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      From Repeated Mistakes to an Unmistakable Message

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      Our regularly updated feature Language and the News will continue in the form of separate articles rather than as a single newsfeed. Click here to read yesterday’s edition.

      We invite readers to join us by submitting their suggestions of words and expressions that deserve exploring, with or without original commentary. To submit a citation from the news and/or provide your own short commentary, send us an email.

      February 24: Unmistakable

      Our regular examination of language in the news cycle has been bringing us back to the major international story thus far of 2022. The Russia–Ukraine crisis keeps generating examples of the deliberately twisted and sometimes directly inverted semantics, a trend that will probably continue and perhaps become amplified in the coming weeks and months.

      As a general rule, when politicians claim to be “clear,” the observer can be certain that what they are clear about is at best half the story. Clarity imperceptibly fades into obscurity. It gets worse when the speaker claims that the message is “unmistakable.” Quoted by the New York Times, US President Joe Biden offered a wonderful example of such rhetoric while explaining the measures he is taking to counter Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.

      Ukraine’s Tug of War and the Implications for Europe

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      “Let me be clear: These are totally defensive moves on our part,” Biden proclaimed. “We have no intention of fighting Russia. We want to send an unmistakable message, though, that the United States, together with our allies, will defend every inch of NATO territory and abide by the commitments we made to NATO.”

      This is the standard mantra in Washington. Economic sanctions are always intended to punish civilian populations in the hope that they will revolt against their government. They should never be thought of as aggressive or offensive, not even partially. Perish the thought. Biden makes that “clear” when he claims they are “totally” defensive, like a soldier in the field raising a shield before his face to deflect an enemy’s arrow. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      As for the “unmistakable message,” it may simply mean that the White House has made so many mistaken guesses in recent weeks about the date of a Russian invasion, it is now necessary to inform people that the latest message, for a change, is not just one more in an endless series of mistakes.

      Biden also called Vladimir Putin’s move “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.” For the moment, it is an aggressive incursion into contested Ukrainian territory, but it isn’t an invasion. It can only be deemed the beginning of an invasion if there actually is an invasion that follows from it. There is no question that President Putin’s initiative violates international law, but that alone doesn’t make it a military invasion.

      Biden should know something about what invasions look like. He was, after all, the key Democrat, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to champion US President George W. Bush’s tragically planned and utterly unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003, a well-documented episode Biden persistently denied during his election campaign.

      Putin’s move may be a prelude to an invasion, but preludes only become real when the event they are preparing becomes real. The real reason Biden calls it “the beginning of an invasion” is to save face in an attempt to maintain a modicum of credibility regarding his administration’s warnings in recent weeks. He may well be hoping it turns into a Russian invasion just to prove his repeated predictions were somewhat correct.

      Then there’s Biden’s promise to defend “every inch of NATO territory.” Everyone knows Ukraine is not NATO territory. So why offer such a justification? Perhaps Biden’s reason for saying this on record is that, when Republicans and the more bellicose Democrats begin castigating him for failing to support Ukraine militarily, he will be able to use Ukraine’s non-NATO status to defend his policy. At the same time, he is getting the best of both worlds. He may thus safely stand back and watch a bloody proxy war proceed, much as Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Biden have done for the past seven years with Yemen.

      Finally, Biden made the important decision to call off the proposed summit meeting with Putin. At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a planned meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that should have taken place on February 24. “Now that we see the invasion is beginning,” Blinken explained, “and Russia has made clear its wholesale rejection of diplomacy, it does not make sense to go forward with that meeting at this time.” 

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      That statement on Blinken’s part is literally a “wholesale rejection.” He even used the expression “pretense of diplomacy,” disparaging the very idea of trying to solve the problem rather than let it get worse. Lavrov had made no attempt to scotch the meeting. In its coverage, Reuters added that “Blinken said he was still committed to diplomacy.” Except, apparently, when he’s committed to preventing it from happening. In former times, diplomacy consisted of getting a conversation going whenever a serious problem arose. It certainly did not consist of explaining why there was no need for a dialogue.

      In the light of this new style of diplomacy, historians may now find it an interesting counterfactual exercise to wonder what might have happened during the Cuban missile crisis had either John F. Kennedy or Nikita Khrushchev objected that diplomacy was a waste of time. 

      Why Monitoring Language Is Important

      Language allows people to express thoughts, theories, ideas, experiences and opinions. But even while doing so, it also serves to obscure what is essential for understanding the complex nature of reality. When people use language to hide essential meaning, it is not only because they cynically seek to prevaricate or spread misinformation. It is because they strive to tell the part or the angle of the story that correlates with their needs and interests.

      In the age of social media, many of our institutions and pundits proclaim their intent to root out “misinformation.” But often, in so doing, they are literally seeking to miss information.

      Is there a solution? It will never be perfect, but critical thinking begins by being attentive to two things: the full context of any issue we are trying to understand and the operation of language itself. In our schools, we are taught to read and write, but, unless we bring rhetoric back into the standard curriculum, we are never taught how the power of language to both convey and distort the truth functions. There is a largely unconscious but observable historical reason for that negligence. Teaching establishments and cultural authorities fear the power of linguistic critique may be used against their authority.

