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      US Politics: The Anger Games

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      Maggie Astor at The New York Times devotes an article to the egregious lies US politicians share with their constituents, not through social media, but through massive email campaigns. They escape notice in the public debate about fake news because they are private communications. But they achieve levels of fakeness never seen in social media.

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      In her article titled, “Now in Your Inbox: Political Misinformation,” Astor delves into the electoral logic behind such abuse. She cites celebrated Republican pollster Frank Lutz: “The more that it elicits red-hot anger, the more likely people donate. And it just contributes to the perversion of our democratic process. It contributes to the incivility and indecency of political behavior.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Red-hot anger:

      The scientifically studied emotion that effectively replaces uselessly time-consuming reflection on actual issues and proves particularly effective for a candidate’s fund-raising with enthusiastic individual voters, considered a useful complement to the massive injections of corporate cash habitually funneled through PACs and Super PACs.

      Contextual Note

      Fake news has been a featured topic in every news cycle since Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 US presidential election. Articles have proliferated concerning what might be done to counter the phenomenon. But fake news has always been a staple of US political culture. Technology and the success of social media have simply magnified the effect and the visibility of fake news to the point that traditional media have been pulling the alarm in the hope that they will be seen as bastions of truth and objectivity.

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      Astor highlights the difficulty that “fact checkers and other watchdogs” face in trying to deal with a particular form of fake news that is conveyed through the privacy of email. She quotes Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, who worries that “it’s hard to know what it is that politicians are saying directly to individual supporters in their inboxes.” This assumes that the central problem of democracy can be reduced to the need for some authority to exist that can “know” everything being said during an election campaign. It assumes that filling the environment with watchdogs focused on fact-checking will cure all the ills.

      Stromer-Galley adds the reflection that political professionals, including the handsomely remunerated consulting firms that manage politicians’ campaigns, “know that this kind of messaging is not monitored to the same extent, so they can be more carefree with what they’re saying.” Clearly, Astor and Stromer-Galley believe that effective and presumably pervasive monitoring will be the solution. Some might call this the temptation to put in place the equivalent of an electoral inquisition. Just as President Joe Biden sees policing as the response to pervasive corruption, The Times sees police state measures as the response to political lies.

      Astor identifies two sides to the problem: “the private nature of the medium” and the fact that “its targets are predisposed to believe it.” But those are only the superficial effects of something that goes beyond politics and exists at the core of US culture. It has two components: the belief in free enterprise and the reality of consumerist individualism. Exaggerating the merits of a product or service and creating an emotional connection with it define the basis of all economic activity. Does this involve lying? Of course. The key is finding a credible borderline between exaggeration (good) and lying (evil).

      The acceptance of consumerist individualism as the model that determines how an entire society interacts turns out to be the more serious culprit. Politicians in the US are entrepreneurs selling a product to consumers who want to have positive feelings about their purchase. The product is the politicians’ largely unmonitored future work in government, which will be conducted essentially in consultation with donors and lobbyists. Every political professional understands that. And they know what has to be done to make it work. Telling the truth will never be the consideration uppermost in their minds.

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      Political discourse long ago stopped being what a lot of idealists would like it to be: about the issues. US culture is simply not designed to encourage a rational presentation of ideas, plans and projects serving to improve the environment and lives of its citizens. Like everything else in US culture, politics is about buying and selling, not about debating and governing. And buying and selling are about optimizing the circulation of money, not for society as a whole, but for those who can secure control over money and the resources that produce it.

      Anger itself is a product, and one that consumers are hankering for.

      Historical Note

      The art of spreading misinformation is hardly a modern phenomenon. Some people imagine it could not have existed before the advent of social media. In reality, it has existed for as long as modern electoral democracy itself. Ancient Athenian democracy was direct. Every (male) citizen was called upon to participate at some point in government.

      Modern electoral democracy was built on a very different founding principle: the notion that a small number of people with the ambition of exercising political power need to persuade as many people as possible who do not seek political power to vote for them.

