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      The Tug of War in Washington Around the War in Afghanistan

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      The struggle has been going on for four years and is once again approaching a possible turning point. On one side you have a majority of Democrat and Republican legislators united with the intelligence community in the team called “proponents of a massive US military presence across the globe.” On the other side, an unpredictable US president who, since his 2016 election campaign, has consistently confirmed his intention to pull back the troops still engaged in the greater Middle East by the two presidents who preceded him.

      The tug of war continues between these two opposing forces as the place of the United States as “leader of the free world” appears up for grabs. (“Free” in the preceding sentence can be defined as “subject exclusively to corporate control” as corporations are deemed the only legitimate wielders of power.)

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      It has been a full 19 years since President George W. Bush launched his first campaign of perennial military occupation that the media labeled the “war in Afghanistan,” as if it was just another struggle between two opposing national armies. Bush still called it a war, but by ennobling it with the moniker the “global war on terror,” he made sure that, at least concerning public expectations, it was a war whose narrative didn’t require rational battle plans, declarations of victory, surrenders or truces. Nor did it require any of those singular moments that have defined past wars, producing all those “important dates” on the calendar that future generations of schoolchildren can memorize and then regurgitate as their responses to multiple choice questions on the tests that will decide whether or not they have mastered the logic of history.

      For anyone familiar with the mechanisms that require a constantly expanding military budget, US President Donald Trump’s insistence on reducing the footprint of the American military in the greater Middle East is heresy. Do Americans really think their continued presence is vital in Afghanistan? They said the same thing about Vietnam in 1973 when they abandoned Saigon to the Vietnamese communists. What disaster followed? The Vietnamese developed their country within a global economic context dominated by the United States and the two nations have since become best of friends, even though the communist party still officially runs Vietnam.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In 2001, Bush launched the war that was intended to drive the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Regime change didn’t take long to complete. Though officially banished from power, the Taliban have remained the most powerful political force in the country. Driven by his impatience, Trump imagined that the only solution might come from recognizing that state of affairs and reaching an agreement with the Taliban. After several false starts, negotiations began again on September 12. This propension for dialogue with the enemy does not sit well with those Americans who see their nation’s role in the world as the defenders of democracy, who because they believe in that ideal deserve absolute trust. For these strategic thinkers, history has shown that the Taliban are untrustworthy and simply do not merit the confidence of the always respectful and trustworthy United States. 

      Reviewing the reactions of the camp committed to maintaining the US presence, Sean D. Naylor, Yahoo’s national security correspondent, cites retired Admiral William McRaven, former commander of Joint Special Operations Command. He tells us that McRaven opposes the negotiations because he is “skeptical that the Taliban would follow through on its commitments.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Commitment:

      In diplomacy, a formal promise to respect a number of agreed-upon rules and behaviors until one of the parties can demonstrate, thanks to its obviously superior force and capacity to intimidate, that the respect of those rules and behaviors is no longer required

      Contextual Note

      McRaven was blunt in his appreciation, using a tired cliché to express his conviction that no official agreement should be taken seriously. “I’m not personally convinced that any deal with the Taliban will be worth the paper that it’s written on.” Joining McRaven in his opposition to negotiations, Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, asserted that his “assessment is that the Taliban would take over the country again in a matter of months.”

      For those unfamiliar with CIA jargon, “assessment” is synonymous with “my self-interested opinion.” Pursuing with the same vocabulary, Morell added that despite the terms of the envisaged peace deal that explicitly forbid it, “my assessment is that they would provide safe haven to al-Qaida.”

      This seals the case that in the intelligence community, the word “assessment” literally means “opinion” and not much more. Like a banker analyzing the curves of a real estate market in 2007 who believed it would keep growing forever, or like a schoolboy ready for a history test, Morell remembers the reasons Bush cited to attack the Afghan government in 2001: they had given “safe haven to al-Qaida.” If they did it once, they’ll do it again. Morell may be right, but he should also know that it was the US that gave the initial impetus to the creation and development of al-Qaida when they mobilized Osama bin Laden against the Soviets who had taken control of Afghanistan in 1979.

      The language feast continues when McRaven suggests that keeping troops in Afghanistan may be “a high price to pay” before adding this thought: “But what we have learned in the military is how to do this in a way that hopefully will not lose a lot of great soldiers.” The generals hope; the soldiers die. It’s just a question of when to pat yourself on the back when the numbers announced by the media remain sufficiently low.

      Historical note

      William McRaven and Michael Morrell have every reason to be suspicious of the value of commitments by any political entity. International understanding and world peace depend on trust and the respect of agreements reached by the political leaders of all nations. To wield clout in this complex world of international relations, financial power and military might may be sufficient to impose a nation’s policies in specific contexts, but the capacity to conduct business with every other nation in the world depends on the ability to maintain a reputation for keeping one’s commitments.

