tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77000486466773946592024-03-13T13:10:34.271-07:00William Reed's BlogWilliam Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-87361171413466418722020-05-25T10:38:00.001-07:002020-05-26T15:13:57.526-07:00Our cities as the pandemic recedes. <div style="background-color: white; color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Some environmentalists have been seeing a silver lining in the Covid-19 pandemic, viewing it as a potential inflection point marking when the world might turn away from fossil-fuel powered transport. </span><span style="font-size: large;">With the spread of the disease worldwide, freeways and city streets became empty of traffic almost overnight and many airlines cancelled most of their flights and went on to life support.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Not surprisingly as demand for oil plummeted, so did its price, although this was also due to Saudi Arabia drastically increasing its production to spite Russia over Russia’s prior refusal to come to an agreement to cut production. </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">At the same time bicycle stores (viewed as essential businesses in UK, where Boris Johnson is a cyclist) saw a huge increase in sales, and also cities started to announce large-scale restructuring of urban streets to make life more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists. Milan, an early victim of Covid, was also a leader in this, announcing plans to restructure its urban landscape. Its ‘Strade Aperte’ plan pledged to restrict automobile traffic on 35 km. of city streets, and to install new bike lanes and wider sidewalks. Furthermore Milan plans to do this quickly - over this summer. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c;">Other cities have followed suit - in Oakland, California almost </span>10% of roadways<span style="color: #0c0c0c;"> have been closed to through-traffic; in </span>Bogota<span style="color: #0c0c0c;">, Colombia, 47 miles of temporary bike lanes have been opened. New York has begun trialing seven miles of "open streets" to ease crowding in parks, with Auckland</span><span style="color: #0c0c0c;">, Mexico City </span><span style="color: #0c0c0c;">and Quito </span><span style="color: #0c0c0c;">among the dozens of other world cities experimenting with similar measures. Here in Victoria the city council is considering plans to limit vehicular traffic on some streets during the summer to allow restaurants to expand seating space into them, so that they can more easily accommodate social distancing. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">None of this looks very promising for the automobile industry. Indeed with the onset of the pandemic auto manufacturers saw their share prices plummet. In a very short period of time, the Dow Jones Auto Manufacturers’ Share Index plunged from 304 to below 134. True other share prices saw similarly large drops. But to some it did seem like the writing was on the wall for the auto industry. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">But wait! Since the low on March 19, the index has progressed steadily upward and now stands at 252. So not everyone believes that there is no future for the traditional automobile. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Doug Saunders, Globe & Mail columnist now resident in Berlin, had an interesting article on Saturday, offering a very plausible explanation for this. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-pandemic-is-suburban-and-it-wants-us-back-in-our-cars/" target="_blank">https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-pandemic-is-suburban-and-it-wants-us-back-in-our-cars/</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">His argument is that Covid has to a large extent been a phenomenon of the suburbs. He cites Paris and Stockholm, where the urbanites living close to the centre have been largely unaffected, while the suburbanites living far out have been badly hit. And in New York, perhaps the worst hit city anywhere in the world, people in Manhattan have largely escaped, while those living in Queens or Long Island and other outlying suburbs, have suffered greatly. This is especially true of poorer suburbs - think of the banlieus around Paris or the Bronx in New York.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Apart from being home to many poorer people, often immigrants, the other thing these suburbs have in common is that many residents rely on public transit, often in long commutes into the city. And the close contact that is forced upon people in crowded trains and buses is likely one reason that the suburbs are suffering so badly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now as the first wave seems to be receding in many areas, and an opening up and return to work is beginning, people in these neighbourhoods are having to make some difficult decisions. Do they carry on as before taking risky public transit, often with much longer journey times due to attempts at social distancing, or do they do everything they can, likely going into debt, to obtain transport of their own? It’s a choice not unlike that facing society as a whole - how much debt and economic pain are we prepared to endure to reduce the risk of infection. Doug Saunders and presumably many in the auto industry, foresee many choosing the option of buying their own car. Saunders quotes Volkswagen’s U.S. chief executive Scott Keogh</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">So the auto industry may soon move into a new phase. For the last decade or two it has been all about trucks, SUVs etc. Now they may see a boom in low cost passenger vehicles. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">If this does happen it will reverse what cities and urban planners have long been trying to achieve - to get people out of their own (low occupancy) cars and on to public transport. It doesn’t bode well for air quality, congestion and the general livability of our cities. It threatens to be yet another casualty of the novel Coronavirus. But if you faced the choice of intermittent public transit with a high risk of Covid infection or a lengthy commute on a congested freeway, but in the relative safety of your own car, which would you choose? </span></span></div>
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-39457113008511221782020-04-16T13:59:00.001-07:002020-04-16T16:37:29.102-07:00Speed of response seems to be a major factor in limiting the spread of Coronavirus <div style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I recall back at the time of the Athens Olympics, Sacha Baron Cohen in his assumed TV persona of Ali G, asked the question “Why did they give it to a rubbish country like Greece?”</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Well lots of people, especially those who have visited Greece, would disagree with his characterization, but few I imagine, would hold up Greece as a model of good governance, especially after the financial crisis of 2015 and the revelations of the way Greece had been squandering the easy loans it had been receiving from the EU and elsewhere.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But it seems that when it comes to managing COVID-19, Greece has done much better than most countries. They have had the advantage of not being, like Italy, one of the first countries where it struck, but they seemed to have learned from the experience of Italy and Spain. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Before discussing what Greece did right, and US, UK and others did wrong, let’s look at the performance. The first graph shows cumulative numbers of deaths normalized by population (deaths per million) on a logarithmic scale, against days since start (defined as when one death per million occurred). While the US has had 86 deaths per million, Greece has only had 9.5 per million. The UK has had a disturbing 194.1 deaths per million. So the normalized death figures for US and UK are roughly ten and twenty times those for Greece. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The number of deaths for the UK is probably a huge underestimate, because the UK is only recording hospital deaths. In Canada close to half of COVID deaths have been linked to long-term care facilities for the elderly, most dying in the care homes themselves. There is no reason to think that things would be substantially different in the UK, so in fact the actual number of UK deaths could be closer to 300 or 400 per million, which makes its fatality rate among the highest in the world, along with Spain and Italy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">A similar picture prevails if one looks at number of cases rather than deaths. The second graph shows these numbers. Greece has 204.4 cases per million, USA 1931.2 cases per million and UK 1497. 4 cases per million. So again USA and UK have substantially more cases than Greece.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">What is the reason behind these huge discrepancies? This article by Eric Reguly goes into the steps that Greece took which others didn’t. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-greece-learned-from-italys-and-spains-mistakes-and-used-rapid/" target="_blank">https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-greece-learned-from-italys-and-spains-mistakes-and-used-rapid/</a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It seems that the main thing is that they acted very quickly to isolate and shut down the spread. It was fortunate in that it had a new government with a strong mandate, and so was able to make tough decisions, without much dissent. It also was able to learn from the experiences of Italy and Spain. For example Reguly informs that </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">“All Greek schools were closed within 13 days of the first positive test. Italy did not shut its schools until 33 days after its first positive; Spain took 43 days. Greece’s schools were closed on the day the country reported its first coronavirus fatality. Italy waited 11 days and Spain 30 days. Non-essential shops were closed in Greece within four days of the first fatality. Italy waited 18 days and Spain 30 days.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Compare this with what happened in US and UK. In spite of Donald Trump trying to blame everybody but himself, especially the WHO, he must be held responsible for much of the slow response in his country. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">A full month after the WHO declared “a public health emergency of international concern” (on January 30) Donald Trump told a rally of his supporters (on Feb. 28) that "Thirty five thousand people on average die each year from the flu. Did anyone know that? Thirty five thousand. That's a lot of people. And so far, we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States."</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"Now, the Democrats are politicising the coronavirus… this is their new hoax." Finally on March 13, the US declared a national emergency. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The first case of COVID identified in the US was on January 19 in Snohomish County in Washington State. So the US wasted six weeks. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In contrast to the US as a whole, one state especially stands out for taking rapid action and keeping the outbreak under control. This is California, where Governor Newsom declared a state of emergency on March 4 and issued an order for Californians to stay indoors on March 19. California now has one of the lowest infection rates per capita of all US states (see graph). </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The UK offers another example of delay causing a severe outbreak. It was very slow off of the mark, at first adopting a policy of advocating protection of the frail and elderly while letting younger fit people get the disease to build up herd immunity. While proposed by the Chief Government Scientist and Medical Officer, this policy always seemed to me like an absurdity - basically saying we’ll let people get COVID this year to prevent them from getting it next year. Perhaps with poetic justice both Boris Johnson and the Chief Scientist ended up contracting the disease. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Boris Johnson, like Trump, adopted a very blasé attitude to the disease, going around shaking hands with people long after the WHO had warned against close contact. The UK Government’s handling if the crisis represents a complete policy failure, following from which many people have died. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">To those with a mathematical background, it should come as no surprise that early action can be very effective. If something is growing exponentially, reducing the initial state, by say fifty percent, will have the effect of reducing the state by fifty percent at every time point thereafter. Even as growth from exponential slows, the scaling still applies. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So it seems the arrogance and assumed superiority of Britain and the USA, or at least of their leaders, has led to disasters, which could have been, if not completely avoided, then greatly ameliorated. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Will these leaders be held to account? I would like to think so. But Trump, with his optimistic if dangerous message seems to have maintained support at least of his base. And by contracting the virus himself, Johnson may have earned the sympathy of many voters, notwithstanding the fact that to some extent his sickness was of his own doing. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">PS. Since first posting this I saw the following, by<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); color: #313131;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); color: #313131;">Britta and Nicolas Jewell of Imperial College London and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); color: #313131;"> which reinforces the importance of early intervention</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); color: #313131; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">: </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: whitesmoke; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic;">The recent </span><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.facebook.com/scjolly/posts/10107546098490060?__xts__[0]=68.ARC9VySdEr7kqUT6c16MVflx-M9Cp9SYNKz2aTwYkVHlymCXr9g9IbIAYHaIYdfD1GvsW5F1p1_s2hBK09KNSIhPxuQcWXYjuSsqdyY7qkssdLtKnwfrDFcbHZhyCogD3LANWN2ZHhWdQrtIzl9nVDiNeqPIqGck0vKZxwNSPem84LTuuMRX8t_2IiV5xCgrm3cKiDxmMvHEaina0POAvMzYmD7uSoJkg3_t-zdk3M-yWvUQcA_QP5xqQZ4LasFDNsfbN8f7lS-yFFvRQfQrbbCH4P7gb2CDVF8pqqnGBFi6_SsW-X7EtJl8Yat88daFJ2HiS1sYCg3RJRXy&__tn__=-R" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; box-sizing: border-box; color: #00bfa5; cursor: pointer; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s;" target="_blank" title="">divergence of epidemics</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: whitesmoke; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic;"> in Kentucky and Tennessee shows that even a few days’ difference in action can have a big effect. Kentucky’s social distancing measure was issued </span><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-stream.aspx?n=GovernorBeshear&prId=105" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; box-sizing: border-box; color: #00bfa5; cursor: pointer; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s;" target="_blank" title="">March 26</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: whitesmoke; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic;">; Tennessee waited until the last minute of March 31. As Kentucky moved to full statewide measures in reducing infection growth, Tennessee was usually less than a week behind. But as of Friday, the result was stark: </span><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.whas11.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/kentucky-covid-19-updates/417-db76b6c6-185b-4e72-9c41-331d043b6d63" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; box-sizing: border-box; color: #00bfa5; cursor: pointer; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s;" target="_blank" title="">Kentucky</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: whitesmoke; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic;"> had 1,693 confirmed cases (379 per million population); </span><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://twitter.com/TNDeptofHealth/status/1248687230517944331" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; box-sizing: border-box; color: #00bfa5; cursor: pointer; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s;" target="_blank" title="">Tennessee</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: whitesmoke; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic;"> had 4,862 (712 per million).</span></div>
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-64235209533098004482020-04-13T12:29:00.000-07:002020-04-13T12:29:17.787-07:00If the shale industry goes down, who will it take with it? <div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The BBC on Sunday reported that ‘Opec producers and allies have agreed a record oil deal that will slash global output by about 10%’. In March the price had dropped dramatically because of a perfect storm which saw a headlong drop in demand caused by the Coronavirus coupled with a large increase in supply due to Saudi Arabia precipitously increasing production after it failed to reach an agreement on production quotas with Russia. It was yet another abject failure by the young hothead who seems to call the shots in Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed bin Salman.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whether or not this agreed cut will hold, and if it does whether it will restore the price of oil to any thing like what it was at the start of the year, remains to be seen. I somehow doubt it will. However even if it does I doubt if it will rescue the shale oil industry in the United States, from what looks like a very shaky future. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it is more widely known, was first proved to be commercially viable in 1997. It works by pumping liquid at high pressure into horizontally distributed oil deposits in shale rock formations, below the surface. It has been used in producing oil and gas on a large scale for ten to fifteen years. But in that time it has turned the industry on its head. The USA used to worry about its increasing dependence on oil imports, but in that ten year span it has not only become self-sufficient and more, it has become the world’s largest oil producer, eclipsing even Saudi Arabia. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps this energy independence has been one of the causes of increased American self-assertion on the world stage. No longer reliant on Middle-Eastern oil, it no doubt feels it can afford policies, which lead to de-stabilization of the region, such as its support of jihadi rebels and civil war in Syria and the extreme tilt towards Israel, which has occurred during Donald Trump’s presidency. In fact instability in the energy ‘breadbasket’ of the Middle East, actually helps American shale producers by keeping oil prices high. It could be argued that this is one of the reasons for Trump’s antagonistic policies towards Iran - to keep Iranian oil off of the market. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Something not mentioned often in the triumphal boosting of the newfound American energy supremacy, is the fact that the industry can only be economically viable with energy prices suitably high. The break-even price for shale oil is put between $48 and $54 (USD) a barrel. Last week the price (West Texas Intermediate) bottomed out at around $20. Understandably the Trump administration worked very hard to get the Saudis and others to reduce production. But even with the reported success in getting an agreement, it seems unlikely that prices will rise to the $50 a barrel needed for shale oil to make a profit. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">But the story is worse than that. In an article in the New York Times on Sunday, author Bethany McLean <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-texas-fracking-layoffs.