      Remember, Fair Observer’s Language and the News seeks to sensitize our readers to the importance of digging deeper when assimilating the wisdom of our authorities, pundits and the media that transmit their knowledge and wisdom.

      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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      Climate Damage and the Role of Insurance

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      As a consequence of climate change, extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, heatwaves and storms have increased in frequency and severity. As Domingo Sugranyes of the Pablo VI Foundation says, “global losses from natural disasters in 2020 came to $210 billion, of which $82 billion was insured.”

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      “To cover the gap and manage catastrophic risk accumulation,” he adds, “the role of insurance and reinsurance pools is key, often drawn by traumatic events themselves.” This being said, the gap of uninsured damages is huge, which means not only a growing burden on public budgets but also on the most exposed and those directly hit. These situations will impact access and credit conditions for these populations.

      Insurer concerns are no longer individual catastrophic events, but their global and systemic effects on human societies. Andrew Cornford, a counselor at the Observatoire de la Finance in Switzerland, explains: “The problems posed to insurers … will be due to the increased … scale of the actual occurrence of events associated with these risks, to their sometimes geographically uncertain incidence, and to increased correlations between them.”

      In Cornford’s view, the problems can, to some extent, “be handled through better designed and increased capital requirements, public-sector reserves and precautionary arrangements suggested by stress testing — for which recent experience with COVID-19 may be helpful.” However, the underlying hypothesis is that the level of premiums will remain affordable to those seeking cover.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Nevertheless, increased property claims as a result of extreme weather events are forcing insurers to reevaluate underwriting strategies, including rebalancing their premiums and pricing strategies. Against this background, regulators have expressed concern that climate change could make it difficult for insurance companies to provide affordable financial protection. Rising premiums could make cover unaffordable, especially for disadvantaged communities that are more likely to live in regions prone to disaster.

      Instead of burdening local populations with costs of damages that occur due to the impact of climate change — caused largely by the wealthy Global North — there is an urgent need to devise underwriting strategies to transfer a substantial portion of climate-related insurance costs from the South to the North. This would allow the international community to share the burden. Otherwise, the most exposed regions of the world may well become impossible to insure by market mechanisms, which would leave only the public guarantee option open, as stressed by the economist Etienne Perrot.

      By Virgile Perret and Paul Dembinski

      Note: From Virus to Vitamin invites experts to comment on issues relevant to finance and the economy in relation to society, ethics and the environment. Below, you will find views from a variety of perspectives, practical experiences and academic disciplines. The topic of this discussion is: Can private insurance alone mitigate climate change damages?

      “…pass the cost to policyholders through increased insurance premiums… ”

      Unlike randomness, which allows a probability calculation on a statistical basis, uncertainty arises from facts that are emerging — unique or too few to give rise to a stochastic calculation. Randomness is the basis of prevention and insurance systems. On the other hand, uncertainty can only be covered by contingency reserves — it’s a precaution. (The IPCC forecast [that] insurance’s prevention and precaution are the three forms of the virtue of prudence, which is the intelligence of concrete situations.)

      Henri de Castries, therefore, hypothesizes that the damaging meteorological phenomena induced by a global warming of 4 degrees are phenomena, if not unique, at least too few to enter into an insurance system. This involves the states, either directly when they compensate for the damage by compulsory levies (in France, we have known ‘the drought tax’ in the 1980s) or by obliging the insurance companies to compensate the damage, which will pass the cost on to policyholders through increased insurance premiums.

      Etienne Perrot — Jesuit, economist and editorial board member of the Choisir magazine (Geneva) and adviser to the journal Etudes (Paris)

      “…public-private partnerships can be developed…”

      According to Munich Re, global losses from natural disasters in 2020 came to $210 billion, of which $82 billion was insured. To cover the gap and manage catastrophic risk accumulation, the role of insurance and reinsurance pools is key, often drawn by traumatic events themselves. Public-private partnerships are nothing new (e.g., US National Flood Insurance or the Spanish Consorcio) and can be developed.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      Insurance plays an essential role toward mitigating damage from climate change through underwriting, prevention, disseminating knowledge and as investors. Large players have recently committed to the UN-convened net-zero insurance alliance. Artificial intelligence and big data analysis research, also supported by insurance, will increase natural disaster predictability. Insurance and reinsurance markets are efficient, though unpretentious.

      Domingo Sugranyes — director of a seminar on ethics and technology at Pablo VI Foundation, former executive vice-chairman of MAPFRE international insurance group

      “…capital requirements, public-sector reserves and precautionary arrangements… ”

      Individually, most of the risks associated with a substantial rise in temperature due to climate change can be quantified, owing to past experience. The problems posed to insurers, other private financial institutions and the public sector will be due to the increased — and sometimes unpredictably increased — scale of the actual occurrence of events associated with these risks, to their sometimes geographically uncertain incidence and to increased correlations between them.