      Astor’s findings confirm what has long been the fundamental reality that guides every citizen’s behavior in the US. The First Amendment allows everyone to engage in persuasion in preference to reflection. The competitive system encourages them to do what’s required to sell their wares. No amount of monitoring or fact-checking will change that basic fact. 

      Maggie Astor’s article, consistent with The New York Times ideology, seeks to achieve two goals. The first is to comfort the idea that rationality and facts, the earmarks of The Times’ style, are the ideal everyone should aspire to in a democracy. They develop this message even while refusing to analyze the systemic reasons why that will never become the basis of actual politics. The second is to skewer Republicans and leave the impression that Democrats are more honest.

      It’s true that Republicans have traditionally excelled at cultivating the art of using emotion — and especially anger — to achieve electoral success. They have consistently deployed more talent and fewer scruples than Democrats in accomplishing the task. That may even be the principal reason voters see Republicans as better capable of managing the economy. A vibrant capitalist economy thrives through the ability of clever and ambitious people to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes. Within those strands of that wool are the emotions associated with anger and hatred.

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      Even Richard Nixon (“Tricky Dick”), the champion of disingenuity before he was dethroned by Donald Trump, couldn’t do it alone. He needed the help of a true political professional, Murray Chotiner, who stated simply: “The purpose of an election is not to defeat your opponent, but to destroy him.” In the 1950 Senate race against the Democrat and former Hollywood actress Helen Gahagan Douglas, Nixon brought out a raft of dirty tricks that included innuendos of anti-Semitism (Douglas’ husband was Jewish) but also more specific acts such as calling people in the middle of the night and announcing to the groggy voter: “This is the communist party. We urge you to vote for Helen Gahagan Douglas on election day.” Douglas recounted that her worst memory of that campaign “was when children picked up rocks and threw them at my car, at me.”

      Nixon, the future senator, vice-president and president, established the ground rules many Republicans and quite a few Democrats have not forgotten. Whatever the tactics — whether dirty and directly mendacious or sophisticated and infused with the nuance of innuendo — they aim at triggering the strong emotion that drives voters to the polls. 

      Today, that emotion spills over into social media. After decades of anti-democratic practices, the visibility of hatred and lies on social media has finally made people aware of what has been there all this time. But instead of addressing the real issue — the toxic culture of electoral logic most often bankrolled by unseen corporate interests — the brave politicians and the legacy media attack social media itself and the citizens whose anger they have provoked. They want more monitoring, policing and fact-checking. As so often when things become dysfunctional, whether in the economy or politics, the media doctors focus on the symptoms rather than the disease.

      *[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

      Biden’s democracy summit must deliver on its aims to beat authoritarianism | Elise Labott