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-texas-fracking-layoffs.html</a> </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">pointed out that very few shale oil producers have actually made any profit over the last ten years. The way the shale-oil producers have stayed in business is by drawing in billions in capital from investors convinced by the years of high energy prices and the talk of ‘peak oil’ that, in the long run, the supply of this non-renewable resource will dwindle and push prices up. In essence it has been like a Ponzi scheme.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">To date this has kept most producers in business, but the current Coronavirus shock to prices is beginning to take its toll, with shutdowns and some bankruptcies (McLean mentions Whiting Petroleum whose stock once traded at $150 per share). Will investors still be prepared to pump money into an industry that hasn’t made any money during ‘good years’ now that the ‘bad years’ are here? No doubt many will start looking more closely at the way the shale oil industry operates, and whether it will ever be able to yield a return on investment even if prices rise well above $50 a barrel. For example the McLean article quotes hedge fund manager David Einhorn who analyzed 16 publicly traded shale companies and found that between 2006 and 2014 they spent $80 billion more than they received from selling oil. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Industry boosters argue that technological innovation will reduce costs and help make the industry more profitable. But the geology seems to suggest things will move in the opposite direction. The history of fracking seems to indicate that production from any well drops off sharply after about a year or so, forcing the search for new sites. And when wells are clustered too close together, extraction from one negatively affects the other wells. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Even before the current price shock investors were beginning to become impatient and wanted to see some return on their investments, before sinking more money into these companies. Indeed in September of 2018, Ms. McLean published an article (again in the NY Times) </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">pointing out all of these financial problems with the fracking industry. But the gist of her article was the suggestion that the collapse of the shale oil industry could bring about a financial collapse, not unlike the sub-prime collapse of 2008. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Moody’s reported that in the third quarter of 2019, 91% of defaulted corporate debt was because of oil and gas companies. Ms. McLean writes ‘And North American oil and gas drillers have almost $100 billion in debt that is set to mature in the next four years.’ </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘It’s still unclear where most of this debt is held. Some of it has been packaged into so-called collateralized loan obligations, pieces of which are held by hedge funds. Some of it may be on bank balance sheets’. It all sounds very much like the mortgage debt of the sub-prime crisis of 2008. It could well be that, as Bethany McLean titled her 2018 article, ‘The next financial crisis lurks underground’. </span></span></div>
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-91541202603997930982020-03-30T11:35:00.000-07:002020-03-30T15:10:25.306-07:00What a simple mathematical model can tell us about Covid-19 <div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12.6px;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">There are certain characteristics of disease outbreaks which are common to many epidemics, and mathematicians and </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">epidemiologists have captured some of these aspects in simple analytical models. In this post I will introduce one such model and discuss what can be learned about the Covid-19 from it. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">One of the oldest and simplest mathematical models for an epidemic is the so-called S-I-R model introduced by Kermack and McKendrick in 1927. And I think it provides a good first approximation to the dynamics of the current Coronavirus epidemic, and can provide some important insights. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">In this compartmental model there are three ‘compartments’ - ‘Susceptibles’, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S; </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">‘Infectives’, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">I; </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">and ‘Removed’, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">R. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">This last class includes those who have had the infection and are no longer susceptible either through acquired immunity or death. The dynamics of the disease are described by the three equation of motion: </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">dI /dt = β S I/N - νI </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">where </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">N</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> is the total population size (= </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S+I+</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">R) and</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;"> β </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">and ν are parameters. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The left-hand sides are the time rates of change, e.g number of new Susceptibles (or Infectives or Removed) per day. The rate of infections (rate at which individuals move from Susceptible to Infective class) is </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">β S I/N. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Note that it is assumed to depend on both the current number of Infectives, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">I, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> in the population and the current number of Susceptibles, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">For a fixed value of </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">, the number of infectives is growing exponentially at the rate</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;"> (β S /N - ν) </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">because then </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">dI/dt = (β S /N - ν) I. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> So the epidemic is growing fastest when </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">is largest </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">i.e. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">when it is at its initial value </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S0 = N </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">when the disease is first introduced. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The term </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">ν I </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">represents the rate at which Infectives are removed either by recovery or death. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Although there are two parameters in this system, β and ν, it is easily shown by re-scaling that its behaviour depends only on the ratio </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">R0</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> = β/ν. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">This quantity is very important and is known as the </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">basic reproduction number</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">. It represents the maximum expected number of new Infectives for any single infected individual. As one might expect if R0 is less than one, no epidemic arises. But if R0 is greater than one an epidemic breaks out. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">If one writes the right hand side of the second equation as </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">(β S /N - ν) I, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">one can see that the number of infectives is growing (</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">dI/dt > 0</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">) if </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">βS/N−ν > 0</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">; and is decreasing if </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">βS/N−ν < 0. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">In other words the epidemic is growing all the time that </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S >N ν/β</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">=</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">N/R0</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">; and is declining if </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S < N/R0. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The peak of the outbreak thus occurs when the number of susceptibles </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">is reduced to </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">N/R0. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">This also tells us how many people need to become immune, in order to achieve so-called </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">herd immunity. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Herd immunity occurs in a population when the number of susceptibles is not large enough to maintain an epidemic. It can often be brought about by vaccination, but unfortunately not yet for Covid. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">From the calculations above an epidemic will not occur if </span></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> <span style="font-size: large;"><i>S < N/R0, </i>or if the number with immunity is greater than </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">N-</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;">N/R0</span> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">= <i>N(R0-1)/R0</i></span><i style="font-family: inherit;"> . </i><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;">Thus the percentage of the population required for herd immunity is </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit;">100</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">(R0-1)/R0 </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit;">%. Estimates of R0 for Covid-19 vary, but a study from Wuhan published in </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">Lancet</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit;"> put it at about 2.3. A study of cruise ship infections had a similar estimate. This suggests that it would require immunity in about 57% of the population. However there was uncertainty in the estimates. The </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">Lancet </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit;">study gave a 95% confidence interval of 1.15 to 4.77, which suggests that to obtain herd immunity somewhere between 13% and 79% of the population would need to become immune. So there is still a great deal of uncertainty with regard to R0 and herd immunity. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Also by writing the right hand side of the equation for the dynamics of </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">I, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">one can see why an epidemic occurs only if the basic reproduction number </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">R0 </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">is greater than one. For if initially </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">S0 = N </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">then, initially </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">dI/dt = </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">(β S0/N - ν) I = </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">(β - ν) I = ν(R0-1) I, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">which will be positive if </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">R0 > 1 </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">and negative otherwise. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Explicit solution of the differential equations is is not easy, in terms of simple functions. But qualitative behaviour and numerical solutions are easy to obtain. The graph below shows typical trajectories (in the case </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-style: italic;">R0 > 1) </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">of the numbers of Infectives (green) Susceptibles (blue) and Removed (red) are as shown in the graph. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">What is important is that the height of the peak, and the number uninfected when the epidemic is over both depend on R0. The larger R0, the higher the peak and the smaller the number escaping the disease. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So from the public health point of view reducing R0 is of major importance. This can be done by making </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">the numerator, β, smaller or the denominator, ν, larger. The first can be achieved by reducing contact between Infectives and Susceptibles (social distancing, self-quarantine) and the second by isolating Infectives.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Another conclusion from this model is that the epidemic ends through there being insufficient Infectives to keep it going, so that at the end there is a positive number of Susceptibles who never get the disease. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Kermack and McKendrick successfully used the model to describe the behaviour of a plague outbreak in Bombay in 1906, and other historical epidemics for which data existed. A graph from their paper is shown.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"></span>There are more sophisticated models of Covid-19 which include such things as age structure in the population, stochastic effects and more. A video lecture describing some of these models is availability here </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLVLEZMzIOk" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLVLEZMzIOk</a></span></div>
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-326692154514619602020-03-26T14:41:00.000-07:002020-03-26T14:41:24.837-07:00Who will be held responsible if Julian Assange dies? <div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Is the UK Government hoping that Julian Assange will die of Covid-19 and thus solve its extradition problem? </span><span style="font-size: large;">He is reported to be in frail health, and his request for bail to be released from confinement, because of the Covid risk, has been turned down.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">117 medical doctors, including several world prominent experts in the field, published a letter in the Lancet warning that Assange’s treatment amounts to torture and that he could die in jail. Should Assange die in a UK prison, as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has warned, he will effectively have been tortured to death. Much of that torture will have taken place in a prison medical ward, on doctors’ watch. The medical profession cannot afford to stand silently by, on the wrong side of torture and the wrong side of history, while such a travesty unfolds.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">From everything I have read about his extradition hearing, being held in Belmarsh Prison, it is a travesty of British justice and more like something one might expect in Russia (either in Soviet days or now). </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">For example: The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) condemns the reported mistreatment of Julian Assange during his United States extradition trial in February 2020, and urges the government of the United Kingdom to take action to protect him. According to his lawyers, Mr Assange was handcuffed 11 times; stripped naked twice and searched; his case files confiscated after the first day of the hearing; and had his request to sit with his lawyers during the trial, rather than in a dock surrounded by bulletproof glass, denied.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is worth remembering that Julian Assange is a remand prisoner who has served his unprecedentedly long sentence for bail-jumping. His status is supposedly at present that of an innocent man facing charges.</span></span></div>
William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-72136078667482107142020-03-24T10:40:00.001-07:002020-03-24T10:40:40.996-07:00After the pandemic recedes As we struggle with the crisis of the spread of Coronavirus and the measures necessary to contain both it and the damage it has induced in the economy and elsewhere, it maybe worth thinking about how the world will look once it has receded. Of one thing I am quite sure - that a very different world will emerge at the end of it. <br />
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Given that the Coronavirus originated in China and caused great damage there, it may sound sound counter-intuitive, but I believe that China will come out of the pandemic with its power and position in the world enhanced. <br />
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When the epidemic arose in Wuhan and quickly spread through Hubei province and threatened other parts of the country things looked very bad for China. Lunar New Year celebrations were put on hold and much of the country was put on lockdown. Factories and businesses closed and supply chains were interrupted, resulting no doubt in a big drop in first quarter output. <br />
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Things didn’t look too good for the Communist Party leadership either, when it was revealed how Party officials in Wuhan had tried to cover up the outbreak and had punished the doctor who had first spoken out about it. There were even reports of public unhappiness with the leadership Chairman Xi. Coupled with the concurrent unrest in Hong Kong, the virus epidemic looked as if it might cause the ground to shift a bit under the feet of the autocratic leadership. <br />
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But now as we near the end of March, things look quite different. China seems to have gotten on top of the virus with no new cases of community spread reported in Wuhan for several days. Furthermore it is sending medical equipment and advice to various other hard-hit countries including Iran and Italy. And it is Western countries that are struggling to control the virus and whose economies seem to be going into a tailspin. <br />
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Apart from the propaganda success, there is another way in which China is gaining. The US and other Western countries have announced massive spending programs, at first in an attempt to prevent the collapse of the stock market and ensuing financial mayhem, and subsequently to help protect workers who cannot earn a paycheck through businesses going under or through enforced self isolation. The deficits will be enormous - certainly involving many trillions of dollars. And the governments incurring these massive deficits are, for the most part, already up to their eyes in debt, much of it incurred following the 2008 financial crisis, when banks and financial institutions were bailed out. And the worst borrower by far has been the US Government, which has continued to fight wars around the world and dramatically increase its military budget, while at the same time, cutting taxes at home. <br />
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I am not entirely confident that I understand how government deficit financing operates, but I think it is mostly through the selling of Treasury bills. And who has the reserves to buy such bonds (i.e. to lend such gargantuan sums of money)? I think the answer is China. So when it all shakes down, the US (and other Western nations) will be massively in debt to China.<br />
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Perhaps the US Treasury can simply create money with a few keystrokes on computer? But history teaches that artificially creating money out of thin air, as was tried by the Ancien Regime before the French Revolution and by Weimar Germany, can lead to hyper-inflation and social and political dislocation. <br />