      To some extent, the resulting problems can be handled through better designed and increased capital requirements, public-sector reserves and precautionary arrangements suggested by stress testing — for which recent experience with COVID-19 may be helpful. These arrangements will entail institutional innovations, training of people to handle the consequences of the new risks and enhanced multilateral cooperation — the absence of any of which will reduce the effectiveness of the potential contribution of finance to control of damages and mitigation of their effects.

      Andrew Cornford — counselor at Observatoire de la Finance, former staff member of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with special responsibility for financial regulation and international trade in financial services

      *[An earlier version of this article was published by From Virus to Vitamin.]

      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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      An Expert Explains Why We Need a New Cold War With China

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      Michael Beckley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower.” He has no time for the commonly held thesis that America’s hegemonic power is in decline. He even claims that “it is now wealthier, more innovative, and more militarily powerful compared to China than it was in 1991.” If the regular expansion of the US defense budget is any indication, he may be right. President Joe Biden has just promised to increase it yet again, this time to $770 billion.

      In a new article for Foreign Affairs bearing the title, “Enemies of My Enemy: How Fear of China Is Forging a New World Order,” Beckley makes the case that having and sharing an easily identified enemy is the key to effective world government. The Cold War taught him that “the liberal order” has nothing to do with good intentions and being a force for good. Instead, it thrives on a strong dose of irrational fear that can be spread among friends.

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      As the Republican presidential candidate in 2000, George W. Bush produced these immortal words: “When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they’re there.” Probably unwittingly, Beckley echoes Bush’s wisdom. “Today, the liberal order is fraying for many reasons,” Beckley writes, “but the underlying cause is that the threat it was originally designed to defeat—Soviet communism—disappeared three decades ago.”  Unlike the clueless Bush, Beckley now knows who the “they” is. It’s China.

      Embed from Getty Images

      History has moved on. China can now replace the Soviet Union as the star performer. Bush proposed Islamist terrorism as his coveted “them,” but that ultimately failed. The terrorists are still lurking in numerous shadows, but when President Biden withdrew the last American troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, he definitively delegitimized it as a threat worthy of spawning a new Cold War. And now, even while Russia is being touted as the best supporting actor, the stage is finally clear to push China into the limelight.

      Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Shared enemy:

      A powerful nation whose negative image can be modeled by another powerful nation in such a way that its name alone inspires fear, to the point that it may be generously offered to governments of weaker nations on the pretext of forming a profitable alliance

      Contextual Note

      For Beckley, US hegemony needs China’s help. Now that the Middle Kingdom has now achieved the status of a high-profile enemy to be generously shared with obedient allies, the liberal order may thrive again, as it did during the Cold War. For Beckley, it is China, not Donald Trump, that will “make America great again.”

      Some may find Beckley’s historical logic slightly skewed. He explains that the modern liberal order was “designed to defeat … Soviet communism.” If it was “designed,” what does he have to say about the designer? Who indeed could that have been, and what were their real motives? Could it have been the Dulles brothers, whose combined clout in the Dwight Eisenhower years allowed them to dictate US foreign policy? More alarmingly, Beckley seems to be suggesting that without a pretext for paranoia, the liberal order would not or could not exist.  

      Beckley is probably right but for reasons he might not appreciate. The idea of needing an identifiable enemy stands as a purely negative justification of the liberal order. But Beckley has already dismissed the idea that it is all about bettering the world. He seems to underestimate the need ordinary Americans have to think of their country as a shining city on a hill, endowed with the most powerful military in the history of the world whose mission is not to maraud, destroy, displace populations and kill, but to intervene as a “force for good.”

      It’s not as if social harmony was the norm in the United States. The one thing that prevents the country from descending into a chaos of consumer individualism, or from becoming a nation populated by angry Hobbesian egos intolerant of the behavior of other egos, is the ideology that Beckley denigrates but which politicians continue to celebrate: the “enlightened call to make the world a better place.” Americans would fall into a state of despair if they no longer believed that their exceptional and indispensable nation exists as an ideal for humanity.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      But recent events have begun to shake their faith in what now appears to be a manifestly not very egalitarian democracy. Increasingly oligarchic, if not plutocratic, American society remains “liberal” (i.e., free) for those who control the growing mountains of cash that visibly circulate among the elite but rarely trickle down to meet any real human needs.

      As the defender of an idealized liberal order, Beckley is right to assume that, with so many factors undermining the American consensus, the cultivation of a shared enemy may be the necessary key to maintaining that order. Fear has always had the unique virtue of diverting attention from serious and worsening problems. Between income inequality, climate change and an enduring pandemic punctuated by contestable government mandates, people’s attention definitely needs to be diverted.

      Historical Note

      Michael Beckley is certainly very knowledgeable about China. He admires Chinese civilization and many of its accomplishments. He also believes a war between the United States and China is far from inevitable. Moreover, he is a realist. He admits that, as many people across the globe affirm, the US represents the biggest threat to world peace. At the same time, he believes “that the United States has the most potential to be the biggest contributor to peace.” He lucidly notes that “when the United States puts its weight behind something the world gets remade, for better or for worse.” But, having said this, he eludes the implicit moral question. If both the better and worse are possible, the rest of the world should be the ones to decide every time its reality is “remade” whether that remaking was for the better or the worse.