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      Biden’s democracy summit must deliver on its aims to beat authoritarianismElise LabottCritics dismissed the virtual meeting of world leaders as all talk, with no clear benchmarks of what change is neededElise Labott is an adjunct professor at American University’s School of International Service Last week as Joe Biden invited about 110 leaders to a virtual Summit for Democracy, he sounded the alarm over the rising tide of authoritarianism, as well as leading discussion on how to counter democratic backslide. The president admitted the summit was less of a magic bullet than the start of a global conversation on how to stop further democratic rot – an attempt to “seed fertile ground for democracies to bloom around the world”.Critics dismissed the summit as an ideological (and cynical) ploy to enlist countries in Washington’s strategic competition with China, as well as to appease overseas powers eager to see US leadership on the world stage. Both charges have merit.But if the US doesn’t convene world democracy, it’s unclear who would. Similar events in the past held by global coalitions, such as the UN and the Community of Democracies, have merely reaffirmed democratic principles without creating momentum for further action. And rarely has there been a moment in which we need a plan to reverse its erosion worldwide.In the past year, military coups have ousted governments in Sudan and Myanmar. Cuba has launched a violent crackdown on some of its biggest protests in years, and restricted control of the internet. President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus refused to accept his election loss, and forced down a plane carrying political dissidents.Even as leaders gathered for the virtual summit, Russia launched a massive buildup of forces and heavy weaponry across its eastern border with Ukraine, amid growing concern in Washington and Europe about another large-scale military invasion. These are just the most notable examples of democracy in peril.‘An urgent matter’: Biden warns democracy is under threat at summitRead moreLast month the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance found more than a quarter of the world’s population now lives in countries where democracy is in decline. The pro-democracy organisation Freedom House pointed to 15 straight years of steady democratic backsliding, warning the scales of global freedom are now tipping in favour of authoritarian-leaning populists and would-be dictators, justifying repression in order to expand power and influence.Implementing the slate of initiatives unveiled at the summit – from combating corruption and disinformation to strengthening election integrity and independent media – won’t be easy. The US has always been better at championing democracy than at supporting it in action. Neither the reaffirmation of democratic principles, nor these proposals, will do much to help democratic activists on the frontlines in countries such as Cuba, Belarus or Ukraine where Washington has instead favoured sanctions against the anti-democratic offenders in power. Or in Afghanistan, where 38 million Afghans have had 20 years of democracy snatched from under them, as the Taliban reimpose their severe form of repressive government. For them democracy represents more than a concept, but a way of life for which they continue to fight.Biden’s problems start at home. The president knows democracy is the product of a healthy society, in which voting rights, free elections, media and a judiciary are all critical elements. Yet these ingredients are in short supply on home soil. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 85% of Americans believe their political system “needs to be completely reformed” or “needs major changes”, while respondents in more than a dozen countries said a majority of citizens want major changes or total reform. One might be forgiven for questioning whether the leader of the US has the moral authority to host such a gathering, given his own country’s spotty record – from the 6 January insurrection on Capitol Hill to new laws restricting voters’ access to ballots and stalled voter rights legislation – a victim of political dogfighting.The need for the US to strengthen its own democracy doesn’t mean it should not try to bolster it abroad, though, by rallying the forces of freedom. Biden is right when he warned the leaders attending the summit that the world is at an “inflection point in history”. Populations are facing rising inequality and a sense of powerlessness, coupled with hardships brought on by the global pandemic and faltering world economy. They are now questioning whether authoritarian rule may provide stability. China, uninvited to the summit, published its own briefing document offering one-party rule as an alternative form of governance.The world’s democracies must rally, if only to stop the world’s dictators and their supporters who, as Anne Applebaum describes in The Atlantic, share a network of security actors, media and financial interests to cement their oppressive rule. And populist champions like former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon are busy organising far-right activists across Europe – some of them funded by Russia. Their beliefs resemble those of 1930s fascist intellectuals and find resonance with the demagogues and authoritarians of today. Given all of these headwinds, it remains to be seen whether the summit can turn rhetoric into action, particularly when many of the leaders who attended – such as those from India, Iraq, Poland, Brazil and the Philippines – have been accused of harbouring authoritarian tendencies themselves.The democracy summit participants launched a “year of action” in which they dedicated themselves to implementing commitments they made. But the UUS has thus far declined to say how or even whether it planned to hold the participants to account for those pledges. The lack of these benchmarks is why summits get a bad name, criticised for being talk over action. Without them they are highly unlikely to produce meaningful change and reinvigorate democracy. Some suggested that before they are invited to an in-person follow-on summit planned for next year, countries should meet their commitments to take steps toward bolstering independent media, increasing financial transparency, limiting export of technology to authoritarian-run countries and strengthening election integrity and civic capacity – particularly for women and marginalised communities. It is the bare minimum that Biden can do to prove that the Summit for Democracy has teeth.
      Elise Labott is an adjunct professor at American University’s School of International Service and the founder and CEO of Zivvy Media
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      in World Politics

      Biden’s Cosmetic Battle Against Corruption

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      Yakov Feygin’s professional title as the associate director of the future of capitalism program at the Berggruen Institute reveals with uncanny precision what his mission consists of. The Berggruen Institute seeks to “better understand how a global capitalism can be reshaped and regulated at all levels of governance: regional, national, and international.”

