
If Kiev, bolstered by U.S. weapons, decides to go in for the kill in Eastern Ukraine, Putin
will face a choice: Back down and let his
allies be defeated and routed, or move his
army into Ukraine to protect them.
Heretofore, Putin has not done so, clearly
because he does not wish to annex Luhansk
and Donetsk, which would have been a
cakewalk for the army he had on Ukraine's
border after the Crimea crisis.
And should Ukraine, with U.S. arms, win its
war in the east, what is to stop it from
sending troops to recapture Crimea, which
would surely cross any "red line" of Vladimir Putin.
Arming Ukraine, and putting U.S. prestige on the line for a victory by Kiev over the rebels in the east and Russians in the south, is a formula for a war Ukraine cannot win, unless the United States comes in to win it for them.
Then we could be on the escalator to
something unthinkable. Sanctions on Russia can cripple her economy.
But Russia can also cripple the economies of
Ukraine and Europe. Declaring Putin persona non grata may make
us feel good about ourselves, but it could also mean Russia tightening ties to Beijing, and breaking up the U.S.-led sanctions regime on Iran.
Russia is on the other side in Ukraine, but in
battling the Taliban and Islamic State, al-
Qaida and the al-Nusra Front, she is on our
side. That "moral and strategic clarity" exists only in uncomplicated minds.
WHAT NEEDS RESETTING
Mona Charen
The bodies of 298 passengers and crew of
Malaysia Air Flight 17, 80 of them children,
lie unburied in a Ukrainian field while
Vladimir Putin's men fire their weapons into the air to keep international investigators from approaching the site. Yes, "Putin's men." Calling them "Russian separatists" unnecessarily dignifies them. They are supplied, armed and trained by the despot in the Kremlin.
At the very least, Putin is responsible for
arming these dangerous actors. At most, it's
possible the missile wasn't fired by
Ukrainians at all, but by Russians, which
would answer President Barack Obama's
question: "What do they have to hide?" The
SA-11 is apparently a complex system
requiring four well-trained weapons
specialists to operate. In either case, the man with blood on his hands is Putin.
Obama began relations with Russia with a
"reset." The premise of this new start was that relations between our nations had
deteriorated due to the policies of former
President George W. Bush.
But Obama was following the same trajectory as his predecessor. Bush, too, began with high hopes for Putin. He was even taken in, for a short time, by Putin's profession of religious faith -- surely one of the biggest cons of modern diplomacy. As Bush watched Putin commit one aggressive act after another, both domestically and internationally, he wised up. Midway through his second term, journalist Peter Baker writes, when Tony Blair said he was more worried than ever about Putin, Bush replied, "You should be."
Bush may have clung too long to the hope of
moderating the criminal in the Kremlin, but
Obama had even less excuse. He had the
benefit of Bush's experience. He had
witnessed Putin's invasion of Georgia in
2008, his unflagging support for Iran and
Syria, his use of oil and gas to intimidate
Ukraine and other nations, his obliteration of democracy in Russia, his muzzling of the
press, and his systematic murder of domestic critics. Funny that Obama would have thought that responsibility for the decay in relations should be laid at the feet of Bush.
When Putin took command of the FSB (the
KGB renamed), Russia was enduring
international criticism for its war in
Chechnya. Moscow apartment complexes
experienced a wave of bombings that killed
several hundred. Putin pointed the finger at
Chechens, and the enraged Russian people
endorsed the continuation of the war.
Some members of the Kovalev Commission,
appointed to investigate the bombings,
expressed interest in accounts of possible FSB
responsibility for the attacks. Here's what
happened to them: Sergei Yushenkov, co-
chairman of the commission and a member
of the Liberal Russia party, was assassinated
in front of his apartment; Yuri
Shchekochikhin, another commission
member, independent journalist and Duma
member, was poisoned with thallium; and
Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested on a
weapons charge that later morphed into an
espionage case. He was tried in a closed
military proceeding and condemned to four
years in prison.