      As Pew studies show, most people outside the US appear to believe that American initiatives across the globe over at least the past half-century have been predominantly for the worse. Beckley himself cites Iraq and Vietnam as egregious examples. But, ever the optimist, he sees in what he calls the ability of the “system of US alliances” to create “zones of peace” the proof that the worse isn’t as bad as some might think.

      Beckley recognizes that alliances are not created out of generosity and goodwill alone. In his influential book, “Super-Imperialism,” the economist Michael Hudson describes the workings of what is known as the “Washington Consensus,” a system of economic and military control that, in the decades after World War II, managed, somewhat perversely, to miraculously transfer the immense burden of its own debt, generated by its military adventurism, to the rest of the world. The “Treasury-bill Standard,” an innovation President Richard Nixon called into being to replace the gold standard in 1971, played a major role. With the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, Hudson notes that “foreign governments were obliged to invest their surplus dollars in U.S. Treasury securities.” It was part of a complex financial, diplomatic and military system that forced US allies to finance American debt.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Beckley’s  “zones of peace” are zones of dependence. Every country that participated in the system found itself forced to hold US Treasury bonds, including China. They thus had an interest in maintaining the stability of a system that dictated the flow of money across the globe. To a large extent, that is still the case. It explains why attempts to dethrone the dollar are systemically countered, sometimes violently through military action (as in Libya, to scotch Muammar Gaddafi’s plans for a pan-African currency).

      None of that worries the eternal optimist Beckley, clearly a disciple of Voltaire’s Pangloss. He believes that — even while admitting the US has “wrecked the world in various ways” — its “potential” for peace trumps the reality of persistent war and that its “capability to make the world much more peaceful and prosperous” absolves it from the wreckage it has already produced. 

      From a cultural point of view, Beckley is right. Americans always believe that what is “potential” trumps what is real and that “capability” effaces past examples of incapable behavior. That describes a central feature of American hyperreality.

      *[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 Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

      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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      Does the US Have Leverage to Advocate for Women’s Rights in Afghanistan? 

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      After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, women’s rights in Afghanistan came under consistent attack by the Taliban, with many women activists captured, tortured, killed and reportedly raped. Unfortunately, the extent of these crimes is unknown due to a lack of comprehensive media coverage. However, the AFINT news channel reports that at least 200 people had been detained, tortured, raped and banned from traveling by the Taliban in the past six months. This number includes 102 women and 98 men, of whom 50 are journalists, 92 are civil activists, two are singers and 40 are prosecutors and judges in the previous government. 

      Over the past six months, Afghan women have continued to protest against the Taliban policies, provoking a brutal response. One of the detainees told AFINT: “Unfortunately, there is sexual harassment by the Taliban. The Taliban think that a woman who protests for her rights or has worked before they came to power is a prostitute. So, they consider these women as sex slaves.” While it may be impossible to change the Taliban’s mindset, international and regional pressure is key to helping Afghan women and holding the current regime accountable. 

      The Taliban Use Violence Against Women as a Bargaining Chip

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      To deal with the international pressures, the Taliban turned the women’s rights issues into a bargaining chip against the international community to gain recognition and force engagement. The US, in particular, consistently calls on the Taliban to respect women’s rights. But does the US have enough leverage over the Taliban to force them to revise their treatment of women?

      Power Is Everything 

      Since the overthrow of the Afghan government last August, the US remained engaged with the Taliban, although Washington does not recognize the regime as legitimate. Although the Taliban views the US as the loser in this conflict, many within the group’s leadership believe that they have to interact with Washington to gain recognition. 

      The Taliban’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai said in December: “If the US embassy reopens in Kabul, all European countries will be here in half an hour. We are working hard in this regard, and since I have been a member of the negotiating team with them (the Americans), I am sure from their morals and behavior that, God willing, they will be back soon.” 

      Embed from Getty Images

      From the Taliban’s perspective, power is everything. As far as they can control the country, the US has to respect them and will have to recognize them. This assumption leads the group to not compromise on women’s rights. Instead of revising their policies, they detained women activists and then released some of them following pressure to do so during the Oslo talks in January.

      The US has profound concerns about the Taliban’s relations with other terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan, but human rights, women’s rights and an inclusive government are all part of the US agenda in its interaction with the country’s new leadership. In his talk at the United States Institute of Peace, Thomas West, the US special representative for Afghanistan, emphasized these values as crucial for the US-Taliban relationship. 

      However, it is imperative to keep in mind that any compromise from the international community on women’s rights that suggests to the Taliban that their harsh policies may be accommodated will only exacerbate the situation for women in Afghanistan. 

      International Commitment

      For more than 20 years, the US and international community repeated their strong commitment to supporting women in Afghanistan, creating the expectation that it should continue doing so after the Taliban takeover. However, many Afghan women saw the US agreement with the Taliban as a betrayal.