      The US has proved its capacity to wield financial power and military might, though not always to convincing effect. In his book, “In the Shadows of the American Century,” historian Alfred McCoy wrote, “Future historians are likely to identify George W. Bush’s rash invasion of Iraq, in 2003, as the start of America’s downfall.” It was the misuse of American power under Bush that began a precipitous decline in the reputation of the US as a political model and as a legitimate defender of the rule of law.

      That meant that to redress the balance, it became more important than ever for the US to show its determination to respect commitments. But as Annalisa Merelli, writing for Quartz, documented with a long list of examples, “the US is an unreliable international partner—and it has long been one, even before the current administration pulled out from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Paris agreement on climate change, and threatened to end NAFTA. History is dotted with treaties that the US has signed but not ratified, signed and then unsigned, and even refused to sign after pushing everyone else to sign.”

      Americans find this hard to understand because the media rarely, if ever, track the international reputation of the US in its proclaimed role as “leader of the free world.” They prefer to see the constant betrayals of trust as inevitable and regrettable but, at the same time, forgettable results of the differences between the two sacred political parties — Democrats and Republicans. Each has a different view of the world and, once in power, quite naturally seeks to impose that view, if only to keep their campaign promises to voters (and donors). International agreements always take a backseat to electoral tactics. 

      Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee for the US election in November, has expressed his admiration of McRaven’s “moral courage” and his pride in being associated with him. McRaven, who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and has openly criticized Donald Trump, has a clear vision of the future that gives a good indication of what Biden’s foreign policy may look like. He affirmed that the US will “probably need to be in Afghanistan for a very long time.” Nineteen years has clearly not been long enough.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Dominic Raab to face hard questions about Irish border on US visit

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      The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, is travelling to Washington for talks with senior US officials and senior Democrats, where he is expected to be pressed by pro-Irish legislators to explain whether the UK is intending to break international law and undermine the Good Friday agreement.The Irish ambassador to the US, Daniel Mulhall, has been lobbying in Washington, warning that the UK’s latest row with the EU may yet lead to the re-emergence of a hard border on the island of Ireland.With the US presidential elections less than 50 days away, and the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, still the favourite to win, according to polls, Raab will be eager to reassure members of the Senate and the House of Representatives about the UK’s plans to revise the EU withdrawal agreement.The pro-Irish lobby in Washington rivals that of the UK, and the Democrats, who tend to be Brexit sceptics, want to see the dispute settled without threats, real or imagined, to peace in Northern Ireland.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, warned last week that there would be absolutely no chance of a US-UK trade deal passing Congress if Britain violated its international agreements and Brexit undermined the Belfast accords. Any such trade deal needs two-thirds support of the Senate, and so requires substantial support from Democratic senators.A key target of UK lobbying is also likely to be Richard Neal, the chairman of the ways and means committee, which oversees trade agreements. In a statement last week he pointed out that the US was a guarantor of the Good Friday agreement.“I urge both sides to uphold the terms of this joint agreement, particularly with respect to the treatment of Northern Ireland, in accordance with international law,” Neal said. “The UK’s departure from the EU at the end of this year and any US-UK trade agreement must preserve the Good Friday agreement, which has maintained peace and prosperity for British and European peoples since 1998.“I sincerely hope the British government upholds the rule of law and delivers on the commitments it made during Brexit negotiations, particularly in regard to the Irish border protocols.”Tony Blinken, a senior foreign policy adviser to Biden, warned on twitter: “Joe Biden is committed to preserving the hard-earned peace & stability in Northern Ireland.“As the UK and EU work out their relationship, any arrangements must protect the Good Friday agreement and prevent the return of a hard border.”Biden has Irish roots and will look askance at anything that brings the threat of a hard border closer.A set-piece speech at the Atlantic Council thinktank on Thursday may be Raab’s single biggest public chance to explain UK government thinking on Ireland, as well as Iran. The UK is at loggerheads with the Trump administration on the US claim that it has the right to impose UN snapback sanctions on Iran.The UK also questions the practical impact if the US unilaterally declares it has the right to order UN member states to reimpose the sanctions lifted in 2015. The US already has punitive secondary sanctions against Iran.Like the US, the UK would like the UN embargo on conventional arms sales to Iran to be extended, but cannot see a way in which the Russia and China would not use their security council veto to block such a move.Raab on his trip will also be seeking an update on the civil lawsuit being filed by the parents of Harry Dunn in Virginia against Ann Sacoolas, who was charged with causing death by dangerous driving after a crash last year in Northamptonshire that resulted in the 19-year-old’s death.The US has refused a UK government request for the extradition of Sacoolas, the wife of a CIA operative. The UK is not expecting the US administration to change its position on extradition, but is sympathetic to the case. More

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      in World Politics

      Failing to Protect the Independence of the European Commission

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      I have always believed that the independence of members of the European Commission (EC) was a keystone of successful European integration. Commissioners are obliged by their oath of office to seek a European solution to problems, rather than just seek a balance between conflicting national interests. They have done so ever since 1958. This is why European integration has succeeded, while integration efforts on other continents have failed under the weight of national egoism.