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So however these massive debts are financed, it looks to me as if the long-term winner will be China. The way China is bringing the epidemic under control with fewer deaths even than Italy, and a medical disaster emerging in the US, will all combine to make the authoritarian Chinese system seem attractive to many non-Western countries. Coupled with a debt-ridden capitalist West, with its liberal democracy tainted by extreme inequality, and an electoral system that can result in the election of a narcissistic reality TV huckster, who didn’t even obtain a plurality of votes, the moral supremacy of the West looks definitely shaky. <br />
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It could turn out that the Coronavirus will be seen as the catalyst which led to China replacing the USA as the world’s number one power, just as World War II saw Britain being replaced by the US. I can’t say I want it to happen, but in many ways the US, with the rest of the West tagging along, will have brought this unattractive outcome on itself. William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-82081670260403321332018-12-17T09:58:00.000-08:002018-12-17T09:58:30.393-08:00Did the Trudeau government make a serious blunder? <span style="font-size: large;">Apparently the Government of Canada was warned four days in advance of Meng Wan Zhou’s flight plans and of the United States’ request for her arrest and extradition when she transferred in Vancouver. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Did the Canadian Government not foresee the consequences of executing an arrest warrant? Surely the prudent thing to have done would have been to quietly and anonymously tip off Ms. Meng, or the Chinese Government, about the planned arrest. That way, Canada would have avoided being part of a very dubious kidnap/ransom operation, would not have faced retaliation from China with two of its citizens taken hostage, and probably could have avoided the wrath of an unhinged administration in Washington (plausible deniability). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The way things are now, it is going to be very difficult for China or the US to back down, and Canada is caught in the middle - caught between two gangster regimes, some have said. There has been a lot of harrumphing in the Canadian media about how Canada (unlike China) is a country bound by the rule of law. But sometimes the law can be a cumbersome and ineffective instrument, especially when wielded in bad faith (Trump with his penchant for suing anyone who crosses him knows all about that). I can’t help thinking that a quiet tip-off could have avoided recourse to the courts and saved all of this trouble, and may even have helped prevent a new cold war.</span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-3007138973470064422018-12-13T15:10:00.000-08:002018-12-13T15:10:28.474-08:00Medieval practices in the modern age. <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Is there anyone who thinks that the arrest of Meng Wan Zhou was not political? If so perhaps they should read the following piece by Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">In it he names over twenty international banks (including all of the big ones such as J P Morgan Chase, HSBC etc.), which, since 2010 alone, have paid fines for violations of US Government sanctions against Iran and other countries. But Jaime Dimon was not grabbed off of a plane and taken into custody or even charged with anything. Nor was any other bank executive. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Sachs rightly asserts that corporate leaders involved in criminal wrongdoing should be prosecuted, rather than the authorities allowing their companies to negotiate fines with prosecutors. But he points out that very few American CEOs or CFOs have faced such prosecution, in spite of the manifest wrongdoing associated with the 2008 crash. But Meng was arrested, and she now faces years of house arrest while lawyers argue over her extradition. An earlier extradition case in Canada, involving Rakesh Saxena, an Indian financier accused by the Thai Government of embezzlement, took 13 years to resolve before he was finally extradited! </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">And yesterday, as if to confirm the political nature of the arrest, the American president himself said he might intervene if it helped in his trade dispute with China! It is almost an admission that she is being taken as a hostage. No doubt her legal team took note. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Once again the USA is violating international norms, undermining the trust and the rule of law which underlie cooperation between governments. Taking foreign leaders hostage for ransom or leverage was something that happened in the Middle Ages. Surely we have collectively realised the damaging nature of such practice. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">W. H. Auden in his poem <i>September</i>, <i>1939 </i></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 11pt;">called the 1930s a ‘low, dishonest decade’. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 11pt;">It seems that in the first two decades of the 21st. century we are following down similar dark paths, pioneered pre World War II. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">I hope that the Canadian extradition court, will take the political nature of this arrest into consideration and deny the US request. Don’t hold your breath though - it could be many years before Meng Wan Zhou leaves Vancouver.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-us-not-china-is-the-real-threat-to-international-rule-of-law/" target="_blank">https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-us-not-china-is-the-real-threat-to-international-rule-of-law/</a></span></div>
William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-46705897824546609402018-03-24T14:30:00.000-07:002018-03-24T14:30:22.771-07:00Is Hostility Towards Russia Part of a Grand Strategy? <div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Those who know me or who have read my blog or Facebook posts, know that for a long time I have lamented the fact that since the end of the Cold War leaders in the West (US, NATO, EU) have done everything in their power to exclude Russia from integration into their network of alliances, trade organizations etc. Instead they have sought to isolate and demonize Russia, as if the Cold War had never ended. Indeed in recent years it has seemed that there has been a concerted effort to revive and heat up the Cold War. To me this has always seemed a foolish and dangerous policy, and I have often wondered what lies behind it. The aim of this blog is to suggest a reason for the hostility to Russia. I am not saying that it has been in place from the outset, but rather that it has emerged as part of a ‘Grand Strategy’, especially since the turn of the century, when the presidency of Boris Yeltsin was succeeded by that of Vladimir Putin. Perhaps it was on the back burner following 9-11 when Islamic fundamentalism took centre stage, but I suspect that in the minds of strategic thinkers it has been there all along. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Under Putin's presidency, Russia has recovered somewhat, from the depths to which it sank following the collapse of the USSR and the Yeltsin presidency, and is now showing much more confidence in international affairs. After seeing duplicitous Western behaviour in the invasion of Iraq, and the intervention in Libya under the false claim of protecting civilians, Russia has shown itself now ready to stand up and challenge what it sees as violations of its own interests. The protracted conflicts in Ukraine and Syria resulting from this have helped in bringing the relationship between Russia and the West to new lows. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Was this sad deterioration of relations inevitable? While Russia doubtless bears some responsibility, I think few can deny that the West has done everything in its power to goad and humiliate Russia. Is there a reason behind this strategy? Or is it just an old Cold War reflex? Or an attitude in Washington that cannot tolerate any government unwilling to bend the knee to the American hegemon? Or the need of the military industrial complex to have a potent enemy in order to justifiy the bloated defense budget? Probably all of these play a part. But since this approach to Russia has continued under both Democrat (Clinton, Obama) and Republican (Bush) presidencies, and since Trump’s pre-election intention of establishing better relations with Russia has caused so much outrage, one must ask if there are other reasons. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Here I offer a speculative answer. It is something that struck me on reading the following article on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.atimes.com/article/myth-neo-imperial-China/" target="_blank">http://www.atimes.com/article/myth-neo-imperial-China/</a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">China is currently investing enormous sums into creating a single economic area throughout the Asian landmass by means of building transport infrastructure, increasing trade and by establishing cultural linkages. The Silk Road Initiative involves creating transportation links (railroads, highways) along the ancient silk roads that linked Europe with China, and the Maritime Silk Road Initiative involves creating ports and infrastructure along the sea routes through the China Sea and Indian Ocean, to the Middle East. There is also a project to develop the North East Passage sea route, through the Arctic, north of Siberia. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Of course Asia is a cultural-historical concept, not a geographical one, in the physical sense, at least. Physically there is one Eurasian landmass, and not only would the Belt Road Iniative link China with Central Asia, it would link China with Europe. Imagine China linked with Western Europe by high-speed rail links. The trade opportunities between Europe, advanced in high-tech, and China with its manufacturing power and large population, would be tremendous. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Russia would straddle the trading routes and with its vast natural resource base it would provide resources and energy to both termini. It also has the brain power and would have the potential to experience rapid industrial and technological development. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It would be the </span><span style="font-size: large;">Heartland Theory</span><span style="font-size: large;"> of geographer </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Halford Mackinder realized. For Mackinder, <i>The World Island</i> was the Eurasian landmass. He opined in 1904</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-style: italic;">who rules the World-Island commands the world.’</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In this picture, the US is nowhere to be seen. It could conceivably, in the long run, find itself relegated to an isolated, debt-ridden, backward-looking country, with a massive and unaffordable military (and a poorly educated and over-armed citizenry) relying on rust-bucket technologies and polluting energy sources. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But if Europe could be quarantined from connection with China and the rising industrial power of East Asia, America’s nightmare could be avoided, or at least delayed. And a way to do that would be to keep Europe and Russia locked in Cold War attitudes of mutual suspicion and hostility towards one another. Under this scenario, the best US strategy might be to ramp up hostility towards Russia, goading it by advancing NATO to its frontiers, tearing up arms control treaties and encouraging ‘colour revolutions’ in neighbouring states. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This is pretty much what has happened since the end of the Cold War. Rather than trying to bring Russia into the fold, US policy has been the exact opposite. Maybe there has been more thought behind this strategy than I had credited - maybe it is not just a knee-jerk Cold War style hostility to all things Russian? If Europe can for ever be kept at daggers drawn with Russia, </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">the dynamics of the world game would be US-Europe vs. China-Russia rather than the US vs. an integrated World Island. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Please note I am not trying to praise the political systems in either Russia or China. And I would certainly prefer to live in a Western democracy than either of them. But trading connections could and should increase prosperity and opportunity for all sides. And it should be able to happen without compromising our freedoms and values. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But I am afraid that the US with its constant militarism, rising deficits and reliance on borrowed money, coupled with its inward looking threat of protectionism, has taken a seriously wrong turn. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In spite of America’s bad choices, Europe doesn’t necessarily have to follow. I don’t expect much from Brexit-absorbed Britain under Theresa May’s Tories, but I do wonder when other European powers, in particular Germany, will wake up and see that their interests don’t necessarily rise and fall in the west. The sun, after all, rises in the east. It sets in the west.</span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-54539269311670683422018-03-09T12:18:00.000-08:002018-03-09T12:18:23.219-08:00Cronyism set to reach new heights. <span style="font-size: large;">George W. Bush was often thought of as epitomizing crony capitalism. But Donald J. Trump carries cronyism to a new height. Not only is Trump himself and family (Ivanka, Jared et al.) using their positions for personal gain, he has made appointments to cabinet positions of people friendly (if not an actual part of) the industries they are supposed to regulate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thus we have the Environmental Protection Agency run on behalf of polluters, an Interior Department run by people who want to loot federal land, an Education Department run by the for-profit schools industry.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And now he is making trade policy which will benefit those who have the ear (and pockets) of people in power. As Paul Krugman writes:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/opinion/trump-trade-tariffs-steel.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/opinion/trump-trade-tariffs-steel.html</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">“There’s a reason we have international trade agreements, and it’s not to protect us from unfair practices by other countries. The real goal, instead, is to protect us from ourselves: to limit the special-interest politics and outright corruption that used to reign in trade policy”. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Krugman points out that there usually are many more people hurt by tariffs than by those who benefit. But those who benefit have the ear of the policy makers. It is interesting that steel (along with aluminum) are the first products subject to import duties. I heard former Reagan Budget Director, David Stockman, on the radio yesterday saying that the steel industry has been a major crybaby for years, perennially trying to get Government help for the industry.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Before WWII, “Tariff policy used to be one of the dirtiest, most corrupt aspects of politics both in the U.S. and elsewhere” (Krugman).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Following the repeal of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, under FDR, temptations for these crony special deals vanished. But cronyism is one of the defining characteristics of Donald Trump. It’s not surprising that he’s moving to impose tariffs.</span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-42108406685421476462018-03-09T09:55:00.001-08:002018-03-09T09:55:48.294-08:00A House Divided. <span style="font-size: large;">“<i>We would do well to pay heed to the old enmities bubbling up in our politics: it is not that we are on the verge of another civil war, but that the Civil War never truly ended. With the exception of slavery itself, what divided the United States then divides us still today</i>.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">These are the words of Manisha Sinha, historian of the Abolitionist movement and the Civil War. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/06/todays-eerie-echoes-of-the-civil-war/">http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/06/todays-eerie-echoes-of-the-civil-war/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Interesting to note, though, that while the divisions are pretty much the same, the positions of both major US parties have done a 180 degree switch. In the 1860s, the Democratic Party was the party of the southern slaveholders and their conservative northern allies (“doughfaces”) while the Republicans were liberal on abolition and the political rights of black Americans.</span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-23679915789852909812018-03-09T09:52:00.000-08:002018-03-09T09:52:12.326-08:00One Man’s Democracy Promotion is Another’s Meddling. <span style="font-size: large;">Did you ever wonder who produced and paid for all of the banners and signs (printed in English) seen at anti-government demonstrations in places as diverse as Iran, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela, Georgia etc. Well it’s a good bet that the National Endowment for Democracy played some part in it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The NED, founded in 1983, was the brainchild of Reagan’s CIA director William Casey to (in the words of the late Robert Parry) “take over CIA programs that attempt to influence foreign elections by promoting the selection of candidates who supported U.S. policy and would ‘do what the U.S. government tells them to do.’” </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The NED has a budget of $180 million from US Government, and distributes grants to supposedly promote democracy. It is prohibited from engaging in partisan political activities and from ‘promoting democracy’ in the USA; also it is required to receive approval for all grants from the State Department prior to dishing them out. But this didn’t prevent it from financing opposition factions in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Venezuela, not to mention Ukraine and Iran. Did you ever wonder where the $5 billion that Victoria Nuland bragged about spending on the 2014 overthrow the corrupt (but elected) government of Ukraine, came from.? It’s a good bet that the NED had something to do with it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Meddling in other countries elections (like those pesky Russians did to deny Hillary the throne). Heaven forbid!</span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-81075252117859267232018-03-09T09:48:00.000-08:002018-03-09T09:49:23.561-08:00Dereliction of Duty?<span style="font-size: large;">Dereliction of Duty. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This was the title of a book by current National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster. It’s thesis (and it indeed grew out of the author’s PhD thesis) was that during the Vietnam War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff displayed a dereliction of duty by becoming politicized and acceding to the wishes of then President Johnson and his civilian advisers. I haven’t read the book but it sounds a lot like a professional soldier trying to shift the blame for a lost war - the </span><span style="font-size: large;">old ‘stab in the back’ excuse, which the military leadership of losing sides have leaned upon in the past, the most notable being the German high command during the Weimar years following WWI (and eagerly seized upon by Adolf Hitler). Besides in a democracy is not the military supposed to be subordinate to the elected government? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway the following article</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/03/22/mcmaster-dereliction-of-duty/">http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/03/22/mcmaster-dereliction-of-duty/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">suggests that McMaster, since assuming the National Security position in Trump’s cabinet, has himself been derelict in his duty of standing up to the mercurial President. In other words, he has become politicized and failed to perform the duties expected of the leadership position. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There have been rumours of McMaster being given the boot by Trump. Was he perhaps behind the neutering of son-in-law Kushner? Or is it perhaps Chief of Staff John Kelly (another right-wing general) who eased out both Steve Bannon and Kushner and has now got his sights set on McMaster? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Shakespearean intrigue indeed. I wonder which of the Bard’s tragedies would best lend itself to being set in Trump’s Washington?</span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-19484618404969269132017-10-03T11:10:00.000-07:002017-10-03T11:10:27.036-07:00Whose Ox is being Gored? <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">When is an independence movement with the aim of secession legitimate and when not? </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The secession of Kosovo from Serbia was deemed legitimate by Western powers (and brought about by the intervention of NATO troops). But the secession of Crimea from Ukraine was deemed illegitimate and labelled as an 'Russian invasion' by the US and many EU allies.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">South Sudan's breakaway from the former country of Sudan was OK (they have lots of oil). But the Iraqi Kurds vote on independence was nixed by almost everyone (even though they have oil too). </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Slovakia was allowed to peacefully divorce the Czech part of their former country while the disintegration of Yugoslavia was encouraged by the West, as was the break up of the Soviet Union. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But the reaction to Catalunya's intention to hold a referendum on independence was met by condemnation throughout the EU. Official minds don't seem to have changed much even after the thuggish behaviour of the Madrid government and its goons in the paramilitary Guardia Civil.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I can't imagine a more spectacular own goal than the one scored on Sunday by the Madrid government of Mariano Rajoy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">If the referendum had been allowed to proceed peacefully, it seemed quite possible that the independence proposal would have been rejected. Even if it had been approved by a slim majority, independence would still have been a long way off. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But the heavy handed tactics of the Guardia (who by the way were the hated instrument Franco used to maintain his dictatorial power for decades - including outlawing the Catalan language) has proved a disaster for the cause of a unified Spain. I imagine few of the people who would have voted 'No' in a peaceful poll, would have risked confronting the goon squads. And the result - 90% in favour and a propaganda disaster for Rajoy, with pictures of police swinging batons and elderly ladies with bleeding faces. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And again I imagine that many people who would have voted 'No' will have changed their minds after yesterday's debacle revealed the true nature of Rajoy's government. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I believe Rajoy's party leads a minority government - following a second election, in 2016, after the first, in 2015, failed to produce a party capable of forming a government. His People’s Party only won the confidence of the Cortes when the Socialist Party abstained from voting on the initial confidence vote. So his hold on power in Madrid must be pretty tenuous. Let's hope some of the other parties in the Cortes (Ciudanos Unidos or the Socialist Party of Spain?) will combine to kick this mediocrity into oblivion. By the way, this is not the first unwise and belligerent policy that Rajoy has backed - he was Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Jose Aznar, when the latter went ‘all in’ in backing George W. Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">However I don’t hold out much hope of the Madrid government falling over the Catalunya issue. Apparently most of Madrid’s leading newspapers and opinion makers have come out strongly against Catalunya. So I fear that the rift between it and the rest of Spain will grow, leading to a very uncertain future. This could also lead to renewed calls for independence for the Basque provinces, and possibly even from Galicia - the home province of Mariano Rajoy and the late dictator Francisco Franco. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Along with the Spanish government, the EU in its failure to condemn the violence of the National Police and the Guardia Civil, has not come out of this very well. Perhaps the conflict between Catalunya and Spain will be a crisis for the EU of greater magnitude than Brexit. Who knows? And by the way if Britain has the right to leave the EU (which clearly it does), then should not Catalunya have the right to leave Spain? </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The answer to this one seems to be, as perhaps with all issues of secession, "It depends on whose ox is is being gored." </span></span></div>
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-23055534208783746122017-07-13T12:57:00.000-07:002017-07-13T12:57:01.859-07:00Magnitsky, Browder and Russia-gate. <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Remember the Magnitsky case and the US Magnitsky Act which imposed sanctions upon a number of Russians associated with the Putin government? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Magnitsky died in custody in Russia and US hedge fund operator William Browder brought the case to Western attention alleging that Magnitsky died at the hands of corrupt Russian officials, who were involved in fraudulently stealing assets from Browder's hedge fund. Browder' claims were quite widely aired and it all added to the ramping up of US-Russia tensions and the demonization of Putin. I recall seeing an extended piece on the subject on CBC's flagship news program <i>The National</i>. It was followed by an interview with Browder, who presented himself as a friend of Magnitsky, outraged by his treatment, and seeking justice. It was all quite convincing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Well it seems that things may not be quite the way Browder claimed. Indeed it may have been Browder himself who was acting fraudulently. This was alleged in a film made by Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, a known critic of Vladimir Putin. He intended to make a film about the affair, which would indict Putin and his allies. To quote from an <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/13/how-russia-gate-met-the-magnitsky-myth/">article</a> by Robert Parry: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>However, the project took an unexpected turn when Nekrasov’s research kept turning up contradictions to Browder’s storyline, which began to look more and more like a corporate cover story. Nekrasov discovered that a woman working in Browder’s company was the actual whistleblower and that Magnitsky – rather than a crusading lawyer – was an accountant who was implicated in the scheme.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>So, the planned docudrama suddenly was transformed into a documentary with a dramatic reversal as Nekrasov struggles with what he knows will be a dangerous decision to confront Browder with what appear to be deceptions. In the film, you see Browder go from a friendly collaborator into an angry adversary who tries to bully Nekrasov into backing down.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But not many people have seen the film. It has been so far fairly successfully repressed by Browder's lawyers and other players in the US including the Washington Post. The full details can be found in Parry's article.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But what is interesting is that this story intersects with the so-called Russia-Gate Trump story, in that Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. was also involved in the Magnitsky story. So more may be coming out about the Magnitsky case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I have no idea about what really happened with Browder, Magnitsky and the Russian authorities, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that once again we are being sold a bill of goods by the corporate media. They have certainly failed to present both sides of the story. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">More can be found on Nekrasov's film <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2016/06/21/destroying-the-magnitsky-myth/">here</a> in an article by Gilbert Doctorow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">https://consortiumnews.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">-propaganda/</span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-78455607778020524572017-05-03T13:35:00.000-07:002017-05-04T10:29:52.444-07:00Jane Jacobs' Warning.<div style="line-height: normal;">
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 2004 at age eighty-eight, Jane Jacobs published
her last completed book. It was a jeremiad entitled </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Dark Age
Ahead. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was reminded of this last week when I read the following article by Robert Parry</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/30/the-existential-question-of-who-to-trust/"><span style="font-size: large;">https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/30/the-existential-question-of-who-to-trust/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">which deals with the corrosive effects of careerism in the world of journalism, government and international bureaucracies. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One might at first think from the title of Jane Jacobs' book, that it is
about the serious threats that were emerging at the time of writing, such as the perils of terrorism and its effects on liberal democracies, or about the persisting threats of </span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">global climate change or</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">nuclear war. But
that is not what Jacobs was writing about. She was concerned with threats
to society arising from within. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">What she meant by a 'dark age' was a a 'cultural
dead end', a time when people could no longer remember what they had lost.
In the book she identifies five pillars of society whose failure could
be leading us into a new dark age:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Families; </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Education; </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Science; </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Taxes; and </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Professional accountability.</span></span></h2>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">While Ms. Jacobs insisted that the failures were
interconnected, she seems to have been particularly prescient with respect to
last of these - professional and personal standards and accountability. The failure of
professional self-policing has become more and more common since her death. The consequences have been more serious than their immediate impacts
might suggest, and are perhaps leading us toward a dark age as outlined by Jacobs. More on this later but first a few reminders of the failures.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The accountancy profession was seriously
compromised in the Enron and other scandals in the 90s. Wall St. and the
banking profession were even more tarnished in the unravelling of the financial
crisis of 2008 and in the LIBOR rate fixing scandal a few years later.
Banks, mortgage lenders and ratings agencies were revealed to have egregiously
violated their positions of trust. Apart from a very few scapegoats, the
perpetrators walked away better off than before. The fact that governments bailed out banks without anyone facing criminal charges, has left the industry perhaps more vulnerable than ever to the temptations f moral hazard. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Another profession which has in many cases lost the public trust is that of policing. Police forces have always been notoriously
self-protective. But in recent times this seems to have become even worse, to the extent that (in the USA) officers filmed shooting
unarmed suspects, or in a mob killing an unarmed suspect in a choke-hold, have
walked away, with little more than a slap on the wrist. What kind of
message does this send to young officers joining a police force? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And of course there is the journalistic
profession. In Robert Parry's article (link above) he details how 'careerism' has
done serious damage to the credibility of the profession. </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Not surprisingly he points to the massive failure
in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003. He particularly points to the
failures of the <i>Washington Post </i>and <i>New York Times</i> in
simply accepting and parroting the line being spun by the Bush Administration.
He points out how </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">New York Times’ Pentagon correspondent Michael R. Gordon</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> who was the lead writer on
the infamous “aluminum tubes for nuclear centrifuges” story which got the ball
rolling for the Bush administration’s rollout of its invade-Iraq advertising
campaign in September 2002, still covers national security for the Times – and
still serves as a conveyor belt for U.S. government propaganda. And the
Washington Post’s editorial page editor Fred Hyatt</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> who repeatedly informed the Post’s
readers that Iraq’s secret possession of WMD was a “flat-fact,” is still the
Post’s editorial page editor, one of the most influential positions in American
journalism. Meanwhile whistleblowers like Julian Assange and Edward
Snowden are persecuted and forced into exile. Parry asks what kind of
example does this set for aspiring journalists? And he answers "The
lesson that any careerist would draw from the Iraq case is that there is almost
no downside risk in running with the pack on a national security issue. Even if
you’re horrifically wrong — even if you contribute to the deaths of some 4,500
U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis — your paycheck is almost
surely safe."</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The failure of the journalistic profession relates to, and is perhaps a consequence of, the mendacity of the political class. Politicians have always lied and stretched the truth. But it has traditionally been considered the role of the journalistic profession to challenge and expose such behaviour. Politicians no longer seem to have to really pay a price for their lies and crimes. Those in the administration of George W. Bush</span></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">, including torturers and war criminals,</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> who broke international law and violated the Constitution faced no real sanction. In the UK Tony Blair faced several inquiries, the most complete several years after he had left office, </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">and</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> though he was criticized, never faced any legal sanction or penalty. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now it seems that the worst penalty that a politician may face if his or her </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">delinquencies are exposed is a short time-out. Examples in the UK are Peter Mandelson (former Labour cabinet minister) and Liam Fox (Conservative cabinet minister). The former actually was forced to resign twice over financial malfeasance, but after a brief time out was </span><span style="font-size: large;">reinstated</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> twice. Liam Fox, when in the shadow cabinet was found to have a huge over-claim on expenses, and was forced to repay a large amount. In spite of this he was appointed by David Cameron as Minister of Defence, but was forced to resign when it was revealed that he had given close friend and lobbyist Adam Werrity access to the Ministry of Defence and had allowed him to join official trips overseas. But in spite of all this he was reinstated as a minister in Theresa May's new cabinet after the Brexit vote. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What kind of example does all of this send to young people? As with the crimes and misdemeanours of banks and financial institutions, the message is that cheating and unethical behaviour are OK, and if you get caught, it will just delay your rise by a year or two - just a slide down a snake, but there are still lots of ladders to help you back up. Even athletes caught doping face longer suspensions that some of these dishonest </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">politicians. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">How does all of this relate to Jane Jacobs' warning of a coming dark age? Well I think that all of the mendacity, careerism and professional malfeasance that we have seen since Jacobs wrote her book, have led to a situation in which people have lost trust in their institutions. This I am afraid has helped paved the way for Donald Trump and this, I fear, will become the new normal. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Trump has been able to get away with his egregious behaviour by blaming his opponents, in particular the press, but also the 'elites' at large, for disseminating 'fake news'. Many people believe this because they have lost all trust in the mainstream media - a well-justified belief in my opinion. But in place of a trusted media we get even worse lies and </span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">distortions by unscrupulous players like Trump and Breitbart. And people are now forgetting the way it once was - a time when public figures were held accountable for their actions; when there was a clear distinction between truth and falsehood; and when there was more trust in what politicians and journalists were saying. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It seems too that now governments can act in violation of international law, and even of their own Constitution. Whether or not you believe that the Syrian Government was responsible for the gas attack in March, the response of President Trump, in launching a Tomahawk missile attack, without Congressional approval, was clearly a violation of both international and US law. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Could the Trump phenomenon have happened prior to the press scandals following the illegal invasion of Iraq? Would Trump have got away (indeed be widely praised for) with his missile strike, without the precedent of Bush's illegal invasion? Crimes and delinquencies left unpunished inevitably lead to further such actions. Jane Jacobs realized this,and she didn't like what she saw. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">She claimed that the five failing pillars were interconnected. For example the weakening of family and community structures has made the transmission of moral values and ethical behaviour more difficult. In a similar fashion, the way in which, </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">in her view,</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> universities have prioritized credentialism over teaching critical thinking, has made it all the easier for dishonest and unethical behaviour to thrive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Many countries in the world suffer from endemic corruption - Italy, Russia, Ukraine, China and much of Africa and Latin America immediately come to mind. In spite of serious efforts to curb this behaviour, it persists. Once corruption becomes accepted as normal, it becomes extremely difficult to remove. People can no longer imagine a society free from corruption. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The same is true for 'corruption' of the type engendered by careerism and the violation of professional standards which go unpunished. The prevalence of 'lawyer jokes' reveals the way the public views that profession. Banking has justifiably earned a similar reputation. Now journalism has become similarly tarnished to the extent that Trump can call the press 'the enemy' of America and not be laughed off the platform. People do not know who to trust, and are asking, like Pilate, "What is truth?" </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">All of this makes it easier for charlatans like Donald Trump to thrive. Are we already forgetting how a functioning liberal democracy operates? Jane Jacobs saw it as a real possibility, and I fear that since her death we have moved a long way down the path she predicted. </span></div>