      International pressure is the critical factor for holding the Taliban accountable. When the women activists disappeared without explanation, the Taliban denied its involvement for months. The United Nations and US diplomats repeatedly called on the Taliban to find the missing women.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In the end, the Taliban released several well-known women activists despite denying involvement in detaining them. The group also published videos of forced confessions by the activists. Totalitarian regimes use this tactic against human rights activities for propaganda and to mislead the public; exposing the Taliban’s double game will not be easy and will require international commitment and cooperation. 

      There are several measures that can be helpful in holding the Taliban accountable, and the US can play a central role. First, the diplomatic contacts with the Taliban should not be interpreted as hope for recognition; rather, diplomacy should be used only for contact and assessing responsibilities.

      Second, international consensus on women’s rights and supporting the idea of an inclusive and legitimate government in Afghanistan is key. This is significant for women’s rights and negotiation for building a broad-based government to reflect Afghan society, which is instrumental for avoiding another round of conflict. 

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      Third, increasing the activities of international organizations in Afghanistan to support women and monitor their situation under the Taliban is necessary. Currently, there is no access to different corners of the country where crimes against women may be committed. Fourth, financial support to organizations championing women’s education and activities will be vital for women’s voices and Afghan social society to resist the Taliban’s fascist approach.

      The US can exert pressure on behalf of Afghan women to demand that their rights to work and education are honored. Any degree of leniency toward the Taliban will make the situation worse for women. If the US shows a faltering resolve or sends a misleading message, the international consensus on human rights will disappear.  

      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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      Ukraine’s Tug of War and the Implications for Europe (Language and the News)

      by

      To our readers: Our regularly updated feature Language and the News will continue in the form of separate articles rather than as a single monthly collection (click here to read previous entries).

      We invite readers to join us by submitting their suggestions of words and expressions that deserve exploring, with or without original commentary. To submit a citation from the news and/or provide your own short commentary, send us an email.

      February 23: Effective Veto

      On Monday evening in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a long, emotional presentation of all the historical reasons for which Russia’s sense of betrayal by interests in the West justified declaring two regions of eastern Ukraine autonomous political entities, implicitly compromising the territorial integrity of an independent nation.

      Putin’s argument reflected more than a simple statement of preferences. His action, decreeing the autonomy of Donetsk and Luhansk and subsequently sending Russian troops to protect them, literally violated international law as it is understood and practiced today. It provoked immediate condemnation from all sides and a round of previously promised sanctions from the United States and Europe. It stood, nevertheless, as a sincere statement of historical fears not just of the Russian government, but also the Russian people, who have had three decades to define their appreciation of the nature of Western political and economic domination.

      When Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect in Eastern Europe (Language and the News)

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      In the aftermath of Monday’s events, Al Jazeera helpfully listed “5 things we need to know about Putin’s decision.” After briefly mentioning Russia’s demands concerning NATO, the article notes that “Western leaders have rejected those demands. They say the Kremlin cannot be allowed an effective veto on Kyiv’s foreign policy decisions and have defended NATO’s ‘open-door policy,’ which grants any European nation the right to ask to join.”

      The Western position relies on accepting a basic principle of international law as it is understood in the age of the nation-state: the notion of sovereignty. The Cambridge dictionary defines it as “ the power of a country to control its own government” and alternatively as “the power or authority to rule.” The Oxford Public International Law website, in its first paragraph, notes, with considerably more precision, that “sovereignty, ie of supreme authority within a territory, is a pivotal principle of modern international law. What counts as sovereignty depends on the nature and structure of the international legal order and vice-versa.” In other words, the concept contains a lot of ambiguity.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In paragraph 156 of the same article, thousands of words later, we discover that the preceding 155 paragraphs have not clarified the issue. “Difficult questions,” it concludes, “pertain to the localization of the co-originality between international standards of human rights and democracy and hence to the relationship between them when either of them or both have their sources in international law.” In other words, as any well-informed farmer in Iowa might say, it just ain’t that easy to draw any cut-and-dried conclusions.

      East Coast American jurists have, nevertheless, decided that on the question of NATO, Ukraine’s sovereignty — even after the Minsk accords, which, as Putin complains, have never been truly applied — includes the right to select the partners with which it wishes to ally. The lawyers are technically correct to note that if Russia succeeded in preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, that would be a breach of Ukrainian sovereignty. Al Jazeera describes it as giving Russia “an effective veto.” 

      The Russians see it differently. And the Americans would probably secretly agree. As a member of NATO, nations compromise their sovereignty by giving the alliance — clearly led by the US — an “effective veto” in many facets of their own security policy, even, to some extent, in their internal politics. But none of that is official. It is merely “effective.” The European nations, especially France and Germany, have discovered and begun reacting to the nature of that effective veto. There have been signs that they are beginning to champ at the bit. But in the current crisis, they have agreed to remain in line. 

      Depending on how the crisis plays out, the stirrings of a movement toward the independence of Europe’s security with regard to the US are likely to grow into a serious project. Those stirrings were first prompted by Donald Trump’s ambiguous attitude toward NATO and hostile attitude toward Europe. More recently, French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed the idea forward, specifically in response to the growing Ukraine crisis. 