      As the European Union grows, the independence of commissioners from national politics has become ever more important. Some believe the European Commission is too large. From an efficiency point of view, they have a point. But Ireland, among others, has insisted that despite this, each member state should have one of its nationals as a member of the commission at all times.

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      But if the one-commissioner-per-member-state rule is to be upheld as the EU enlarges, commissioners from all states — large and small — must demonstrate that they put European interest first and are not subject to the vagaries and passions of politics in their country of origin. In other words, European commissioners must be independent. All member states must be seen to respect this.

      This is why I am deeply troubled by the attitude taken by the Irish government, and then by President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission, to call for Phil Hogan to resign as EU trade commissioner. Both of them failed in their understanding of the European Union and of one of its vital interests — namely the visible independence of members of the European Commission from the politics of any EU state, large or small.

      I was genuinely shocked by what happened. Late in the evening of August 22, leaders of the Irish government called on Hogan to “consider his position.” That means to resign. They piled on the pressure thereafter, with a further statement on August 23 containing a political determination that he had broken the government’s quarantine rules to combat the spread of COVID-19 after returning to Ireland from Belgium. Hogan resigned on August 26. That was his decision and one he was entitled to make.

      Lessons From This Precedent

      But there are profound lessons to be learned by President von der Leyen — and by the European Commission as a whole — as to how and to whom commissioners should be held accountable, and a need to understand what this precedent means for the future political independence of commissioners from their home governments. Separately, there are also questions to be asked about the internal management of and the collegiality of the EC.

      I will set out my concerns here, drawing on the words of the EU treaty, which I helped draft as a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe.

      On August 26, von der Leyen clearly withdrew any active support from Commissioner Hogan and unquestioningly accepted the line of the Irish government. This influenced him to resign from his position. In this action, I contend that the president did not fulfill all of her responsibilities under the treaties. I know she faced genuine political difficulty. But the treaties were framed to deal with fraught political situations while preserving the independence of the EC and due process.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The European Commission is the guardian of EU treaties and should be seen to defend the rules laid down in the treaties under all circumstances, even when it is politically difficult. Article 245 of the treaty requires member states to respect the independence of commissioners. Ireland is bound by that article, after having ratified it in a referendum. One should note that Article 245 refers to respecting the independence of commissioners individually, not just to the EC as a whole.

      It is for the Irish government to say whether publicly demanding a commissioner’s resignation for an alleged breach of Irish rules is compatible with the Irish government’s treaty obligation under Article 245. But it had other options,

      If a commissioner is visiting a member state for any reason, he or she is subject to the laws of that state on the same basis as any other citizen. A visiting commissioner would not be above the law, nor would they be below it either. If they breached the law, due process in the courts ought to be applied — as with any citizen. This is what would have happened if the visiting commissioner was from any country other than Ireland and had experienced the difficulties that Hogan did, and due process would have been followed.

      The statements of the Irish government, and the unsatisfactory explanations by Hogan, created political problems for von der Leyen. She had to do something, but not necessarily what she did. Yet there were options available to her, which she inexplicably failed to use or consider.

      Rules Ignored

      Commissioners are subject to a code of conduct. Under that code, there is an ethics committee to determine if its guidelines have been breached. If the matter is urgent, there is provision for a time limit to be set for a report by the committee. Nonetheless, a reference to the ethics committee would have allowed for due process and a calm and fair hearing. More importantly, using this process would also have asserted the independence of the European Commission as an institution.

      The code says that it is to be applied “in good faith and with due consideration of the proportionality principle,” and it allows for a reprimand that does not warrant asking the commissioner to resign. Due to the course followed, we will never know if there was any breach of the code at all by Hogan.

      President von der Leyen’s failure to use these mechanisms seems to be a serious failure to defend due process and proportionality and to protect the independence of individual commissioners, as was required by the treaty. The EC and the European Parliament should inquire into why she did not do so. There are consequences now for the viability of the code of conduct if it is not to be used in a case like this.

      Criteria Not Applied

      Was what Phil Hogan did a resigning matter anyway? Article 247 allows for only two grounds for asking a commissioner to resign. These are that he or she is “no longer being able to fulfil the conditions for the performance of [their] duties” or “has been guilty of serious misconduct.” I do not think either condition was met in Hogan’s case.