A KBG defector, Alexander Litvinenko, wrote
a book called "Blowing Up Russia" alleging
that the FSB was responsible for the Moscow
bombings. He died, slowly, of poisoning with
polonium-210. Litvinenko had also accused
Putin of arranging the murder of Anna
Politkovskaya -- a Russian journalist and
critic of Putin and the Chechnya war. She was
gunned down in the elevator of her
apartment in 2006.
Putin has applied the logic of the Moscow
bombings (stoke hatred of others to rally
Russians around himself) to relations with
other nations. Russian state TV, after labeling
the elected government in Kiev, Ukraine, as
Nazi for months, recently accused the
Ukrainian army of crucifying a 3-year-old
boy. Russian media feature an almost daily
diet of conspiracies supposedly concocted by
Americans to undermine and humiliate
Russia.
For about the 100th time, Obama this week
warned Putin that if he didn't cooperate in
the Malaysia plane investigation, he would
risk "isolating" Russia from the international
community.
Putin doesn't seek to be part of any
community. He seeks to be feared -- and he
should be. A look back at recent history
shows clearly that he is incapable of shame
and deaf to conscience. In light of this,
Obama can at least do a few things: 1) arm
the Ukrainians with something considerably more lethal than MREs; 2) stop placing phone calls to the Kremlin -- we should have nothing to say to him; 3) fast-track liquefied natural gas export permits; and 4) freeze the assets of Putin and his cronies just as we did to Saddam Hussein.
The thing that needs a reset is our perception of Putin.
The bodies of 298 passengers and crew of
Malaysia Air Flight 17, 80 of them children,
lie unburied in a Ukrainian field while
Vladimir Putin's men fire their weapons into the air to keep international investigators from approaching the site. Yes, "Putin's men." Calling them "Russian separatists" unnecessarily dignifies them. They are supplied, armed and trained by the despot in the Kremlin.
At the very least, Putin is responsible for
arming these dangerous actors. At most, it's
possible the missile wasn't fired by
Ukrainians at all, but by Russians, which
would answer President Barack Obama's
question: "What do they have to hide?" The
SA-11 is apparently a complex system
requiring four well-trained weapons
specialists to operate. In either case, the man with blood on his hands is Putin.
Obama began relations with Russia with a
"reset." The premise of this new start was that relations between our nations had
deteriorated due to the policies of former
President George W. Bush.
But Obama was following the same trajectory as his predecessor. Bush, too, began with high hopes for Putin. He was even taken in, for a short time, by Putin's profession of religious faith -- surely one of the biggest cons of modern diplomacy. As Bush watched Putin commit one aggressive act after another, both domestically and internationally, he wised up. Midway through his second term, journalist Peter Baker writes, when Tony Blair said he was more worried than ever about Putin, Bush replied, "You should be."
Bush may have clung too long to the hope of
moderating the criminal in the Kremlin, but
Obama had even less excuse. He had the
benefit of Bush's experience. He had
witnessed Putin's invasion of Georgia in
2008, his unflagging support for Iran and
Syria, his use of oil and gas to intimidate
Ukraine and other nations, his obliteration of democracy in Russia, his muzzling of the
press, and his systematic murder of domestic critics. Funny that Obama would have thought that responsibility for the decay in relations should be laid at the feet of Bush.
When Putin took command of the FSB (the
KGB renamed), Russia was enduring
international criticism for its war in
Chechnya. Moscow apartment complexes
experienced a wave of bombings that killed
several hundred. Putin pointed the finger at
Chechens, and the enraged Russian people
endorsed the continuation of the war.
Some members of the Kovalev Commission,
appointed to investigate the bombings,
expressed interest in accounts of possible FSB
responsibility for the attacks. Here's what
happened to them: Sergei Yushenkov, co-
chairman of the commission and a member
of the Liberal Russia party, was assassinated
in front of his apartment; Yuri
Shchekochikhin, another commission
member, independent journalist and Duma
member, was poisoned with thallium; and
Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested on a
weapons charge that later morphed into an
espionage case. He was tried in a closed
military proceeding and condemned to four
years in prison.