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-66330918540866885642017-04-06T13:11:00.000-07:002017-04-06T13:11:54.815-07:00Cui Bono? The Rush to Condemn - The Rush to War? <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The<i> Daily Mail</i> is a scurrilous British tabloid rag and a fierce promoter of Brexit and other right wing causes. But its columnist Peter Hitchens, has I think, a much better perspective on the recent Syrian chemical weapons attack, than his colleagues in newspapers of supposedly greater repute, like the<i> New York Times</i> or <i>Washington Post.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Hitchens, by the way, is the younger brother of the late Christopher Hitchens, journalist, alcoholic, former Trotskyist turned gung-ho backer of the 2003 Iraq invasion. The younger Hitchens describes himself as an Anglican Christian and Burkean conservative.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Unlike most of the mainstream media, rather than leaping with moral outrage to condemn Assad for the heinous murder of innocent children, Hitchens steps back and asks why Assad would engage in such an attack, given that, with Russian help, he has been winning the war, and that Trump has stated that regime change is no longer a US goal. Is he so stupid to jeopardize all of that for the sake of removing a few rebel fighters from an apparently insignificant village? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Very few people, excepting the perpertrators, know who was really responsible for the outrage. Nevertheless this has not stopped much of the Western political establishment, and the mainstream media leaping to the conclusion that the Assad regime was behind it, and with anguished cries of moral outrage, demanding that 'something be done'. Exceptions to this, I am relieved to say, are CBC News in its initial coverage, whose reporter pointed out that all of the reports and footage came from rebel sources, and that no independent journalists dare venture into the region, which is controlled by al Qaeda; and also Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Chrystia Freedland (who I don't normally hold in high regard) who advocated waiting until evidence came in, before jumping to conclusions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But of course that didn't stop the usual suspects - Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Francois Hollande, John McCain etc - piling on the invective about the brutality of the Assad regime. And then yesterday Donald Trump joined in, wringing every ounce of pathos out of the situation by describing the murder of babies, as he held his hands 12 inches apart, and repeated "killing babies" several times. More ominous was the fact that he said the act had crossed many lines - red lines! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But looking at the situation dispassionately, does it really make any sense that the Assad regime was behind the attack? Assad has been winning the war, with Russian help. The US and UK governments had recently said that they no longer considered regime change a priority. Would Assad jeapordize all of that for the sake of killing a few al Qaeda fighters in an apparently insignificant village? From a <i>cui bono </i>point of view it seems to me much more likely that one of the many factions who are opposed to the regime are behind the outrage. UN jurist Carla Ponte has asserted that some of the rebel groups have, and have used poison gas. There also seems to be a strong body of evidence pointing to anti-Assad rebels (with Turkish help) being behind the earlier gas attack at Gouta, near Damascus. But this all gets lost in the rush to condemn the villainous al Assad and demand Western intervention. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">As Peter Hitchens says "You are being assailed through your emotions, to act first and think long after, and far too late.</span><span style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">" </span><span style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">To Hitchens, and to me, this all has the smell of a setup. Let's hope it doesn't lead to more foreign intervention in this shameful and vicious war. </span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Read what Hitchens has to say: "Its WMD All Over Again. Why Don't You See It." </span></span><br />
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<a href="http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2017/04/its-wmd-all-over-again-why-dont-you-see-it-.html"><span style="font-size: large;">http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2017/04/its-wmd-all-over-again-why-dont-you-see-it-.html</span></a></div>
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<br />William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-12409471050381792982017-03-13T15:10:00.001-07:002017-03-14T17:26:27.971-07:00Constitutional Amendments Anyone? <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Here is something to really scare Americans already overwhelmed by Donald Trump and the Republican domination of all branches of government. How about a right wing re-write of the constitution? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">There are three ways in which the constitution can (constitutionally) be amended. The first is the one that has been used in all of the 27 successful amendments to date, i.e. Congress proposes an amendment, which must be passed by a super-majority in both Houses; it is then sent to the states, and if three quarters of their legislatures approve the proposal, the amendment takes effect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The second way starts with the states - if three quarters of them, 38, each pass a proposal with a majority vote, then it does not need to go to Congress. It takes effect as an amendment to the Constitution.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The third way uses Article V and involves calling a Constitutional Convention. To do this two thirds of the states (34) need to pass resolutions calling for such a convention. If this is achieved, the proposal for a convention must then be ratified by three quarters of the states (38). If successful the Convention can then change the Constitution in any way it chooses and Congress, the President and the Courts can do nothing about it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But this will never happen you may say - voices of reason and moderation would surely prevail. But then Trump could never become President. Except of course that he did and is. And if you still pooh pooh the idea you might be interested to know that there is a well-funded organization called Citizens for Self-Governance (CSG) which is campaigning for a Constitutional Convention to be called and seems to be quite successful so far. It is led by Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots. One of its directors is Eric O'Keefe, a former leader of the Libertarian Party. O'Keefe has strong ties to the Koch bothers and a history of backing business-friendly right-wing causes. The Wikipedia entry </span><br />
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_for_Self-Governance" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_for_Self-Governance</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">on the CSG </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">contains the following. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">In December 2013, nearly 100 legislators from 32 states met at Mount Vernon to talk about how to call a convention of states. … In February 2014, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn announced that after his retirement from Congress, he would focus on promoting the Convention of States to state legislatures.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In December 2015, Marco Rubio endorsed CSG's efforts to a call an Article V Convention. In January 2016, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called for a Convention of States to restrict the power of the federal government.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">As of 2016, CSG's application for a Convention of States has been passed in eight states: Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Alaska, Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So they need to get another 26 states on board. Well it still seems a long way off, but remember the Kochs have very deep pockets, and have a proven track record of steering state policies in directions that favour them and their cronies - especially in the fossil fuel industries. And it is said that elected politicians at the state level are more easily bought than those at the federal level. Seeing how federal Congressmen and Senators seem to be completely in the pockets of groups such the the armaments lobby, the NRA and the Israel lobby, I wouldn't put much faith in state politicians' belief in the common good, being any sort of protection against a well-funded drive for a Constitutional Convention. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">After November's elections 32 of the state legislatures are controlled by Republicans. And there are 33 state governors who are Republicans plus one who is an independent. So it is not out of the realm of possibility that CSG can muster the required 34 states to set the process rolling.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">If they do pull it off, what specific amendments would they seek? Well to quote Wikipedia again:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>In September 2016, CSG held a simulated convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution in Williamsburg, Virginia. An assembly of 137 delegates representing every state gathered to conduct a simulated convention.</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The simulated convention passed amendments relating to six topics, including requiring the states to approve any increase in the national debt, imposing term limits, limiting the Commerce Clause to its original meaning [ending minimum wage, federal right-to-unionize, and child-labor laws], limiting the power of federal regulations [aka 'consumer protections'], requiring a supermajority to impose federal taxes and repealing the 16th Amendment [which legalized federal income taxes], and giving the states the power to abrogate any federal law, regulation, or executive order.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This gives a flavour of the way in which the USA might be changed. There might not be much of a national state left (except of course for the military). A look at some of the supporters of the project, apart from the Kochs and their billionaire cronies, also gives an indication what to expect. Public figures in support in include, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, broadcasters Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck; and politicians Sarah Palin, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal, Allen West, and Greg Abbot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Trump seems to have some views in common with this movement - at least in terms of neutering the federal departments and agencies of which he doesn't approve e.g. Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments such as those of Education, Energy and Labor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I suspect that if CSG were ever successful in getting a Constitutional Convention the temptations for the right wing oligarchs to tilt the table even further in their favour might be just too strong to resist. So items such as prohibiting federal welfare payments, medical insurance and the like could be included as well as removing federal oversight of things such as pollution, labour standards, etc. They might also throw a few sops to their right wing backers, which didn't directly benefit themselves, such as prohibitions on abortion, gay marriage and even laxer (if you can believe it) regulation of firearms. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It all sounds pretty dystopian, and let's hope it never comes to pass. But we are in very unusual times. Remember just a year ago people were talking about the crisis in the Republican Party and musing whether it could survive. And here they are controlling both houses of Congress and the Presidency. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I learned about the danger of this possible attempt on the US Constitution from an article by Thom Hartmann </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/right-wing-billionaires-have-project-going-rewrite-our-constitution-and-they-are">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/right-wing-billionaires-have-project-going-rewrite-our-constitution-and-they-are</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Hartmann quotes from Franklin D Roosevelt's acceptance speech at the 1936 Philadelphia Democratic Convention - "out of this modern civilization, economic royalists [have] carved new dynasties.... It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction." I am not sure exactly to what FDR was referring but his running mate (and Oliver Stone hero) Henry Wallace had written of these privileged princes that "they claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."</span><br />
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<h2>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">I am quite confident that the same drives and desires motivate today's wealthy backers of constitutional change. I am not saying that it is going to happen. But it could happen and everyone should be aware of the dangers this project presents.</span></h2>
William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-34298344471199124222017-02-24T11:00:00.000-08:002017-02-24T11:00:20.955-08:00Trump is awful but so is the opposition - and perhaps more dangerous. <span style="font-size: large;">I have only posted one short blog since the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States. There are plenty of things I could have said about his awful performance to date, but I would just be repeating what many others have said before. Instead today I want to discuss the opposition to the Trump's presidency, which I view, </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">in many ways, to be </span><span style="font-size: large;">just as bad, Indeed I view the campaign to smear Trump by association with Vladimir Putin and Russia, as every bit as unscrupulous and lacking in substance as many of the untruths and exaggerations that Trump himself has uttered.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Readers of this blog will be familiar with my concern in the way in which propaganda is readily accepted as fact by many in the mainstream media and how it soon becomes the accepted narrative in public discourse. Qualifications such as "alleged" or "according to some reports" soon get dropped and reporters, columnists and others are soon talking about 'Saddam Hussein's WMD" or "Russian hacking of the election" as if these are accepted facts.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Whether the media complicity in this process is by intent or through laziness or incompetence, is open question. I suspect at the top, the level of publishers and editors, it is by intent; at the level of individual reporters and journalists I suspect that, with a few exceptions, they soon learn what is expected of them, and toe the editorial line, without challenging the underlying assumptions. No doubt this helps them in career advancement, whereas to challenge the accepted line requires courage and self belief. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps the most consequential piece of propaganda that became "received wisdom" was the way in which Iraq was painted as an existential danger to the civilized world, possessing weapons of mass destruction which could bring about another event as cataclysmic as 9-11. Indeed without the spectre of 9-11 lurking in the background, I doubt if it would have possible for such a propaganda coup to have been foisted on the public. Be that as it may, I think it is important to remember how it happened.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There was of course the official voices making the case - elected leaders such Bush, Cheney and Blair with nearly all members of their governments echoing the claims; and then there were the leaders of the intelligence services - Tenet of the CIA, Scarlett of MI6 <i>et al. </i>brought in to add gravitas. False stories were leaked about Saddam buying yellowcake uranium ore in Niger, and "intelligence" from the supposed Iraqi defector Curveball.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">All of these untrue claims were accepted and promoted by most of the mainstream media, with the <i>Washington Post </i>and<i> New York Times </i>out in front. Remember Judith Miller of the <i>NY Times. </i>Remember the evidence, complete with photographs, of mobile chemical weapons labs, that Colin Powell presented at the UN. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">On the basis of these lies, the US, with its "coalition of the willing", illegally invaded another country, essentially destroying it, killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens, and provoking a civil war, and the rise of extreme jihadi groups such as ISIS. The consequences of this enormous disaster are still being played out, both in Iraq and Syria and even Turkey. Would the tragedies of Aleppo and now Mosul have occurred if Iraq were not invaded in 2003? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The costs to the invaders, while small compared with those of Middle Eastern countries, are still significant. Estimated US troop casualties are around 4,500 dead and 35,000 wounded, not to mention the suicides and domestic tragedies of sufferers of PTSD. The financial cost to the US was estimated at $1.7 trillion in 2013. The accumulated costs to the US economy are considered to be considerably higher. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And all of this was justified by false propaganda!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Shocking as this may seem. it is my opinion that a propaganda operation of similar magnitude is now being foisted on the American public. The perpetrators belong to both major parties in the US, and as with the Iraq WMD operation, the intelligence services, especially the CIA, are deeply involved, along with the compliant media. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I am referring to the attempt to smear Donald Trump, as being "compromised" by his association with the Russia of Vladimir Putin. As some commentators have pointed out it is reminiscent of the McCarthy communist witchhunts of the 1950s. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Russian scholar Stephen Cohen, in an article in <i>The Nation </i>lists six ways in which Trump's name is detrimentally linked to Russia:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">1. Trump has lavished praise on Putin, calling him a strong leader and suggesting it would be in US interests to cooperate with Russia.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">2. Trump has had business dealings with Russia.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">3. His one-time campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was hired as an adviser to Viktor Yanukovych, before his ousting in the Maidan "revolution" of 2014. This in spite of the fact that Manafort apparently advised Yanukovych to tilt towards the EU partnership agreement and <i>away </i>from Russia. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">4. The dossier, released by <i>BuzzFeed, </i>compiled by a former MI5 agent, claiming that the FSB held incriminating evidence on Trump (including footage of Trump caught in a "honey trap") which could be used to coerce him. None of this was ever confirmed. No evidence was produced. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">5. The claim that Russia helped Trump win the election through the hacking of the Democratic National Convention computers, and the subsequent release of e-mails to WikiLeaks embarrassing to Hillary Clinton. It was claimed that Russian State actors were involved, with the direct knowledge and authorization of Vladimir Putin. A report was issued by the </span><span style="font-size: large;">intelligence</span><span style="font-size: large;"> community (CIA-FBI-NSA) supposedly justifying the claims. But it didn't. It contained no more proof than did Colin Powell's report to the UN on Saddam's WMD. It comprised "assessments", based on surmised motivations. Wikileaks has claimed the material was "leaked" (<i>i.e.</i> taken from the computers by an insider) rather than "hacked" from outside. Also a number of American cyber experts have said that if Russian State hackers were involved they would not have "left fingerprints" as US intelligence officials claimed they did. The only way US intelligence could know that Vladimir Putin authorized the operation would be if they had done exactly what they accused the Russians of doing <i>i.e. </i>hacked into Russian State computer networks (or possibly had a spy in the Kremlin). </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">6. Before the Trump's inauguration his nominee for the post of National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, had phone conversations (on open lines) with the Russian Ambassador to the US. He was forced to resign over this, or perhaps, more accurately because he had misled Vice-President Mike Pence over the content of these calls. But apparently Flynn was doing nothing that other past presidential nominees had done. Jack Matlock, US ambassador to the USSR under Reagan and George H. W. Bush, has said he arranged meetings in Moscow for Jimmy Carter's transition team, and President Obama's Russian adviser Michael McFaul has said publicly that he visited Moscow in 2008, even before the election in that year, for talks with Russian officials.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So it seems that what is being presented is a farrago of </span><span style="font-size: large;">allegations</span><span style="font-size: large;">, rumours and </span><span style="font-size: large;">"assessments" </span><span style="font-size: large;">which somehow link Donald Trump with Russia. None of these amount to anything. There is not a shred of real evidence that Trump is in any way compromised by his relationship with Russia.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To my mind all of this is very reminiscent of the WMD misinformation campaign. The game plan seems to be to keep piling on allegation and innuendo so that people start to think there must be something in it - after all there is no smoke without fire.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">All of this builds on a campaign of demonizing Russia over the past few years. Again the media have been complicit in presenting a false picture. The "accepted" narrative of the crisis with Russia over Ukraine goes something like this (words of <i>Washington Post's </i>senior foreign affairs writer Karen de Young) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"That conflict began when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, then backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine in what became a grinding war, despite a deal to end it, called the Minsk agreement, negotiated with Putin by the leaders of France and Germany."</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But this synopsis is simply not true. Russia did not "invade" Crimea. Most of the residents of Crimea are Russian and they did not like the new government in Kiev (one of its first acts was to de-legitimize Russian as an official language declaring Ukranian the only official language). In a hastily called referendum the citizens of Crimea voted 96% to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia. There was a similar response in Russian speaking eastern Ukraine (Donbass). Citizens in Donetsk and Lugansk declared that they no longer recognized the government in Kiev. The response of the Kiev government was to send tanks and artillery to start shelling the cities. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The events of the Maidan "revolution" are still subject to dispute. But they are certainly not as simple as the Western media narrative of "brave unarmed Ukrainians overthrow Russian backed tyrant, leading to his ouster." </span><span style="font-size: large;">If readers would like a concise summary I think that given by Robert Parry </span><span style="font-size: large;">does a good job.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/18/the-did-you-talk-to-russians-witch-hunt/">https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/18/the-did-you-talk-to-russians-witch-hunt/</a> </span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">His alternative to Karen de Young's synopsis goes like this </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>“The Ukraine conflict began when U.S. officials supported the violent overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, prompting Crimea to rejoin Russia and causing ethnic Russians in the east to rise up against the U.S.-backed coup regime in Kiev, which then sought to crush the rebellion. The Kiev regime later torpedoed a peace deal that had been hammered out by Russian, Ukrainian and European negotiators in Minsk.”</i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And then there is the way Russian involvement in Syria is presented. You know, the way Russian planes were bombing civilians in besieged east </span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aleppo. We don't hear much now about how US and NATO planes are bombing west Mosul. When they do get reported civilian deaths are usually attributed to ISIS hiding itself among the civilian population. So ISIS is responsible. But not the Nusra front jihadis in Alleppo. There it was the Russians responsible for indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Russia and China are the only two countries in the world that come anywhere near to the USA in terms of the power they yield - Russia because of its nuclear weapons and military strength (though still only a fraction the size of the American military) and China because of its size and its industrial might. To many in the US the very existence of centres of power which are not US controlled, seems to be an affront. They cannot accept that Russia is a country with interests of its own, which sometimes conflict with US interests. In Syria for example, Russia has a naval base - its only base in the Mediterranean. It certainly didn't want to give up that base - just as it would never give up its Black Sea base in Sevastapol, Crimea. I am not </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">claiming that Russia is any better, in a moral sense, that the US. But I would like to see US recognition that there are other countries in the world that do not want to become US tributaries. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The whipped up hysteria against Russia has travelled beyond the US. The London daily <i>The Independent </i>this week carried a story in which former Labour minister Chris Bryant claimed in parliament that there was "clear evidence" that Russia had interfered in the last UK general election, which Labour lost. But of course he didn't present any </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">evidence, clear or otherwise, nor did he suggest the form the interference took. He also alleged Russian interference in France and Germany:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #281e1e;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">“There is now clear evidence of Russian direct, corrupt involvement in elections in France, in Germany, in the United States of America, and I would argue also in this country”. </span></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Maybe there is some truth in this, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">maybe not. Without specifics and evidence presented it is just impossible to determine. I suspect one could make a better case of Western interference in Russian elections - indeed </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Time </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">magazine had a front page story a few years back how American "consultants" had helped Boris Yeltsin get elected. Certainly we know that the NSA tapped Angela Merkel's phone, and that Canadian intelligence hacked into the computers of Brazil's ministry of natural resources. The reality is that all countries with the capabilities are engaged in electronic spying, on both friend and rival. No doubt malicious acts also occur when the perpetrator feels they can get away with it, <i>e.g. </i>the introduction of the </span></span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Stuxnet </span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;">worm into Iranian systems by US and Israeli parties. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Who is behind this campaign to malign Donald Trump by association with Russia, and beyond that to demonize Russia?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, the Democratic Party were stung by their loss in the presidential election, and were quite happy to find an easy excuse, and at the same time discredit Donald Trump. And quite a few Republicans were unhappy at Trump's takeover of their party. Hence Republican senators such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham have been amongst the most vocal proponents of Russian involvement. These two have also long been vocal critics of Russia and promoters of a very aggressive foreign policy. The press by and large were "all in" on supporting the election of Hillary Clinton and like the Democratic party have been happy to find an excuse for La Clinton's loss. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I suspect that behind all of this there are "Deep State" actors who do not want at any cost to see a rapprochement with Russia, as Trump has proposed. I believe that the CIA is deeply involved in this. Since at least the time of George W. Bush, many senior positions in the intelligence and foreign policy branches of government have gone to people of a NeoCon </span></span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">persuasion - the State Department's Victoria Nuland of Maidan notoriety is a good example. These people were counting on a Clinton victory and an aggressive policy towards Russia. Trump's victory disrupted the plans, but they quickly re-grouped and found a way to both pursue a "Cold War 2" at the same time and discredit Donald Trump. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whether it will work or not remains to be seen. The first signs did not look good. After National Security head Michael Flynn was removed, it seemed that Trump was caving on his policy of rapprochement with Russia - he tweeted how he expected Russia to de-escalate the violence in Ukraine and to return Crimea (one might as well ask Israel to return all of the land it has stolen since the 1967 war!). But it could be that in Flynn's firing, Trump has only sacrificed a </span></span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">pawn, and that he is now re-grouping in order to take on his 'Deep State' enemies. It seems that there is a battle royal going on behind the scenes, with Trump's enemies determined to take him down. This article by former British diplomat and intelligence insider, Alistair Crooke, analyzes the situation </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-size: large;">I am sad to say that I am on Trump's side on this. If the NeoCon factions win we can expect more of the discredited and disastrous regime-change policy in evidence in the Bush and Obama presidencies, only this time with nuclear-armed Russia in the crosshairs. That is why to my mind Trump's liberal opponents are mistaken to rally around the "Russian puppet" meme, in order to discredit him. They themselves are being played as puppets by a very powerful and unscrupulous players. </span><br />
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-43328122877429517382017-02-07T20:25:00.000-08:002017-02-07T20:25:48.428-08:00World's Number One Sponsor of Terrorism?<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Donald Trump is ready to criticize the media for false reporting. But what about some of the stuff coming from him and his cabinet? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"Iran is the single biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world" declared new Defence Secretary, James Mattis. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">His boss, President Trump says "They are the number one terrorist state. They're sending money all over the place - and weapons. And they can't do that."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It is true that the mainstream media are ready to parrot this claim endlessly. But where is the evidence? Perhaps Trump is right and the media are lying shamelessly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It seems to me that the claims about Iran are patently untrue. I suspect the claims are based on the fact that Iran supports Hezbollah. But Hezbollah, while it may have conducted some terrorist acts in the past, is now part of the Lebanese government. It has a sizeable army which has helped repel Israeli aggression in the south of Lebanon. And of course, it is now fighting in support of the government of Bashar al Assad, in Syria against such recognized terrorist factions as ISIS and Nusra (al Qaeda). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">If Hezbollah is to be labelled a terrorist group, because of some -past actions, then so should the Likud government of Israel) because of the terrorism of the Haganah, and Sterne Gang out of which it grew), not to mention the ANC government in South Africa, and perhaps even the US government too (no doubt Britain saw the Boston Tea Party as a terrorist act). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And then there is the supposed support of Houthis in Yemen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Saudi Arabia claims that they are backed by Iran, but as far as I can tell have offered no evidence. The fact that they adhere to some weak form of the Shi'a belief seems to be enough for the claim that they are Iranian puppets. Besides they are involved in a civil war in which Saudi Arabia has intervened viciously, so the Houthis hardly constitute terrorists. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And this brings us to the real Champions in the Terrorist Sponsorship League - Saudi Arabia. Were not 15 of the 9-11 hijackers Saudi nationals? There have been many allegations that they were supported by members of the Saud royal family. And of course they have been happily sponsoring jihadi groups in Syria and elsewhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So please, don't buy into the propaganda coming from the new US administration - it is the same as much of what was being said by the last government, but I don't think Obama really believed it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Of course it is what Israel would like the world to believe (and Saudi). They failed in stopping the Obama administration reaching a deal with Iran over nuclear weapons. Now it seems like someone is trying to revive the hostility.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Will Trump go along? Or will he follow his campaign rhetoric about not getting involved in useless military entanglements in the Middle East. We have to hope the latter.</span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-16422813616499770082017-01-12T15:36:00.000-08:002017-01-12T15:36:36.258-08:00<h2>
A Third Way by Which Trump Could be Dumped.</h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In this blog over the last year I have on more than one occasion mentioned how I thought Trump might be removed from office, at the instigation of what has been called the<i> Deep State. </i>I first heard the term Deep State used more than a decade ago with reference to those whom wielded the real power in Turkey under the elected government (the one before Erdogan's Islamic party took office). The Deep State in the present-day USA would be something similar to President Eisenhower's 'military-industrial complex', but now also including many players from the whole security complex - CIA, FBI, DIA, Homeland Security <i>etc.</i>, not to mention the various think-tanks and foundations peopled by neocons from both major parties. Fellow travellers include some of the editors and columnists of the major media outlets, especially the <i>Washington Post</i> and perhaps not so obviously the <i>New York Times.</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">By and large I would say that the Deep State has a strong vested interest in keeping the US involved in conflicts worldwide. Clearly the Pentagon and the armaments industries do very well out of military conflict, as does the CIA, which is now is almost another independent branch of the military with its own drone program, but with very little oversight and no published rules of engagement. Conflict in Islamic countries and the consequent 'blowback' of terrorism in the West means large budgets for FBI, Homeland Security etc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The election of Donald Trump as President seems a serious threat to the Deep State. In his campaigning (especially in the Primaries) his stance was orthogonal to that of his rivals, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio <i>et al. </i>in that he spoke against foreign wars and was in favour of a rapprochement with Russia. Hillary Clinton was gung-ho for more American involvement in Syria and especially for confrontation with the Russia of Vladimir Putin. Things looked good for the Deep State. They would have their gal in the White House. And Congress, even if it were controlled by the rival party, would be safely in the hands of warmongers like John McCain, Lindsey Graham and their like. But Trump upset all of that. So what to do? Somehow Trump had to be gotten rid of.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I think much of the pumped-up hysteria, first about the supposed Russian hacks of the DNC computers, and then this week about the supposed blackmail material that Russia has abut Trump, was instigated by the Deep State. The Democratic Party, including President Obama, were happy to endorse this view, because it somehow explained their failure in the election, and at the same time discredited the incoming president. Many in the Republican party also were onboard - after all they viewed Trump's nomination as hostile take-over of their party. At the same time </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">many liberals who are aghast at the thought of a Trump presidency, seemed happy to echo the charges against the malign influence of Russia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is impossible to know the truth behind these allegations. But I think that the compromising material from the DNC computers came from leaks rather than hacks (see my previous blog post). This week's revelations, to me, have too much the smell of a fabrication, but I could be wrong. Patrick Cockburn of <i>The Independent, </i>who was a Moscow correspondent, <i> </i>has a piece today in which he compares the document recently made public with some of those released to make the case for the Iraq War. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-president-russia-dossier-fake-news-sex-allegations-putin-kremlin-saddam-hussein-weapons-a7524001.html">http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-president-russia-dossier-fake-news-sex-allegations-putin-kremlin-saddam-hussein-weapons-a7524001.