      Hogan would have been fully capable of carrying out his duties while the ethics committee did its work. Instead, his position is now effectively vacant.

      Most people I have spoken to do not think the breaches committed by Hogan — while foolish — amounted to “serious misconduct” within the meaning of Article 247. Failure to recollect all the details of a private visit over two weeks, or to issue a sufficient apology quickly enough, may be political failing, but they hardly rise to the level of “serious misconduct.” Any deliberate and knowing breach of quarantine measures should have been dealt with in Irish courts without fuss.

      In any event, von der Leyen would have been far wiser to have gotten an objective view on all of this from the ethics committee before allowing Hogan to resign.

      Why Did the European Commission Not Meet?

      Another issue is the president’s failure to call an EC meeting if she was considering that a commissioner should resign. Under Article 247, it is the EC — not the president alone — that can make a commissioner resign, and even then it must be approved by the European Court of Justice. These safeguards were put in the treaty to protect the independence of the European Commission. They were ignored in this case.

      The subsequent weakening of the institutional independence of the commission is very damaging to European integration and to the interests of smaller EU states. This should be of concern to the European Parliament.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Donald Trump: A President Against His People

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      In less than two months from now, Americans would have elected their next president. One can only hope that they have elected their 46th president, not reelected their 45th for another four-year term. Electing Donald Trump was nothing short of shooting oneself in the foot with a .45-caliber pistol. Reelecting him will amount to taking that pistol to the head and pulling the trigger.

      In four years, this man has caused countless harm to everyone possible, save rich white Americans and even richer American corporations. He has worked hard to reclaim whiteness in America, having done everything possible to ensure that to be American is synonymous with being white. He has characterized Mexicans as rapists and Central American refugees as criminals. Blinded by his xenophobic views, he promised his supporters a beautiful wall on the southern border that would be paid for by Mexico. Employing his executive powers to keep Muslims away from American soil, his exclusionary immigration policies have been openly Islamophobic from the first days of his presidency.

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      As president, Trump had the opportunity to make a positive impact on innumerable aspects of the lives of its citizens. Unfortunately, anything he turned his attention to — whether it’s education, health care, taxation, immigration, trade agreements or the environment — he managed to make worse. It requires an extraordinary amount of ineptitude and incompetence to accomplish what Trump has in his four years. He has done enough damage to the country — and the world at large — to vie for the unenviable top spot as the worst president in the history of the United States of America.

      Enduring the final year of his presidency, I had thought that it is impossible to be surprised or outraged any longer by whatever the man says or does. I was proven wrong. Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has made his previous transgressions seem like a walk in the park. On September 9, he acknowledged that he had intentionally downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. The White House response was a pathetic effort to mitigate the fallout from the information contained in the upcoming book by The Washington Post’s veteran journalist Bob Woodward.

      The COVID-19 death toll in the US is just shy of 200,000, from over 6.5 million cases — the highest in the world. That Trump never cared for the welfare and well-being of his fellow countrypeople was amply clear from his policies and actions over these past four years. That he could turn a blind eye to the calamitous effects of the pandemic and lie to the nation about it likens him to a modern-day emperor, mocking the suffering of his subjects, not much different from Nero who fiddled while Rome burned.

      Trump’s bungling response to the pandemic makes him culpable for this exorbitant death toll, which could have been averted had he acted swiftly and decisively, with a plan of action based on scientific findings. Instead of encouraging responsible social behavior from the country, he mocked science with his refusal to wear a mask, by consuming hydroxychloroquine as a shield against the coronavirus and misleading the American public by not only not impressing upon it the gravity of the pandemic but, as we now know, willfully underplaying the dangers of COVID-19. Trump’s callous and reprehensible behavior during the pandemic not only taints his legacy with the unnecessary loss of life, but it also cements his position as the worst president of the country with an insurmountable lead over Andrew Jackson and quite possibly anyone else in the future.

      America is a nation that loves to bookmark in history the wars its presidents spearheaded during their tenure. Lyndon Johnson is remembered for launching his war on crime in 1965, Ronald Reagan for his war on drugs in 1982. Today, both those wars have resulted in more than 2.3 million incarcerated Americans, with a disproportionate amount of them being black and people of color. George W. Bush is identified with the war on terror that he commenced soon after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

      By contrast, what Trump has managed to do in his four years at America’s helm is wage a full-scale war on humanity. Sadly, Republican politicians have been abetting this war by kowtowing to the president. A vote for Donald Trump this November is an endorsement of his war on humanity and actively lending support to it.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      How Alexei Navalny Created Russia’s Main Opposition Platform

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      On September 2, German authorities stated that Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny had been poisoned with a nerve agent from the Novichok group. Since August 22, Navalny has been treated at the Charité university hospital in Berlin, where he was transported from Russia in an induced coma.