      In other words, it acknowledges serious problems in a system it believes can be reformed. The question that even its thinkers cannot begin to answer is whether those who profit from the system, and thus control its resources, will ever be willing to reform it. In the background lies another question few in governments, industry or think tanks want to entertain: What happens if they don’t agree to reform it?

      Washington’s Tawdry Victory Over Julian Assange

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      In a detailed analysis of one of the major features of the global financialized economy that appeared in The American Interest with the title, “The Financial Infrastructure of Corruption,” Feygin offers a pertinent observation. “The parallels between ‘tax optimization’ and ‘corruption,’” he writes, “are so strong that the illegality of the latter is only present because in the United States, we have made tax optimization legal and acceptable de jure.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Tax optimization:

      Corruption

      Contextual Note

      This succinct definition is, at least implicitly, Feygin’s own, though he has signaled the tenuous distinction in the law that prevents Americans — and especially American politicians — from acknowledging the identical nature of the two. Tax optimization is, by definition, an activity conducted by people who know the law and are skilled at working within it. So why complain? After all, our entire civilization since the Second World War derives its legitimacy from its alignment around the “rule of law.” If the law is respected by those who know it best, all must be well.

      Embed from Getty Images

      At his virtual Summit for Democracy last week, US President Joe Biden appeared, at least at one point, to be pushing in the same direction as Feygin. He said it was all about the effort to “strengthen our own democracies and push back on authoritarianism, fight corruption, promote and protect human rights of people everywhere,” before ending his litany with this motivational coda: “To act. To act.”

      A week earlier, the White House published the “fact sheet” of its Strategy for Countering Corruption. It declared Biden’s intention to “better hold corrupt actors accountable, and strengthen the capacity of activists, investigative journalists, and others on the front lines of exposing corrupt acts.” Some may have suspected a hint of hypocrisy at the very moment the US was continuing its aggressive pursuit of investigative journalist Julian Assange. 

      There is an explanation. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, targeted the sacrosanct institution known as the defense establishment, not the private purveyors of corruption in the world of commerce. This distinction becomes clearer later in the document expressing the intent “to support, defend, and protect civil society and media actors, including investigative journalists who expose corruption.” War crimes don’t merit the same scrutiny.

      What, after all, does Biden’s anti-corruption initiative concretely propose? Is any of it consistent with Feygin’s critique? The first bullet point in the fact sheet reads: “Better understanding and responding to the transnational dimensions of corruption.” So far, so good. But it immediately tells us this will be done “by prioritizing intelligence collection and analysis on corrupt actors and their networks.”

      “Intelligence collection” quickly trumps the goal of “better understanding.” Understanding is dangerous because it can lead to reform. Intelligence collection typically leads to judicial processes and rarely produces understanding. Moreover, the long track record of intelligence agencies, including the CIA and FBI, has demonstrated that collecting, storing and using information — primarily against others for purposes of control and intimidation — has consistently impeded not only the will, but more significantly the ability to understand complex problems. 

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      The second bullet point focuses on expected bureaucratic efficiency through the coordination of “anti-corruption work” across “departments and agencies.” The third seeks to increase “law enforcement resources and bolstering information sharing between the intelligence community and law enforcement.” The emphasis is clear. It is more about policing than understanding. Reforming or restructuring can only be an afterthought.

      The document then goes on to list four objectives concerned with regulations that will permit identifying culprits. Perhaps the most worrying promise is this one: “Working with the private sector to improve the international business climate by encouraging the adoption and enforcement of anti-corruption compliance programs.” As Feygin’s analysis shows, the private sector employs and depends on the experts specialized in tax optimization. Talk about letting the fox rule the henhouse.