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      There is no telling at this point in which direction the crisis will evolve. It could degenerate into a local struggle for power or it could implicate the political future of Ukraine and beyond. If it does spread beyond its current borders and if, as a further consequence, that aggravates an already existing energy crisis due to Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas, the current sense of solidarity with the US accepted by many European nations will be further weakened, if not shattered.

      For the moment, US President Joe Biden may be focused more on the kind of strongman posturing deemed necessary for improving the chances of the Democratic Party in November’s midterm elections At the same time, he is certainly hoping to keep Europe in tow inside NATO. But if things get out of control, and Biden’s posturing has already aggravated that risk, the United States may in the end lose the “effective veto” it has exercised for decades over everything that happens in Europe.

      Why Monitoring Language Is Important

      Language allows people to express thoughts, theories, ideas, experiences and opinions. But even while doing so, it also serves to obscure what is essential for understanding the complex nature of reality. When people use language to hide essential meaning, it is not only because they cynically seek to prevaricate or spread misinformation. It is because they strive to tell the part or the angle of the story that correlates with their needs and interests.

      In the age of social media, many of our institutions and pundits proclaim their intent to root out “misinformation.” But often, in so doing, they are literally seeking to miss information.

      Is there a solution? It will never be perfect, but critical thinking begins by being attentive to two things: the full context of any issue we are trying to understand and the operation of language itself. In our schools, we are taught to read and write, but, unless we bring rhetoric back into the standard curriculum, we are never taught how the power of language to both convey and distort the truth functions. There is a largely unconscious but observable historical reason for that negligence. Teaching establishments and cultural authorities fear the power of linguistic critique may be used against their authority.

      Remember, Fair Observer’s Language and the News seeks to sensitize our readers to the importance of digging deeper when assimilating the wisdom of our authorities, pundits and the media that transmit their knowledge and wisdom.

      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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      India Disappoints Its Friends and Admirers

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      India’s abstention in a recent vote at the UN Security Council over Russian threats to Ukraine raises serious questions over India being a key ally of the West in the years to come. Indian leaders failed to stand up for Ukrainian sovereignty because of India’s close relations with Russia, a major supplier of military equipment.

      For anyone who wants to explain away India’s conduct at the United Nations as an act of national interests, there is more to consider. India is sliding deeper into Hindu — as opposed to a diverse Indian — nationalism, diminishing its ability to be a long-term partner for Western nations.

      Modi’s India Is Becoming a Farce

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      India’s slowing economic growth, declining investment in its military capabilities and social unrest have prevented the country from modernizing its army and fulfilling its strategic goals. But it is the ideology of its current leaders that is jeopardizing the notion of India as a dependable partner of the US in the Indo-Pacific region. 

      Instead of investing in human capital and health care, the focus of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been on rewriting history through crowdsourcing. Instead of further opening the Indian economy through policies and reforms that would boost growth, protectionism and regulatory policies are rising. India is slipping on the global freedom and democracy indices, with Freedom House downgrading it to “partly free.”

      “Undivided India”

      Leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continue to mobilize India’s majority Hindus to vote for it by targeting religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians. They describe Hinduism as an Indian religion, while Islam and Christianity are denigrated as “foreign” faiths transplanted onto India’s soil. Extremist Hindu leaders, including some from the ruling party, have even gone so far as to call for genocide against 200 million Indian Muslims. 

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      A 2021 Pew Survey on “Religion in India” demonstrated that tolerance for other faiths remains strong within Indian society. But a larger number of the majority (Hindus) now see religion as the core of their identity and support calls for a Hindu rashtra (state). This creates a dilemma for relations between India and other countries.

      For example, Pushkar Singh Dhami, the chief minister of the state of Uttarakhand, which borders Tibet and Nepal, was embroiled in controversy for something he posted on Twitter six years ago. The tweet showed a map claiming South and Southeast Asia as part of an “undivided India,” known as Akhand Bharat. In December 2021, an Indian broadcaster showed the entire region from the Middle East through South and Southeast Asia as belonging to Akhand Bharat, representing the reunification of territories influenced by India during ancient times.

      This undermines India’s projection of itself as a pluralist and open society, where minorities were respected, not just tolerated. For six decades after independence in 1947, India’s pluralism created a groundswell of respect, goodwill and admiration throughout the free world. Even India’s non-alignment during the Cold War did not interfere with its positive image. Most Americans appreciated Indian democracy and diversity and showed understanding when poverty-ridden India preferred not to side with the United States against the Soviet Union.

      Things Have Changed

      But things have changed since the end of the Cold War. India has made significant progress in reducing poverty. For two decades, there has been talk of India as a rising power. Americans have expected India to boost its economic growth, modernize its military and play a bigger role in confronting China. In 2010, President Barack Obama declared relations between India and the United States as the “defining partnership of the 21st century.”

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      That desire keeps getting thwarted by India’s leadership, particularly Prime Minister Modi and his allies in the BJP. Thus, India’s economic growth has slowed down, even before the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is unlikely to recover quickly. More significantly, India continues to expand trade with China, reaching $125 billion in 2021. This is despite China’s military pressure on India along their disputed border. That should lay to rest the expectation of India confronting China anytime soon.