      Navalny is best-known for his anti-corruption initiatives, particularly the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which is commonly known under its Russian abbreviation FBK. Since its inception in 2011, FBK has evolved into an important independent investigative media outlet funded by over 15,000 recurring donations from Russian citizens. Although Navalny is not allowed on Russian state-run television, FBK’s video investigations have been watched hundreds of million times on Navalny’s YouTube channel.

      In July, Navalny was forced to dissolve FBK after a libel lawsuit filed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a US-sanctioned Russian billionaire accused of interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. Prigozhin is seeking 88 million rubles ($1.4 million) from FBK, Navalny and Lyubov Sobol, FBK’s lawyer and a prominent opposition activist. Despite FBK’s liquidation, its team continued to work as usual, and on August 18-20 was filming a new investigation in Tomsk, where Navalny is believed to have been poisoned.

      Breaking Through the Information Blockade

      Navalny’s anti-corruption crusade began in 2008, when he purchased a small number of shares in Russian publicly-traded oil and gas companies, including the majority state-owned Gazprom and Rosneft, and became an activist shareholder. He started publishing investigations into the opaque operations of these companies on LiveJournal, formerly a popular blogging platform in Russia.

      Launched in 2011, FBK initially published its reports on Navalny’s LiveJournal page. In 2015, it published its first investigative documentary on Navalny’s YouTube channel, previously used for promoting his Moscow mayoral candidacy in 2013. In the ground-breaking documentary, FBK accused Russia’s then-Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and his two sons of large-scale corruption, money laundering and links to organized crime figures.

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      Since then, FBK has regularly published its investigations on YouTube, pointing out the lavish lifestyles of Russian officials and visualizing complex ownership schemes of their businesses and properties. FBK’s videos were particularly appreciated for their humorous presentation, impressive drone footage of luxury properties and high-quality animations. By keeping the content entertaining and accessible while describing complex fraudulent schemes, Navalny managed to expand his follower base to include people from across the country and its social classes.

      In 2017, FBK published its best-known documentary, exposing the alleged corrupt activities of Russia’s then prime minister and former president, Dmitry Medvedev. The video was viewed over 36 million times as of September 2020. Shortly after the release of this investigation, Navalny’s YouTube channel gained one million subscribers, and Navalny announced the launch of a second YouTube channel, Navalny Live, intended for live streaming.

      In June 2017, TIME magazine included Navalny in its list of the 25 most influential people on the internet for “breaking through the Kremlin’s information blockade.” Navalny’s two YouTube channels became an influential alternative to state-run television and a vital source of information for many Russians. By September 2020, the two channels accumulated 4 million and 2 million subscribers, respectively.

      Transparency and Accountability

      FBK is widely credited for its scrupulous work with public records, which is the main source of information for its investigative documentaries. FBK has been actively challenging the common misconception that Russia is an opaque jurisdiction with poor record-keeping. Indeed, Russian authorities collect and publish a wealth of regularly updated data that is readily available free of charge or for a relatively small fee.

      FBK’s investigations are often based on information from Russia’s official land registry and corporate records as well as wealth declarations published by government officials. Based on open source information, in April 2019, FBK concluded that Russia’s longstanding minister of finance, Anton Siluanov, owned a plot of land in the elite Rublevka district outside Moscow and that, taking into account his declared income over the past 10 years, he could not possibly afford it.

      Similarly, FBK discovered that a neighboring plot of land is owned by an anonymous “natural person,” according to the official land registry. FBK claimed that the land is owned by the Russian Deputy Minister of Defence Ruslan Tsalikov; the size of the plot was exactly the same as the plot of land Tsalikov mentioned in his wealth declaration. Once again, FBK concluded that Tsalikov would not have been able to buy land in Rublevka considering his declared earnings. Both the finance and defense ministries confirmed ownership of the land but denied FBK’s allegations of illicit enrichment.

      Despite the overall transparency of the official Russian registries, names of senior public officials from Russia’s military and space sectors, and even their relatives, have been increasingly removed from the land registry filings on unclear legal grounds. For example, in November 2019, FBK stated that the 81-year-old father-in-law of Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos (Russia’s space agency), disappeared from the land registry. His name was substituted by the “natural person” entry. FBK claims that he owns expensive properties on behalf of Rogozin. Rogozin has not responded to FBK’s allegations.