      Compare Biden’s description with what the Berggruen Institute envisions as the features of a solution: “sovereign wealth funds, publicly supported individual savings institutions, public retirement institutions, and cooperative enterprise ownership.” The institute seeks to convince governments to “envision ways that publics can retain stakes in common goods that are now being commercialized by private actors.” At this point, Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis and the late David Graeber might loudly applaud.

      If Biden is really interested in understanding how to counter corruption, he might begin by reading Feygin’s article and then consulting political economists such as Varoufakis and Thomas Piketty. But, reflecting recent traditions, the president appears focused on reinforcing intelligence networks and law enforcement. Reasonable observers might ask: Isn’t that precisely what the authoritarian regimes are tempted to do, the very regimes Biden contrasts with democracy? Those who do ask the question are rarely cited in the legacy media.

      Historical Note

      The problem of abiding by the rule of law imposed in the name of liberal democracy ends up looking eerily similar to the problem of establishing a moral order within the structural lawlessness of the feudal system capitalism replaced nearly three centuries ago. Feudalism allowed might to conquer right. The hierarchical system allowed evil despotic rulers, but also benevolent ones, to govern within their territories. 

      In today’s age of nation-states, the law itself can be an agent of hierarchy, a system that structures power relationships and tends toward increasing inequality. In some cases, it may be designed to protect the public welfare and the general good, but in others, it serves to defend evil-doers who use the facility of corruption specifically permitted by the laws to reinforce and abuse their power.

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      The obvious advantage a true liberal democracy possesses lies in the fact that laws can be reformed — and indeed, if required, entirely reformulated — with the consent of the people. But thanks to the unequal distribution of influence, some laws, including the laws that govern the procedures of democracy itself, may be specifically designed to escape even the notice of the people and even the scrutiny of the experts. When that happens, it is no longer the rule of law, but the law of rule, meaning whoever has power over the law can ensure that the law itself protects their own potentially despotic rule.

      Democratically elected governments are not immune to the law of rule for the simple reason that the principle of rule is the power of money. That is why a government in which money plays a major role in elections is bound to be corrupt. It will also be empowered to seek ways of consolidating its preferred forms of corruption, even while calling into question its less preferred forms of corruption. This allows it to maintain the image of combating corruption, but even more significantly, to protect its preferred version.

      The Berggruen Institute manifestly seeks to identify and eliminate the true roots of corruption in order to save the capitalist system that has spontaneously produced a variety of forms of corruption that have contributed to the economy’s impending divorce from democracy. Its noble effort may resemble an attempt at squaring the circle, although it would be more appropriate to call it the rounding of the dangerously sharp corners of the square.

      The Biden administration prefers to put warning signs on the ever-sharper corners of the square before pursuing those who try to make the corners even sharper. The Berggruen Institute believes the system can be given new life. The Biden administration hopes simply that it will survive a little longer.

      *[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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      Trump Jr and Fox News hosts begged Meadows to help stop Capitol attack, texts show