      Moreover, the commitment to democracy, human rights and liberal values, which made India a natural Western partner, appear under increasing threat.

      Americans who have spent the last few years praising India also need some appraising of India. It might be time to acknowledge that India’s performance has been underwhelming to merit the kind of expectations that have formed the basis of recent US policy.   

      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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      Elimination of IS Leader Is a Positive, But Not a Final, Step

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      On January 3, the United States announced the elimination of Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of the so-called Islamic State (IS) during a counterterrorism raid in Atmeh, a town in Syria’s Idlib province close to the Turkish border. In an address to the nation, US President Joe Biden said that the operation had taken “a major terrorist leader off the battlefield,” adding that special forces were used in the operation in an attempt to reduce civilian casualties.

      Why Now?

      The raid comes after IS conducted an attack on al-Sinaa prison in the northeastern city of Hasakah in January in an attempt to break free its fighters. In the assault, several Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters were killed. According to SDF officials, IS was planning the attack for six months. Nevertheless, the US-backed SDF recaptured the prison about a week later. 

      Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona suspects that the attack on the prison “was the catalyst that led to the decision to act on what was obviously already known location intelligence on … al-Qurayshi.” Francona, who served as the US military attaché in Syria from 1992 to 1995, notes that “Over the past few months, there has been an increase in ISIS activity — more widespread and bolder in nature. This also comes at a time when Iranian-backed militias have also stepped up attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq.”

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      Both Qurayshi and his predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were eliminated in Idlib province, in areas under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Previously, HTS was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, affiliated with al-Qaeda and initially aligned with IS. In 2013, however, it split from IS and has been at war with the group since 2014. In 2016, it also broke relations with al-Qaeda and rebranded itself as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS). The following year, JFS assumed its current iteration as it merged with other groups. 

      During much of the past decade, Idlib served as a hideout for extremists. In 2017, then-US envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, Brett McGurk, stated that “Idlib Province is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.” Following Baghdadi’s elimination in 2019, former US President Donald Trump suggested Baghdadi was in Idlib as part of a plan to rebuild IS. Indeed, it was surprising to see Qurayshi hiding in Idlib as well. 

      According to David Lesch, professor of Middle East History at Trinity University in Texas and author of “Syria: A Modern History,” “it seems strange that al-Baghdadi and al-Qurayshi were killed in [a] province largely controlled by its rival HTS and overseen by Turkey, but on the other hand it is the only area not under the control of the Syrian government and its allies or the US-supported SDF, all of whom are opposed to ISIS.”

      “Idlib is now home to thousands of IDPs, therefore it was easier for the two to blend in, live secretively, and not be identified as outsiders since most everyone in certain areas of the province are outsiders,” Lesch explains. “Yet they were still found because despite all this they lived in an area still teaming with enemies who were obviously directly or indirectly assets to US intelligence.”

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      The recent US operation in Idlib, which was reportedly planned over several months, has been the largest of its kind in the country since the 2019 raid that eliminated Baghdadi. Although Qurayshi was less charismatic than Baghdadi, the fact that he was targeted in the US raid confirms his importance.

      It is worth noting that Qurayshi was named as the leader of IS in 2019, following the death of Baghdadi. While IS called on all Muslims to pledge allegiance to Qurayshi as the new “caliph,” it did not provide much information about his bona fides. The use of the name “Qurayshi” seemed to be an attempt to trace his lineage to the Prophet Muhammad. This is a tactic that was also used vis-à-vis Baghdadi with the aim of legitimizing his leadership role. Qurayshi’s real name is Amir Muhammad Said Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla but he is also known as Hajji Abdullah and Abdullah Qaradash.  

      As the US continues to create an impression that it is minimizing its presence in the region, especially following its withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, the raid seems to have been used to demonstrate US reliability to reassure Washington’s partners. It also comes as a needed win for Biden at a time when the Ukraine crisis remains unsolved. 

      However, while Qurayshi’s elimination is a positive development, it may simply be a “symbolic victory,” as Sean Carberry suggests in The Hill. While the operation against Qurayshi may create internal chaos within IS, ultimately, the terror group is likely to name a new leader and move on, which is what took place following Baghdadi’s assassination. Although IS was militarily defeated, the group has not been eliminated and remains a threat. In fact, there have been increased indications, such as the attack on al-Sinaa prison, suggesting that the group is in a state of resurgence. The militants might also seek to use the recent US raid to encourage revenge attacks. 

      US Policy in Syria

      The Biden administration’s policy vis-à-vis Syria seems to indicate that the official approach will be “markedly timid,” as Abdulrahman al-Masri and Reem Salahi suggest. It should not be surprising to learn that Syria does not constitute a top diplomatic priority for President Biden. Yet while the US does not want to remain engaged in endless regional wars, it seems to believe that a political settlement in war-torn Syria would only empower President Bashar al-Assad, whom Washington would never back. 