      Various global NGOs and think tanks, including Transparency International, have continuously classified Russia as a country with a high level of corruption. Russian government officials are often involved in illicit enrichment schemes, such as kickbacks, or conceal ownership of businesses and properties through their close associates or offshore shell companies. As demonstrated by FBK’s investigations into Tsalikov and Rogozin’s properties, officials tend to try to hide ownership by erasing their names from the official registries.

      Even though FBK can identify individual cases of illicit enrichment, Russia currently lacks the necessary mechanisms to investigate such allegations. Article 20 of the UN Convention Against Corruption defines illicit enrichment as a “significant increase in the assets of a public official that he or she cannot reasonably explain in relation to his or her lawful income.” While Russia ratified the convention in 2006, it refused to include Article 20. Due to this omission, FBK’s anti-corruption investigations have little to no legal consequences within Russia. Against this backdrop, Navalny has repeatedly claimed that political changes are necessary to end endemic corruption in Russia.

      Smart Voting Against United Russia

      As Russia’s leading opposition figure, Navalny has never concealed that FBK’s investigations are intended as a call for political action. His most recent investigations, including the one filmed in Tomsk, support his political campaign against candidates from the ruling United Russia party on the eve of the regional elections on September 13.

      This campaign is part of the so-called smart voting initiative, which is Navalny’s wider strategy to challenge the protracted rule of President Vladimir Putin and United Russia. The central election commission has refused to register Navalny or any other FBK employee as a candidate in elections since 2013, when Navalny came second in Moscow’s mayoral election with 27% of the vote. To challenge the situation, Navalny’s team used its reach to coordinate opposition voters to strategically and effectively beat United Russia candidates in hundreds of local and regional elections. In practice, this means voting collectively for the strongest non-United Russia candidate in any given district, regardless of his or her political affiliation or personal qualities.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In September last year, smart voting generated impressive results: Nearly half of the elected members of the Moscow city council — 20 of 45 members — had been recommended by the platform. During the campaign, FBK’s investigations into the source of wealth of prominent United Russia members in Moscow proved to be a vital agitation tool, given that Navalny or FBK have no access to popular state-run media outlets. According to a research paper published in March this year by Russian political analysts Ivan Bolshakov and Vladimir Perevalov, Navalny’s smart voting, on average, improved the results of opposition candidates by 5.6% in last September’s Moscow city council elections. For instance, FBK accused Andrey Metelsky, United Russia’s branch head in Moscow, of concealing his multimillion-dollar business empire by controlling it through his 75-year-old mother. Following the 2019 campaign, Metelsky lost his district to a candidate suggested by Navalny’s smart voting. Prior to that, Metelsky had continuously held office since 2001.

      According to the Charité hospital, on September 8, Navalny has been taken out of an induced coma and is reported to be responding to speech. His recovery will probably take a long time, and long-term after-effects cannot be ruled out. But it is worth noting that Navalny’s projects seem to be working smoothly even in his absence: The latest investigation, released on September 9, has already garnered nearly 3 million views. Acting under constant pressure from Russian authorities, Navalny and FBK focused on establishing autonomous operations that do not overly rely on any single person.

      On the eve of the 2019 elections, Navalny spent a month in jail for violating Russia’s strict protest laws, while his allies continued to shoot FBK documentaries and campaigned for smart voting. The smart voting platform has already provided its recommendations for the upcoming local and regional elections scheduled for September 13 and intends to do so for the 2021 state Duma elections.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Mechanics of Discontent Visible in Berlin

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      The vacuum of leadership and the visible missteps throughout much of the Western world have turned developed nations into a fertile ground for what some people see as the resurgence of modern versions of fascism. Until the past few months, such a statement would have sounded provocative at best, delusional at worst. But the evidence confronts us every day and the most sober, level-headed among us cannot avoid the suspicion that, thanks to a raging and still mysterious pandemic, we are living on some kind of political brink that could end up with the overturning of the existing social order.

      Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief of The New York Times, reports on an event that, because it took place in Berlin, will fatally evoke ominous overtones for the average reader. The article bears the title, “Far Right Germans Try to Storm Reichstag as Virus Protests Escalate.”

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      At one point, Bennhold quotes an expert on far-right extremism, Matthias Quent, who offers his description of the motley crew participating in the event, which took place on August 29. “We have everything from Hare Krishna fans to Adolf Hitler fans on the streets. It’s a very disparate crowd but what unites people is an angry discontent with the establishment. It’s a mix of populist and egoist outrage,” he says.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Egoist outrage:

      The ultimate expression of political revolt in individualistic Western societies where the ego has become the absolute reference and authority that founds every individual’s moral judgment

      Contextual Note

      With its title highlighting the dramatic action of the storming of the Reichstag, The New York Times may deliberately be making a mountain out of a molehill. It could be seen as a typical journalistic gambit of scaremongering to hook the reader, followed by more reassuring, level-headed analysis. The story contrasts, for example, with DW’s article on the same event that avoids pushing the idea of a neo-Nazi threat. Instead, it concentrates on the political and legal choices available to the immense majority of Germany’s people and its authorities seeking counter the attempts of the neo-Nazi right who are attempting to use the current health crisis to disrupt German politics.