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">He says on reading it his skepticism soon 'turned to complete disbelief'. He gives reasons for this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Two questions worth asking about the report are "Who paid for it?" and "<i>Cui Bono?", </i>or who benefits. According to reports former MI6 operative Christopher Steele, was first commissioned, privately, by a PAC supporting Jeb Bush in the primaries. When he dropped out, Steele was subsequently supported by Hillary Clinton supporters in the Democratic Party. The obvious immediate beneficiaries are Trump's opponents, who are many, including the various intelligence agencies, who would certainly have the ability to pull off something like this. It is an interesting question to ask, why was this report not leaked prior to the November election? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is my opinion that all of these revelations about Trump's supposed Russian connections, serve the purpose of softening up the public for Trump's removal, at a later date - perhaps sooner rather than later. And how would that be accomplished? Before I have mentioned impeachment, and failing that by assassination. But yesterday I learned of a third possibility - essentially a palace coup. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Article 4 of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution reads: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In other words if the VP and a majority of cabinet members certify that the President is unable to discharge his duties, then he can be turfed out - a palace coup. I wonder if Trump knew of this when he was making his cabinet choices? </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Trump is entering the White House with enemies on all sides, not least from within his own party, which has many neocons and warmongers - Deep State players. Many at the top of the Democratic Party seem to share similar views. Trump has awarded a lot of cabinet positions to members of the Republican Party, or people have strong ties with it. A quick look through the list suggests the following have all been elected to one office or another as Republicans: Elaine Chao, Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, Dan Coates, Nikki Haley, Mike Mulvaney, Rick Perry, Tom Price, Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke. Can he trust them? Can he trust Mike Pence, who would gain the biggest prize if Trump were overthrown? And can he trust </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus? He was Chair of the Republican National </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;">Committee</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> and is known as a deal-maker. He is said to be close to House Speaker, Paul Ryan, who has no love for Donald Trump. Could Priebus be the Brutus? </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!" </span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;">The notion of Trump being ousted by invocation of the 25th </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;">Amendment is explored in some detail by Eric Zeusse here. <a href="http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/01/10/likely-way-that-trump-would-be-forced-out-office.html">http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/01/10/likely-way-that-trump-would-be-forced-out-office.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;">Zeusse focusses his arguments around the ongoing campaign to roll back Russia, which claims has been in play </span></span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">since the fall of the Soviet Union. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Seeing the precarious position in which Trump finds himself offers an explanation for </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">how wholeheartedly Trump went back on his primary campaign promises of a more even policy between Israel and Palestinians. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">With his appointment of the Ambassador to Israel, he seems to have gone all in on backing Netanyahu, the Settlers and the Israeli right wing. Dismayed, at first I thought that it was more of the usual Trump deception. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But his vulnerabilities could offer a better explanation. When the crunch comes Trump wants to have Israel and its strong US lobby to have his back. They say most of the US Congress is in the pocket of Israel. If there were an attempt by the Republican Party to oust him, would Israel want to give up the most </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;">accommodating</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> President it has ever had? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">The whole sad story is depressing. Trump, for all his faults, has chosen to challenge the consensus in Washington. He seems in so many ways unsuitable to be President of the United States. But he did win an election. And to see him booted out in what would be essentially a constitutional coup, would be very bad for people's faith in their institutions and in democracy. The US would descend to the level countries like Brazil, who recently ousted their sitting president. </span></span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;">Furthermore the prospect of Mike Pence being president, with Congress backing his Tea-Party views is truly scary.</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;">If Trump is ousted either though impeachment or the 25th Amendment it could lead to much civil unrest. Trump's supporters would feel betrayed - 'bigly' as Trump might say. There would no doubt be street demonstrations - of angry white men, legally carrying assault weapons. Would the police act against them, seeing as so many in the police publicly supported Trump in the election? </span></div>
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-826691932955631092016-12-16T16:11:00.000-08:002016-12-16T16:11:02.240-08:00Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice, or Three Times or . . . <br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Do you remember this saying which George W. Bush once mangled? It came to my mind when hearing the CIA claim that with "high confidence" they can attribute the hacking of the Democratic National Committee's computers to the Russian government. President Obama went even further with his claim this week that the CIA have evidence that President Putin ordered the hack, expressly with the aim of helping Donald Trump to win the election.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">How could he know that? No evidence was forthcoming. We are expected to trust the government and the intelligence service. Perhaps no evidence was presented because the CIA had learned its lesson, from when it provided bogus evidence for Colin Powell to present at the UN Security Council meeting before the invasion of Iraq. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Do you remember the mobile chemical weapons labs (pictures presented) which Saddam was supposed to possess? And all of the other claims made by the CIA and the Bush Administration.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of course it could be true that Russia was behind the hacks; </span><span style="font-size: large;">even that Putin personally ordered them. But why should we take such claims seriously when the CIA presents no evidence and at the same time has such a hopeless record of lying and disinformation? And then there is the issue of the CIA illegally hacking into the computers of the US Senate Committee on Torture. Perhaps because the CIA illegally hacks computers, they assume that their rivals in Russia do the same thing? There is little doubt in my mind that the Russians actually do hack computers (that's what spy agencies do), but I do wonder whether they actually hacked the DNC computers.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">While there are bold assertions about the Russian guilt, there is also some pretty good arguments against it. There is a group called <i>Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity</i>, which as its name indicates comprises veteran intelligence agents and analysts from the CIA, NSA and the US intelligence services. The Russian spying claim is examined in a recent article </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">They state "</span><span style="font-size: large;">it is child’s play to dismiss" the claims of hacking. They first distinguish between a "hack" and a "leak". The former is when an outsider illegally gains access to a computer and either uploads or downloads data or otherwise interferes with it. A "leak" on the other hand is when someone physically accesses a computer and downloads data from it - usually nowadays onto a thumb drive. This is what Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning did when stealing NSA and Pentagon data. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Intelligence Veterans say that the DNC revelations almost certainly derived from a leak. A leak leaves no trace. A hack on the other hand will leave a trail. The NSA has a record of all the packets of information that enter and leave the US (and no doubt pretty much everywhere in the world.) If a hack was involved the NSA would know "both the sender and recipient". They state with respect to the allegations of Russian involvement:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">"</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The various ways in which usually anonymous spokespeople for U.S. intelligence agencies are equivocating – saying things like “our best guess” or “our opinion” or “our estimate” etc. – shows that the emails alleged to have been “hacked” cannot be traced across the network . . . . </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The evidence that should be there is absent; otherwise, it would surely be brought forward, since this could be done without any danger to sources and methods."</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is interesting that the NSA has not commented, especially since as the Veterans say <i>"</i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>the reality is that CIA is almost totally dependent on NSA for ground truth in the communications arena."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">There are other suggestions, as well, that it was a leak and not a hack. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Julian Assange, editor of Wikileaks which published the leaks, has said the leaks did not come from Russia. But given his current problems with the US Government his testimony may not necessarily be reliable. But also Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange has dismissed the CIA's claims that Russia interfered in last month’s presidential election as "bullshit". </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Murray was dismissed from his ambassadorial position in 2004 after he objected too strenuously about the British Government's using intelligence obtained under torture carried out by the Uzbeki authorities. He was subsequently slimed by the Foreign Office. Since then he has been an outspoken critic of government lying and disinformation. He was Rector of University of Dundee (2007-2010) and in 2005 he received the Sam Adams Award which is given to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #252525;">"</span><span style="color: #252525;">an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics".</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;">About the DNC leaks Murray is quoted (Belfast Telegraph) as saying:</span></span></span></div>
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<i style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">"I know who leaked them. I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things. </span><span style="font-size: large;">If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States. </span><span style="font-size: large;">America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">So there is a pretty good case that it wasn't a Russian hack. Unless the US Government can provide some evidence, given the known mendaciousness of the CIA (and US Government), the case that it was a hack carried out on the orders of Vladimir Putin looks pretty thin. My own personal guess (nothing more) is that the e-mails were leaked by a Democratic party insider who was upset at the way the party establishment had conspired against the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, and felt that the public should know.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">An intersting question remains. Why should there be such a furore about it all now? The leaks probably didn't have that great an effect on the outcome of the election. In my mind the improper statements by James Comey of the FBI were likely to have had a greater effect. It is not normal for a police agency to release information on any ongoing investigation. To do so in the case of a candidate for president, a couple of weeks before the election, seems to me a gross abuse of power. But nobody is raising a fuss about this breach. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I suspect there are a number of reasons behind the allegations of Russian involvement. The Democrats, including President Obama, didn't like the fact that they were beaten, and like many Americans they are probably horrified by what may happen under a Trump presidency. So anything to discredit Trump's victory they see as to their benefit. There may be some who are holding out a slim hope that the Electoral College may vote against Trump, if he can be painted as a stooge of a foreign power. But I imagine that is a very, very </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">slim hope. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And then there is the effect that this campaign may have on future relations with Russia. Under the presidencies of Bush and Obama relations with Russia have steadily deteriorated. Russia has </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">outmanoeuvred the US in Syria. And furthermore Donald Trump doesn't share the same view of Russia as is held by the current administration and other power brokers in Washington. Under Trump there is every possibility of there being a comfortable </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">modus </i><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">vivendi </span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;">with Russia, and no expansion of NATO, no bigger budgets for the CIA, Pentagon etc. If this can be stopped by simultaneously blacking Russia and Donald Trump then, in the view of many, so much the better. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I suspect it will backfire. It already seems that there is a serious rift between the CIA and Donald Trump. Who knows what he might do when he takes office. He is a man known to be keen on taking revenge on those who have gone against him. So watch out for some fireworks to come.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see Trump assassinated, perhaps not right away, but after he has done a few outrageous things. I imagine there are people now weighing up the pros and cons of impeachment vs. assassination. In either case Mike Pence would become president - somebody no doubt far more acceptable to most of the Republican party, and to the intelligence services and other players. But how would Trump's supporters react in each case? After an impeachment there would no doubt be a huge uprising of anger against the Republican party, from erstwhile Trump supporters. After an assassination? Who knows? It probably depends on whom the blame can be pinned.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Interesting times indeed!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-86319842623620127022016-11-29T11:16:00.001-08:002016-11-29T11:16:54.058-08:00How to make comments on blog posts.<span style="font-size: large;">I understand that there has been problems for some people in posting comments on my blog. Perhaps that is why I have received so few. I thought that perhaps I wasn't being controversial enough! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But anyway I have fixed the problem, simply by changing a setting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To comment just fill in your comment in box at bottom, and click on 'publish'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Looking forward to some lively debate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Bill Reed</span>William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-58270056230659766492016-11-28T19:31:00.001-08:002016-11-28T19:31:51.501-08:00Fidel Castro and Other Dictators <h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Fidel Castro is dead, and leaders around the world are making statements about his life and legacy. Perhaps one of the most generous encomiums came from Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau. It included the following:</span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">For this statement he was roundly condemned, both within Canada and in the wilder world. For example the right of centre Canadian periodical <i>Macleans </i>claimed:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">"By the early hours of Saturday morning, Havana time, Trudeau was an international laughingstock. Canada’s “brand,” so carefully constructed in </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>Vogue</i></span><span style="background-color: white;"> photo essays and </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>Economist</i></span><span style="background-color: white;"> magazine cover features, seemed to suddenly implode into a bonspiel of the vanities, with humiliating headlines streaming from the </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>Washington Post</i></span><span style="background-color: white;"> to the </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style="background-color: white;">, and from </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>Huffington Post</i></span><span style="background-color: white;"> to </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>USA Today</i></span><span style="background-color: white;">."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">To Trudeau's credit he didn't try to walk back the statement after the furore, but when asked directly by CBC journalist Catherine Cullen, "Was Castro a </span>dictator?" he paused, pursed his lips and said "Yes".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">In many ways Justin Trudeau was following in his father's footsteps. Pierre Elliot Trudeau refused fall into step behnd the US in imposing sanctions on Cuba. He visited Cuba several times and maintained a good personal rapport with Fidel, who attended Trudeau's funeral, to which son Justin refers in his statement. Subsequent Canadian Liberal prime minister, Jean Chretien, also had a good personal relationship with Castro, and Canada has maintained a mutually beneficial relationship with Cuba. Canadians comprise about half of the two million or so tourists who arrive in the island every year. I recall waiting in the departure hall of the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, and seeing a plaque acknowledging Canadian </span><span style="font-size: large;">assistance in building the facility and commemorating its opening jointly by Jean Chretien and Fidel Castro in 1998.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I must say I was somewhat surprised at the adverse reception Justin Trudeau's statement received in Canada. It seemed a respectful and dignified acknowledgement of the former Cuban leader's passing. But I suppose it illustrates how far to the right, public opinion has </span><span style="font-size: large;">swung, since the 1970s when Trudeau <i>pere </i>first visited Cuba. Criticism coming from the right was just as one might have expected, but I must admit that I was somewhat surprised when two of the three panelists on the <i>Sunday Talk, </i>on the CBC's The National strongly criticized him too. Jonathan Kay, editor of <i>The Walrus</i>, described Trudeau's comments as what one might expect from a campus radical, not the leader of a democratic country. When host Wendy Mesley pointed out that Canada had publicly eulogized Saudi King Abdullah, whose country was a serious violator of human rights, Kay pointed out that, that was just diplomacy - Canada has an important economic relationship with Saudi Arabia, including selling weapons, but has no such </span><span style="font-size: large;">relationship with Cuba. It sounded a lot like hypocrisy to me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So did the condemnations of Castro coming from the usual blowhards on the US right. Donald Trump's condemnation of Castro was widely publicized (as was the measured response of President Obama). But Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio (both of part Cuban ancestry) also weighed in criticizing both Castro and Justin Trudeau. Of course the criticism was about political repression in Castro's Cuba, and the detention of political opponents. But it seems to me there is a glaring double standard which could be summarized as:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"Left Wing Dictators Bad (very very bad!); Right Wing Dictators Good (or at least good enough for us to support them)." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">How many dictators has the US supported, since 1959 when Castro seized power in the Cuban R</span><span style="font-size: large;">evolution? I went to Wikipedia to see if i could get an answer to this. Wikipedia lists 22 "authoritarian" regimes (presumably non-democratic) currently being supported. Since 1959 the USA has supported authoritarian regimes in 42 countries. They range from Latin American dictatorships:</span></span></div>