      Moreover, the US and the Kurds are partners, and Washington would not want to portray an image that it has abandoned those who have shouldered the fight against the Islamic State. This was the overall perception when Trump announced the withdrawal of US forces from Syria in 2019, and Biden seems keen to remedy that controversial decision. 

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      It is worth noting that during President Barack Obama’s tenure, Vice President Biden was one of the skeptics when it came to what the US could achieve in Syria. Nevertheless, it should not be taken as a given that as president, Biden may be in favor of removing all US forces from the country. For instance, he criticized Trump’s decision to withdraw forces from Syria, saying it granted IS “a new lease on life.” In the same year, Biden also said he supports keeping some forces in eastern Syria for the foreseeable future. 

      Middle East expert and former US State Department analyst, Gregory Aftandilian doesn’t see the US leaving Syria anytime soon. Aftandilian, who is also a non-resident fellow at Arab Center Washington DC, thinks “It is doubtful [Biden] will do more than the anti-ISIS campaign and humanitarian aid. In light of the attempted prison break in northeastern Syria he may put pressure on some countries to take back ISIS prisoners.”

      For the US to play a role in stabilizing Syria, there needs to be a clear strategy. Unfortunately, at the moment, that strategy is largely lacking. While the elimination of Qurayshi is a positive step, much more work needs to be done to stabilize the country.

      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 Qatar Manages Economic Growth and CO2 Emissions

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      The linkage between economic growth and environmental degradation is a well-known topic. The burning question has become whether there is a trade-off between sustaining economic activities and maintaining the conditions of natural resources, or whether economic growth can go in harmony along with environmental protection measures. The direct interconnected relationship between fossil fuel consumption and environmental degradation has posed an interesting policy challenge.

      Water World: Is Climate Change Driving Our Future Out to Sea?

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      Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, making them major contributors to climate change. On the other hand, high industrial activities, alongside rapidly increasing populations, put growing pressure on energy demand.

      The Example of Qatar

      Qatar has made remarkable economic achievements over the past few decades. Yet Qatar is facing a trade-off between boosting its economic growth and lowering its carbon dioxide emissions. Its strategic mandate to boost economic development, along with other areas related to sustainability, makes Qatar an interesting country to analyze.

      The World Bank defines Qatar as one of the richest countries in the world in terms of GDP per capita. Its economy is highly dependent on oil and gas production, which accounts for more than 50% of GDP, 85% of export earnings and 70% of government revenues. The country is also a major player in liquefied natural gas. Nonetheless, Qatar’s high dependence on fossil fuels has resulted in an increase in the CO2 emissions level when compared to global averages.

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      To combat the rising carbon emission percentages and lower environmental pressures, Qatar is introducing strict policy measures to achieve sustainable development through four central pillars: economic, social, human and environmental development. While many disruptions have occurred over the past few years, including fluctuations in oil and gas prices, economic downturns and a deadly pandemic, nobody expected an economic blockade.

      The Diplomatic Rift

      In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic relations with Qatar. They prohibited Qatar-registered planes and ships from utilizing their airspace and sea routes, and the Saudis also blocked Qatar’s only land border.

      This point is of particular importance as the deterioration in relations among the Gulf neighbors urged Qatar to rethink its sustainable development goals while meeting local demand. At the beginning of the blockade, the country relied heavily on importing several commodities, especially food items. Later, it accelerated initiatives and programs to diversify the economy and reduce reliance on imports.

      Achieving carbon neutrality is also factored into all Qatar’s initiatives. For example, by the end of 2022, Qatar aims to deliver the first carbon-neutral FIFA World Cup in the history of the event. All stadiums and infrastructure are subjected to rigorous sustainability standards. Several air quality monitoring stations and extensive recycling programs are being introduced, along with the construction of the eight stadiums that will be used during the football tournament.

      Qatar has since become much more independent across several sectors, including food production and transport, making it a case study on how to transform challenges into opportunities for growth.

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      This was also evident with total carbon emissions. According to my own analysis, carbon emission per capita fell by 13% as of 2018 from a historical record in 2000. Since then, total carbon emissions have increased as the economy has grown but at a slower rate, meaning that Qatar is undergoing expanding relative decoupling. In the 2008 to 2018 period, a 1% change in GDP resulted in a fall of CO2 emissions, from 0.65% to 0.44%. This drop is very relevant to Qatar as several measures have been applied, particularly over the last 10 years, to reduce emissions.

      A Reduction in Emissions

      While Qatar’s total emissions have declined over recent years, policies to increase energy efficiency, diversify the energy mix by introducing more renewables, support technological development to improve energy efficiency in a desert climate, and implement energy demand management programs to maintain the same trend of decline and achieve climate change objectives have been increasingly crucial.  

      The heightened pressure caused by the blockade on Qatar is now over, but what is needed are more synergies and collective efforts across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to stimulate economic diversification and minimize carbon emissions. Member states of the GCC are sharing multiple environmental, social and economic factors that should incentivize them to cooperate to meet their climate change objectives and economic development goals.

      *[Saad Shannak is a scientist at Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) in Qatar. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the university’s official stance.]

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