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      Trump Jr and Fox News hosts begged Meadows to help stop Capitol attack, texts showThree of the network’s presenters urged Meadows to push Trump to act while Trump Jr said ‘He has to lead now’ Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr and three hosts on the Fox News network begged then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to persuade the former president to stop the 6 January insurrection despite their public efforts to downplay it, newly released text messages show.The sense of panic that enveloped the former president’s inner circle during the attack on the US Capitol was revealed on Monday when Congresswoman Liz Cheney, vice-chair of a House select committee investigating the riot, read aloud texts sent to Meadows.Capitol attack panel recommends Mark Meadows for criminal prosecutionRead more“We need an Oval address,” Trump Jr wrote as his father’s supporters were storming the Capitol, sending members of Congress running for their lives and delaying the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. “He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”Trump Jr added: “He’s got to condemn this shit asap.”In response, Meadows texted: “I’m pushing it hard. I agree.”Cheney also made public frantic messages from three Fox News presenters who became notorious as cheerleaders for the Trump administration and for fanning the flames of his lies about voter fraud. Crossing a line from journalists to informal advisers, they urged Meadows to push Trump to act quickly to stop the siege by his supporters.Laura Ingraham, the host of The Ingraham Angle, wrote: “Hey Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”Yet later that night Ingraham went on air baselessly shifting blame from Trump’s supporters to the anti-fascist movement antifa. She told viewers: “From a chaotic Washington tonight, earlier today the Capitol was under siege by people who can only be described as antithetical to the Maga [Make America Great Again] movement. Now, they were likely not all Trump supporters, and there are some reports that antifa sympathisers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.”Brian Kilmeade, co-host of the morning show Fox & Friends, on which Trump appeared regularly, wrote to the chief of staff on 6 January: “Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished.”And Sean Hannity, a prime time host who once appeared onstage with Trump at a campaign rally, texted Meadows: “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol.”But later, on his broadcast, Hannity said: “Our election, frankly, was a train wreck. Eighty-three per cent, according to Gallup, of Republicans, and millions of others, do not have faith in these election results. You can’t just snap your finger and hope that goes away.”Trump has been widely condemned for his casual response to insurrection, which had been raging for three hours before he finally released a video urging the mob: “Go home. We love you. You’re very special.” A few hours later he tweeted: “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”Since then the ex-president, Trump Jr and rightwing media have spent months seeking to minimise the events of 6 January, which resulted in five deaths and more than 500 arrests. Trump has claimed that rioters were “hugging and kissing” police.Last month another Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, produced a three-part documentary, Patriot Purge, for the Fox Nation streaming platform that pushed the lie that the insurrection was a “false flag” operation designed to hurt Trump’s supporters. “January 6 is being used as a pretext to strip millions of Americans – disfavoured Americans – of their core constitutional rights,” he insisted.But Monday’s fresh insight into the symbiotic relationship between the Trump White House and Fox News show that those close to the president realised the gravity of what was unfolding and how damaging it could be.Cheney said the texts show Trump’s “supreme dereliction” as he refused to strongly condemn the violence of his supporters. “These texts leave no doubt,” Cheney said. “The White House knew exactly what was happening at the Capitol.”Amanda Carpenter, a former communications director to Senator Ted Cruz, wrote on the Bulwark website: “These texts prove something essential. No matter what they say now, Trump’s loyalists knew at the time that what was happening at the Capitol was not a peaceful protest.“They knew that it was a dangerous attack on American democracy. And they knew that Trump was responsible for it. That’s why they sent the texts pleading with him, through his staff, to make it stop.”The texts were among almost 9,000 documents that Meadows turned over to the committee before he ceased cooperation. Cheney disclosed only a tiny fraction, raising the prospect of further embarrassments to come for Trump’s allies.The committee voted 9-0 to recommend that Meadows, himself a former members of the House, be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena. The full House is set to vote on Tuesday to refer the charges to the justice department.The hearing was not broadcast on Fox News but Meadows appeared on the network soon after the vote. There was no mention of the revelatory texts. He told Hannity: “This is about Donald Trump and about actually going after him once again.”Two longtime Fox News contributors, Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, resigned last month in protest at Carlson’s Patriot Purge programme. Chris Wallace, host of the network’s flagship Sunday politics programme, resigned on Sunday after 18 years to join CNN’s new streaming platform.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpDonald Trump JrFox NewsTrump administrationUS politicsMark MeadowsnewsReuse this content More

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      Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Complicated Puzzle

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      On Friday, December 10, the parliament of the Republic of Srpska, one of the constitutive entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, adopted a Declaration on Constitutional Principles that states that the legislation imposed by the high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be considered unconstitutional since the required procedure was not followed. The parliament also adopted conclusions by which it withdraws the formerly given consent to delegate some of Republic of Srpska’s authority to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

      Is Dissolution a Solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina?