A KBG defector, Alexander Litvinenko, wrote
a book called "Blowing Up Russia" alleging
that the FSB was responsible for the Moscow
bombings. He died, slowly, of poisoning with
polonium-210. Litvinenko had also accused
Putin of arranging the murder of Anna
Politkovskaya -- a Russian journalist and
critic of Putin and the Chechnya war. She was
gunned down in the elevator of her
apartment in 2006.
Putin has applied the logic of the Moscow
bombings (stoke hatred of others to rally
Russians around himself) to relations with
other nations. Russian state TV, after labeling
the elected government in Kiev, Ukraine, as
Nazi for months, recently accused the
Ukrainian army of crucifying a 3-year-old
boy. Russian media feature an almost daily
diet of conspiracies supposedly concocted by
Americans to undermine and humiliate
Russia.
For about the 100th time, Obama this week
warned Putin that if he didn't cooperate in
the Malaysia plane investigation, he would
risk "isolating" Russia from the international
community.
Putin doesn't seek to be part of any
community. He seeks to be feared -- and he
should be. A look back at recent history
shows clearly that he is incapable of shame
and deaf to conscience. In light of this,
Obama can at least do a few things: 1) arm
the Ukrainians with something considerably more lethal than MREs; 2) stop placing phone calls to the Kremlin -- we should have nothing to say to him; 3) fast-track liquefied natural gas export permits; and 4) freeze the assets of Putin and his cronies just as we did to Saddam Hussein.
The thing that needs a reset is our perception of Putin.
BORDERING ON MADNESS
Thomas Sowell
In a recent confrontation between protesters against the illegal flood of unaccompanied children into the United States and counter- protests by some Hispanic group, one man from the latter group said angrily, "We are asvgood as you are!"
One of the things that make the history of
clashes over race or ethnicity such a history
of tragedies around the world is that --
regardless of whatever particular issue sets
off these clashes -- many people see the
ultimate stakes as their worth as human
beings. On that, there is no room for
compromise, but only polarization. That is
why playing "the race card" is such an
irresponsible and dangerous political game.
The real issue when it comes to immigration is not simply what particular immigration policy America should have, but whethervAmerica can have any immigration policy at all.
A country that does not control its own
borders does not have any immigration
policy. There may be laws on the books, but
such laws are just meaningless words if
people from other countries can cross the
borders whenever they choose.
One of the reasons why many Americans are
reluctant to keep out illegal immigrants -- or
even to call them "illegal immigrants," instead
of using the mealy-mouthed word
"undocumented" -- is that most Hispanics they
encounter seem to be decent, hard-working
people.
This column has pointed out, more than once, that I have never seen Mexicans standing on a street corner begging, though I have seen both whites and blacks doing so.
But such impressions are no basis for
deciding serious issues about immigration
and citizenship. When we do not control our own borders, we have no way of knowing
how many of those coming across those
borders are criminals or even terrorists.
We have no way of knowing how many of
those children are carrying what diseases that
will spread to our children. And we already
know, from studies of American children, that
those who are raised without fathers in the
home have a high probability of becoming
huge, expensive problems for taxpayers in
the years ahead, and a mortal danger to
others.
A hundred years ago, when there was a huge
influx of immigrants from Europe, there were
extensive government studies of what those
immigrants did in the United States. There
were data on how many, from what countries,
ended up in jail, diseased or on the dole.
There were data on how well their children
did in school.
As with most things, some immigrant groups did very well and others did not do nearly as well. But today, even to ask such questions is to be considered mean-spirited.
Such information as we have today shows
that immigrants from some countries have far more education than immigrants from some other countries, and do not end up being supported by the taxpayers nearly as often as immigrants from other countries. But such information is seldom mentioned in discussions of immigrants, as if they were abstract people in an abstract world.