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<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rafael Trujillo - Dominican Republic (1930-1961)</span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ephraim Rios Montt and other juntas - Guatemala (1954-19860</span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oswaldo Lopez Arellano - Honduras (1963-1982)</span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Hugo Banzer - Bolivia (1971-1978)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Various Argentine military leaders (1976-1983)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Various Brazilian military leaders (1964-1985)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Various Uruguayan civil-military dictatorships (1973-1985)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Somoza family - Nicaragua (1936-1979)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Francois Duvalier and Jean-Claude Duvalier - Haiti (1957-1986)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega - Panama (1968-1989)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Alfredo Stroessner - Paraguay (1954-1989)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Augusto Pinochet - Chile (1973-1990)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Alberto Fujimoro - Peru (1992-2000);</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">to Asian dictatorships in South Korea, Pakistan, South Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran (the Shah), Philippines, Iraq (the Arifs), Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Yemen;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and numerous African dictatorships. There are also some European ones - Spain until Franco died in 1975, Portugal until the demise of Salazar in 1974, Greece under the Colonels (1980-1989) and military rule in Turkey (1980-1989).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Currently the US supports the military dictatorship in Egypt and the one-family rule in Saudi Arabia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Some of these dictatorships were very, very nasty. Chile and Argentina under military rule imprisoned and murdered on an almost industrial scale. The current regime in Eygpt is estimated to be holding 60,000 political prisoners - it was even trying its opponents in batches of hundreds and sentencing them to death or long terms in prison in trials that lasted just a few hours. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And then of course there is the Saudi regime, which executes people for blasphemy; or for posting things critical of the regime on the internet; or simply for being a leader of the country's Shia minority - the mullah, Nimr al Nimra, was beheaded on New Year's Day along with 46 others either shot or beheaded. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But all of these dictators are OK. They may be sonofabitches but they're our sonaofabitches! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Either the likes of Trump, Rubio, Cruz and even Rona Ambrose, who have ben braying about Castro's tyranny, have no knowledge of history and little sense of irony, or they have been brainwashed by their own rhetoric. I have no respect for any of them </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Fidel Castro was a dictator, no doubt about it. He did not allow free speech and he imprisoned many political opponents. But, as Justin Trudeau mentioned he did bring about some positive changes for his country. The achievements in health and education are especially noteworthy. Cuba has an excellent, free health system, and now boasts a considerably lower infant mortality rate than the USA - marginally lower than Canada's. It has free public education, and now over 99% of the population are literate. The </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;">crime rate in Cuba is very low - something one cannot say about almost every other country in Latin America.</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I visited Cuba in 2012. Of course it is always difficult for outsiders to judge a country on just a short visit. But having some command of Spanish helps, and we were able to speak with a number of people - and not just taxi drivers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There were those who chafed against the restrictions they faced, and others who were extremely grateful for what the regime had done. </span></div>
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By and large, the former were educated people (beneficiaries of the impressive education system), while the latter were poorer people. I remember one old lady telling my wife that her mother had born a dozen children, of whom only three or four survived, while she herself had six healthy grandchildren. She was very happy with what the Revolution had brought. But then there was a museum docent, who had a law degree, but could not find a job practicing law. And another, who was a very well informed about maritime history who, after looking around to see who might be listening, railed about the way information was controlled - the internet and most foreign publications are not available to most Cubans. And then there was a young doctor with whom we started chatting, when our bus was delayed for some mechanical problem. He told us how little he was paid (much less than what a taxi driver earned in a tourist area), and how he could not leave the country, unless it was on a government sponsored mission - for example to Venezuela. But he was not complaining. He seemed to appreciate the fact that he had benefitted in getting medical training. </div>
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I think the biggest problem for Cuba is that its economy is so poor and basic. It is only a small country, which relies on tourism and agriculture - exporting sugar and tobacco etc. The US embargo hasn't helped. Apparently Cuba has a nascent bio-pharmaceutical industry, but it can't export any product because of the embargo. Because of the lack of an industrial base, there are just not enough jobs for people who have benefitted from the education system. </div>
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Judging Cuba really boils down to a question of Social Justice vs. Democratic Freedom. I doubt if the Cuban Revolution would have survived if it had been fully democratic from the start. There were just too many powerful interests, both within and outside the country, who wanted to strangle it at birth. </div>
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But the choice of social justice or democratic freedom is a difficult one. In judging the success of Cuba's revolution I think it is best to compare Cuba with <span style="font-family: inherit;">other Latin American countries. </span></div>
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I have seen something of other countries in the hemisphere - I lived a year in each of Jamaica and Colombia, spent 3 months in Guatemala learning Spanish and have visited Mexico, Peru and Ecuador.</div>
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All of these, for poorer people, score much worse than Cuba on quality of life. And all have a perennial problem with crime and violence. But on the other hand they have (especially Mexico and Colombia) a well-developed middle class, and freedom of information and movement.</div>
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Where would I prefer to live? If I were poor probably in Cuba (although life is hard there). But if I were a bit better off, probably not in Cuba.</div>
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I think that now is the time for Cuba to open up, to allow more freedom of information and freedom of expression. There is now a fully literate population, and basic needs in terms of food and medical care are met. Its economy will not improve or develop unless it is more open to the outside world. Some of the achievements of the Revolution have been formidable and the Cuban people have a lot to lose. </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A transition to allow freedom of movement will not be easy - the temptations, for example, for trained medical personnel to make the short journey to the American mainland would be enormous. And letting back in the Cuban diaspora en masse could be disastrous - their loathing of the Revolution is absolute. So any transition, will, I think, have to be carefully managed.</span></div>
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Fidel Castro's legacy is a controversial one. He was a dictator and freedom was and still is limited in Cuba. But Castro was hardly a tyrant. Compared with some of the US-backed dictators listed above, he doesn't seem so very bad. And to offset this the Cuba he leaves is, for multitudes, a much better place than it was under the former (US-backed!) dictator Fulgencio Batista. As Justin Trudeau pointed out, the Cuban people have achieved a lot under Fidel's leadership. Whither they go now is an open question. </div>
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Will people be saying that the Revolution is over, when a new Trump hotel appears on the Malecon? Or will a new generation manage to lead Cuba forward to a better future? Whatever transpires I hope that at least some of the achievements of the Revolution survive. </div>
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7700048646677394659.post-55635769459154027132016-11-17T10:19:00.000-08:002016-11-17T10:19:28.234-08:00The Sudden Imperative to Kill Al Nusra Affiliated Leaders in Syria.<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">There have been announcements in both the American
press and the British press that leaders of </span><i style="font-family: Times; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">al Nusra</span></i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"> (now
called </span><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Times; text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-size: large;"><i>Jabhat Fatah al-Sham</i>)</span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">and
other </span><i style="font-family: Times; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">al Qaeda</span> </i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">affiliated rebel groups in Syria are to be targeted by
"intelligence assets" and drone strikes. A <i>Wa</i></span><i style="font-family: Times; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">shington Post</span> </i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">report
is </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-directs-pentagon-to-target-al-qaeda-affiliate-in-syria-one-of-the-most-formidable-forces-fighting-assad/2016/11/10/cf69839a-a51b-11e6-8042-f4d111c862d1_story.html" style="font-family: Times; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #420178;"><span style="font-size: large;">here</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">; and an </span><i style="font-family: Times; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Independent </span></i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">report
is</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/sas-special-forces-hit-list-iraq-syria-isis-terrorist-attacks-drones-a7400756.html" style="font-family: Times; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #420178;">here</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;">The <i>Washington Post </i>reports
the reason for these targeted attacks is the fear that al Qaeda
affiliated groups are preparing to mount terror attacks against Western targets
from strongholds in Syria. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;">The <i>Independent </i>report does not mention <i>al Nusra
</i>or<i> al Qaeda </i>specifically but<i> </i>says that SAS has been
given a list of 200 British jihadis to be captured or killed, based on the fear that
they will attempt to return to Britain and perform acts of terrorism there.
A British defence official was quoted as saying that the mission could be
the most important ever undertaken by the SAS in its entire 75-year
history. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;">"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;">The hunt is on", an
official is reported as saying, "to take out some very bad people". </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;">This
is very interesting because both countries have supposedly been fighting these
terrorist groups for several years - in fact since before 9-11. But wasn't the Western intervention in Syria supposedly to fight terrorist groups - especially
ISIS? As far as I know no official cessation of hostilities against <i>al
Qaeda </i>was ever declared. So if the intelligence services of the USA
and UK have known the whereabouts of these bad people, why have they delayed acting for so long, and only now declared it a matter of urgency? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;">It should be noted that part of the "cease-fire" agreement in September between the US and Russia,
was that the US would pass on to their Russian counterparts, intelligence on
extremist positions. According to the Russian Ministry of Defence the US
had passed on no information at all on the location of terrorist groups
in </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">Syria. If they have information on the whereabouts of these "bad people" (which the current reports suggest is the case) then it seems that the cease-fire agreement with Russia was undertaken in bad faith, or perhaps to put a better spin on it, that there were players on the US side who had no intention of cooperating with Russia, and who wanted to sabotage the cease-fire. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">So why are these NATO allies acting now to take action against the terrorist extremists? One thing that has always looked suspicious in this whole Syria debacle is that the US and its allies have had so little success in combatting ISIS and <i>al Nusra. </i>ISIS has, on more than one occasion, been allowed to drive in convoy across the desert to capture towns, such as Raqqa and Palmyra. In spite of the US having complete control of the air (before the Russians entered the fray) and having superb satellite and other reconnaissance capabilities, the US was unable to detect and stop this convoy of Land Cruisers and trucks from covering hundreds of miles of open desert. It beggars belief. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">Of course a much more plausible explanation is that the Western powers and their allies had no intention of destroying ISIS a</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">nd </span><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>al Nusra. </i>As I have been saying for some time now, the main purpose of US-NATO intervention was regime change. They wanted the terrorist groups to fight and destroy the Syrian army and to see Bashar al Assad removed from power. They cared not at all for the fact that the Assad regime would be replaced by a very murderous collection of jihadi groups. But now they are very concerned.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The reason? Well I think they see that the cause is lost. Russia and Assad will prevail. The ascension of Donald Trump to the Presidency has probably speeded this outcome, but I suspect it would have happened, in the long run </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">anyway - although Hillary Clinton might have been prepared to risk war with Russia to try to prevent this outcome. Maybe seeing the war is lost they do, as they claim, want to prevent jihadis moving to Western countries. But again I think there is a much more plausible explanation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">When East Aleppo falls, there could very well be a lot of </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"> documents, weapons and people which would prove </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">very incriminating to the US and its allies - evidence which would show how the US has been supporting <i>al Nusra </i>(<i>al Qaeda) </i>for quite a long time now. This would corroborate reports such as this one</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/715977/al-nusra-us-arming-jihadists-syria"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/715977/al-nusra-us-arming-jihadists-syria</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">in the <i>Daily Express</i> of an interview with <i>Nusra </i>commander Abul al Ezz with a German reporter. He claims </span><span style="color: #333333; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">that militants have been receiving “sophisticated weapons” from their backers to help them succeed against the Syrian government. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333; text-align: start;">He also claimed that when <i>al Nusra </i> was “besieged, we had officers from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel and America here… Experts in the use of satellites, rockets, reconnaissance and thermal security cameras.”</span> He </span><span style="color: #333333; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">added <i>al Nusra</i> “won battles thanks to TOW rockets. Due to these rockets, we reached a balance with the regime. Our tanks came from Libya via Turkey, joined by the [BM-21] multiple rocket launchers.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333;">So when East Aleppo </span></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">falls, things could be very embarrassing for the US and its partners. If captives are taken, no doubt there would be many who would be prepared to testify as to how western countries (and Israel) supported <i>al Qaeda </i>(= </span><i style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">al Nusra</span></i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"> =</span><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Times;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Times;"><i>Jabhat Fatah al-Sham). </i>And there will be documents and </span></span><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Times; font-size: large;"><i>materiel </i>to back them up. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Just think of it - incontrovertible evidence that the US has been arming, assisting and supporting <i>Al Qaed</i><i>a</i>! </span></span><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Times; font-size: large;">- our enemy in the disastrous War on Terror which has turned the world upside down for the past fifteen years. Whatever credibility the governments of the United States, Britain and other NATO allies have left, would be damaged beyond repair. And too, perhaps some of the leaders would be liable to war crimes charges - illegally trying to overthrow the government of a sovereign country, as well as providing material supported to proscribed terrorist groups. No wonder these leaders are now scrambling to destroy the evidence. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Times; font-size: large;">It will not be easy though, short of killing tens of thousands of jihadis and burning what remains of E. Aleppo - and then blaming it all on the Russians, presumably! </span></div>
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William Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08546383636182466057noreply@blogger.com0