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      The same conclusions also require the government to propose adequate legislation within six months, which would enable normal functioning in view of the transfer of authority and competencies, formerly given to the federal level, back to the Republic of Srpska. The opposition parties criticized this move as a risky one, which can potentially bring more harm than good.

      Postwar Design

      This news provoked outrage in the centers of Western political power as well as in many mainstream Western media. The European Union and the governments of the US, UK, Germany and France have condemned these conclusions, calling for the respect of the Bosnian state institutions and the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in the former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and established the state in its postwar design.

      This may seem a somewhat paradoxical situation given that the Western governments that criticize the leadership of the Republic of Srpska affirm the Dayton Accords, while the leadership in Banja Luka and especially Milorad Dodik — the Serb member of the collective presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by far the strongest political figure in the Republic of Srpska — likewise express their unreserved support Dayton. Dodik has repeatedly claimed that the only way for Bosnia and Herzegovina to continue to exist as a state is the return to the Dayton Agreement and stick to all its articles.

      The problem, however, is not simply a formal one. It is deeply political. The current crisis was triggered by the former high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Valentin Inzko, who outlawed the denial of the Srebrenica massacre as well as any questioning of the qualification of this crime as genocide.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were, leading the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs immediately to declare that if this legislation — perceived as anti-Serb — is not annulled, they would take steps toward protecting Bosnian Serbs and their entity from illegitimate and oppressive measures coming from the Office of the High Representative. The high representative is best described as the foreign governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina — acting, in reality, as an exponent of the most influential Western governments — with enormous powers and no democratic legitimacy. 

      The Dayton Agreement may have put an end to the war back in 1995, but it created a state which, in one sense, was stillborn. The Bosnian–Herzegovinian Serbs obtained the Republic of Srpska, with which they have primarily identified ever since. Bosnian–Herzegovinian Croats, as the third major ethnic/national community in Bosnia and Herzegovina — although much smaller than the Muslim/Bosniak and Serb ethnic/national groups — ended up without their own entity within the newly established Bosnia and Herzegovina.

      Instead, they were included into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the other constitutive part of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in addition to the Republic of Srpska. This is what is still provoking dissatisfaction among many Bosnian Croats and the reason why many, if not the majority of them, perceive Croatia, not Bosnia and Herzegovina, as their “home” country.

      Small Yugoslavia

      This means that only among Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks one can find an overwhelming commitment to Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this political dynamic lies the reason why many Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak politicians advocate for a unitary state — and the eventual dissolution of the Republic of Srpska by taking away its key competencies — and for the abandoning of any ethnic/national principles in the election of political representatives under the pretext that this is in accordance with liberal-democratic principles.

      However, this is precisely what is perceived as a threat among many Bosnian Serbs and Croats, since the Muslim/Bosniak ethnic group is the largest one, which means that in practice it would be able to impose its will unto the other two major ethnicities and the institutions that were initially designed to prevent such discrimination.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This means that the “small Yugoslavia,” as Bosnia and Herzegovina used to be called because of its diverse religious and ethnic landscape reminiscent of Yugoslavia as a whole, is facing similar problems that former (big) Yugoslavia failed to resolve. The position of Muslims/Bosniaks (and their leadership) in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be seen in parallel to the position of Serbs in Yugoslavia.

      As the Serbs were the biggest ethnic group present in significant numbers in most Yugoslav republics, the overwhelming majority of Serbs were in support of Yugoslavia as a state. This, however, was perceived by many other ethnic communities as potential oppressiveness. The Serbs thus ended up being the only ones trying to save Yugoslavia from dissolution.