Questions about immigration and citizenship are questions about irreversible decisions that can permanently change the composition of the American population and the very culture of the country -- perhaps in the direction of the cultures of the countries from which illegal immigrants have fled.
During the era of epidemics that swept across Europe in centuries past, people fleeing from those epidemics often spread the diseases to the places to which they fled.
Counterproductive and dangerous cultures
can be spread to America the same way.
Willful ignorance is not the way to make
immigration decisions or any other decisions.
Yet the Obama administration is keeping
secret even where they are dumping illegal
immigrants by the thousands, in communities far from the border states.
Looking before we leap is not racism -- except in the sense that anything the Obama administration doesn't like is subject to being called racist.
Americans who gather to protest the high-
handed way this administration has sneaked illegal immigrants into their communities can expect the race card to be played against them. The time is long overdue to stop being intimidated by such cheap -- and dangerous -- political tactics.
In a recent confrontation between protesters against the illegal flood of unaccompanied children into the United States and counter- protests by some Hispanic group, one man from the latter group said angrily, "We are asvgood as you are!"
One of the things that make the history of
clashes over race or ethnicity such a history
of tragedies around the world is that --
regardless of whatever particular issue sets
off these clashes -- many people see the
ultimate stakes as their worth as human
beings. On that, there is no room for
compromise, but only polarization. That is
why playing "the race card" is such an
irresponsible and dangerous political game.
The real issue when it comes to immigration is not simply what particular immigration policy America should have, but whethervAmerica can have any immigration policy at all.
A country that does not control its own
borders does not have any immigration
policy. There may be laws on the books, but
such laws are just meaningless words if
people from other countries can cross the
borders whenever they choose.
One of the reasons why many Americans are
reluctant to keep out illegal immigrants -- or
even to call them "illegal immigrants," instead
of using the mealy-mouthed word
"undocumented" -- is that most Hispanics they
encounter seem to be decent, hard-working
people.
This column has pointed out, more than once, that I have never seen Mexicans standing on a street corner begging, though I have seen both whites and blacks doing so.
But such impressions are no basis for
deciding serious issues about immigration
and citizenship. When we do not control our own borders, we have no way of knowing
how many of those coming across those
borders are criminals or even terrorists.
We have no way of knowing how many of
those children are carrying what diseases that
will spread to our children. And we already
know, from studies of American children, that
those who are raised without fathers in the
home have a high probability of becoming
huge, expensive problems for taxpayers in
the years ahead, and a mortal danger to
others.
A hundred years ago, when there was a huge
influx of immigrants from Europe, there were
extensive government studies of what those
immigrants did in the United States. There
were data on how many, from what countries,
ended up in jail, diseased or on the dole.
There were data on how well their children
did in school.
As with most things, some immigrant groups did very well and others did not do nearly as well. But today, even to ask such questions is to be considered mean-spirited.
Such information as we have today shows
that immigrants from some countries have far more education than immigrants from some other countries, and do not end up being supported by the taxpayers nearly as often as immigrants from other countries. But such information is seldom mentioned in discussions of immigrants, as if they were abstract people in an abstract world.
Questions about immigration and citizenship are questions about irreversible decisions that can permanently change the composition of the American population and the very culture of the country -- perhaps in the direction of the cultures of the countries from which illegal immigrants have fled.
During the era of epidemics that swept across Europe in centuries past, people fleeing from those epidemics often spread the diseases to the places to which they fled.
Counterproductive and dangerous cultures
can be spread to America the same way.
Willful ignorance is not the way to make
immigration decisions or any other decisions.
Yet the Obama administration is keeping
secret even where they are dumping illegal
immigrants by the thousands, in communities far from the border states.
Looking before we leap is not racism -- except in the sense that anything the Obama administration doesn't like is subject to being called racist.
Americans who gather to protest the high-
handed way this administration has sneaked illegal immigrants into their communities can expect the race card to be played against them. The time is long overdue to stop being intimidated by such cheap -- and dangerous -- political tactics.
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