      Beyond the headline, once it gets into the body of the story, The Times article itself gives a reasonably objective account of the event and its possible consequences. The quote by Quent confirms that the discontent behind the demonstration had little to do with building a neo-Nazi political force. The “populist and egoist outrage,” he mentions, should be interpreted as an unfocused cry of despair of a mostly younger generation that reflects a vague sense of decline in the authority of institutions and an absence of a political vision for the future.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Quent offers a particularly reassuring take that contradicts the implicit evocation of a return of Nazi stormtroopers. “In Germany, like many other European countries, we see that far-right parties are losing ground, that there is growing trust in incumbent governments. In the short term the pandemic can’t be exploited by far-right parties.” That doesn’t mean the protesters believe that today’s political institutions are doing a great job and should be encouraged to continue on their merry way.

      But Quent calls the outrage “egoist,” implying that it may simply be a symptom of the reigning individualism in contemporary German culture. The article also tells us that “Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is enjoying high levels of trust and popularity, and the great majority of Germans approve of its virus control measures.” If all of that is true, the sensationalism associated with imagining a neo-Nazi resurgence begins to disappear.

      Because this is The New York Times, we know that the article was written for Americans who are always eager to know which foreign threat they need to be afraid of. Bennhold accordingly gets Quent to admit that the fly is in the ointment and things could quite possibly flare up again. “If the economy deteriorates further and unemployment rises,” she quotes him as saying, “that equation may change. Already, the AfD and more extreme far-right groups are trying to capitalize on the discontent as they begin positioning themselves for what may be a much uglier political scene some months from now.”

      Bennhold dutifully reminds us of this important point: “Even before the pandemic hit Germany, far-right extremism and far-right terrorism had been officially identified as the biggest danger to the country’s democracy.” She then offers several paragraphs of evidence that neo-Nazis have been infiltrating the police before concluding the article with a quote by Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier: “Far-right extremism has deep roots in our society. It is a serious danger.”

      In other words, The Times is up to the task of making sure that Germany lives up to the disturbing image Americans have of it.

      Historical Note

      Among the reminders of recent history included in the article, Katrin Bennhold offers an update for those who are still trying to digest the scary events from five years ago when the crisis caused by massive refugee immigration mostly from the Middle East seriously destabilized Germany and much of Europe. That paranoia, itself a direct consequence of the disastrous American wars in the Middle East, very directly contributed to the success of the Brexit vote in 2016 that was largely motivated by fear of extra-European immigration.

      Bennhold elaborates: “The migrant wave helped propel the AfD into Parliament in the last election, but the issue has lost much of its political potency, as the resettlement has been broadly deemed a success. And with its own lawmakers and voters deeply split over the country’s coronavirus measures, the party has seen its share of the vote dip below 10 percent in recent polls.”

      Most Americans, including most readers of The New York Times, were probably not aware of the fact Bennhold dryly reports today that all’s well that ends well or, more specifically, “the resettlement has been broadly deemed a success.” In 2018, Bennhold herself wasn’t very sure. In an article she co-authored with Max Fisher, they asked at the time, “Has the German migrant fight been resolved?” And the curt answer they gave was simply, “Maybe, but probably not.”

      This is the eternal problem with the news, even for a serious outlet like The New York Times. Crises sell in the sense of motivating the publication to write them up and spare no details in describing the extent of the damage as the crisis is unfolding. But when a crisis is resolved, totally or partially, unless it is the result of a sudden dramatic gesture, the news outlet will find other crises flaring up that are more urgent to cover. This is especially true when a policy devised to address a crisis is “deemed a success.” All journalists know that “deeming” is never newsworthy. Storming the Reichstag is.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The Solution to India’s China Problem: A Free Tibet

      by

      India has had a wound around its Himalayan neck ever since it suffered a humiliating defeat to China in 1962. The recent clash between Indian and China soldiers in Galwan Valley on June 15 has only rubbed salt into that wound.

      It has come to this because when China invaded neighboring Tibet in 1950, India was in thrall to the newly-established communist regime under Mao Zedong after a bloody revolution. Ignoring its civilizational relationship with Tibet, India hoped to gain from the emerging power of the People’s Republic of China and thus celebrated “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai,” a popular slogan of the time that translates to “Indians and Chinese are brothers.”

      Han and Hindu Nationalism Come Face to Face

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      After 1962, the Chinese military stood on the doorstep of India across thousands of kilometers in the Himalayas. Proverbially, this border was guarded by only 60 Indian policemen before China’s conquest of Tibet. Pertinently, India never had a border with China before 1950.

      Refuge in India

      If Tibet had remained a free and independent country, today it would have been the 10th largest nation with 2.5 million square kilometers of land. The Tibetan Plateau hosts 46,000 glaciers, nearly one-fourth of the world’s total number. It is a source of numerous rivers, including some of the most mighty ones such as the Indus, Brahmaputra, Mekong and Yangtze. It is shocking that such a vast reservoir of water and natural resources in Asia has been occupied by China and it is even more shocking that it barely gets a mention today.

      Ancient Buddhist culture has been preserved in Tibet over many centuries. In the Indian public psyche, Kailash Mansarovar was part of India. Tibetans used to visit Buddhist pilgrimage sites in India at Sarnath, Bodhgaya, Nalanda and Amravati. The India–Tibet border was irrelevant and people used to cross it freely. Today, that border has two armies facing each other and people no longer cross it.

      After the Dalai Lama took refuge in India in 1959, around 100,000 Tibetans have come to India. Most of them live in the Himalayan regions and the state of Karnataka. The Tibetan seat of power is in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, where the Dalai Lama has set up abode. The Tibetan parliament and government are also based there. Although many Tibetans still dream of a free Tibet, India‘s desire for closer ties with China in the past has led New Delhi to shy away from supporting Tibetan independence. As a refugee in India, the Dalai Lama has spoken of autonomy and adhered to India‘s “One-China” policy.

      In 70 years of Chinese occupation, more than 1 million Tibetans have been killed, 6,000 monasteries destroyed and Tibet’s cultural identity attacked. The Chinese have also proceeded to exploit Tibet’s natural resources. They have cleared forests, bombed mountains and practice strip mining for gold, copper, lithium and other rare earth elements.

      Long Ignored

      The international community has ignored the genocide and exploitation Tibet has experienced over the last seven decades. Powerful nations have made their peace with China for geopolitical and economic reasons. In the process, Tibetans have suffered a lot.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Globalization has led over 160 countries trading with China. Western “liberal democrats” blindly accept the “One-China” policy and recognize Tibet as a part of China. Freed of any external pressure, China has become more oppressive in Tibet. Even possessing the Dalai Lama’s photo could land a Tibetan in jail on charges of separatism. Although Tibetan youth do not retaliate like their counterparts in Palestine or Kashmir, they have resorted to self-immolation as a form of protest against Chinese occupation.

      Tibetans still believe that freedom is possible. Until six decades ago, Confucianism and Buddhism were the strongest influences on Chinese society. Communism attacked these twin pillars. Capitalism has shaken them further. Today, the only religion consumerist China worships is money. Yet, as the Chinese are discovering, life is more than money. Tibetans are convinced that China will never be able to conquer their spirit and that they are free until their spirit is free.

      During visits of Chinese leaders, Indian police customarily arrest all Tibetan activists to appease China. Yet young Tibetans take their inspiration from India’s struggle for independence from British rule. Few remember that until 1942, most Indians did not believe they would see freedom in their lifetime. Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India Movement struggled to gain mass support. Within five years, India became independent because the British Empire collapsed under its own weight. Tibetans believe the same will happen to the modern Chinese empire.

      Chinese Domination

      China has not only occupied Tibet but also Uighur East Turkestan, a Muslim-majority region covering 1.8 million square kilometers now known as Xinjiang. It also occupies 1.2 million square kilometers of southern Mongolia and 84,000 square kilometers of Manchuria. By some calculations, 60% of China’s 9.6 million square kilometers is occupied territory. China’s expansionist designs continue. The “Belt and Road Initiative” is China’s plan to dominate world trade.

      The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls all aspects of life in the country. The administration, the judiciary, the legislature, the media and the military are all controlled by the CCP. The party fosters a personality cult around Mao despite his responsibility for the death of millions of people. His portrait still adorns Tiananmen Square, a place made immemorable by the brutal slaughter of unarmed students by armed tanks. That 1989 massacre still stands obliterated from history textbooks and even the internet in China.

      Territorial encroachments and China’s support for Pakistan demonstrate that Beijing has no respect for India’s territorial integrity. There is no reason for India to respect China’s territorial integrity. Beijing is facing international isolation because of the COVID-19 outbreak. From Japan to Bhutan, China’s neighbors are nervous about its expansionism. The time has come for India to stand up to China. It must scrap the “One-China” policy and support Tibet’s nonviolent movement for independence.

      *[An earlier version of this article was published by The Indian Express.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More