      Similarly, Muslims/Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, being the biggest ethnic/national community, perceive Bosnia and Herzegovina as their country and are trying to centralize and preserve it at all costs, even though this is perceived as oppression by the members of other ethnicities. For many Bosnian Serbs, the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also a question of principle. They often posit the question that if former Yugoslavia could collapse and new states be established from its constitutive parts, why can’t the same happen in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

      Here we come to another major piece of the complicated Bosnian puzzle: the international factor. It was the Western governments — and primarily the US — under whose auspices postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina was created, with its highly inefficient structures and with the Office of the High Representative who, over time, obtained pharaonic powers. Naturally, the governments of the countries that have sponsored this arrangement are unwilling to admit that the whole experiment was a tremendous failure and that their interventions have actively prevented the development of democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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      In addition, Bosnia and Herzegovina, just as the Balkans as a whole, is also the terrain for bigger games and powerplay between the US-led alliance (which, in reality, is much less coherent than it is claimed), Russia and Turkey. Western politicians and the media are trying to explain the situation to the Western audience by blaming the local politicians, especially the Bosnian Serb leadership, as pro-Russian. What they are selling to their citizens is the story that everything will be fine as soon as the old politicians go and new ones, loyal to the West, take over.

      However, blaming everything on corrupt and irresponsible political elites will not resolve the structural problems that are, to a large extent, created by generous Western support. Yes, political elites — and not only in the Balkans — tend to be corrupt, irresponsible and ready to exploit people’s misery and nationalistic sentiments to their own advantage. This is, however, only one dimension to the complex story that tends to be grossly oversimplified in the mainstream Western media. The real problems are deeper, and the policies of influential Western governments are still only adding fuel to the fire.

      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 Elections

      VR experience offers journey into US president's nuclear bunker – video

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      Nuclear Biscuit, a simulated experience, allows US officials to wargame a missile attack and see the devastating consequences of their choices. 
      Players experience what the president would have to do in the event of a nuclear crisis: make a decision that would end many millions of lives – and quite possibly civilisation on the planet – with incomplete information and in less than 15 minutes. Here’s a snippet of the game as completed by Julian Borger, our world affairs editor

      ‘15 minutes to save the world’: a terrifying VR journey into the nuclear bunker More

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      in World Politics

      Washington’s Tawdry Victory Over Julian Assange

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      Last week witnessed the 80th anniversary of a moment in history qualified by Franklin D. Roosevelt as “a date which will live in infamy.” On December 8, 1941, the president announced that the United States was declaring war after Japan’s unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor a day earlier. A nation that had spent two decades wallowing in isolationism instantly became one of the principal and most powerful actors in a new world war. Victory on two fronts, against Germany and Japan, would be achieved successively in 1944 and 1945.

      Last week ended with its own day of infamy when a British court overturned an earlier judgment banning the extradition to the US of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Following in the footsteps of the Trump administration, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department successfully appealed the ban in its relentless effort to judge Assange for violating the 1917 Espionage Act, itself a relic of the history of the First World War.

      Guns and the Wrong Side of Rights

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      Back then, President Woodrow Wilson’s government pulled no jingoistic punches when promoting America’s participation in Europe’s war. It actively incited the population to indulge in xenophobia. Public paranoia targeting Germany, the nation’s enemy, reached such a pitch that Beethoven was banned from the concert stage, sauerkraut was officially renamed “liberty cabbage” and hamburger “liberty steak.”

      The manifestly paranoid Espionage Act sought to punish anyone who “communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to communicate, deliver or transmit to any foreign government … any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, etc.” The law, specifically for a state of war, was so extreme it was rarely used until Barack Obama unearthed it as the elegant solution for suppressing the whistleblowers he had vowed to defend in his first presidential campaign.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Despite overindulging his taste for punishing whistleblowers, Obama refrained from seeking to extradite Assange. He feared it might appear as an assault on freedom of the press and might even incriminate The New York Times, which had published the WikiLeaks documents in 2010. In the meantime, Democrats found a stronger reason to blame Assange. He had leaked the Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016 presidential primary campaign. Democrats blamed the Australian for electing Donald Trump.

      During his 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly praised WikiLeaks for its willingness to expose the undemocratic practices of the Clinton campaign. But once in power, Trump’s administration vindictively demanded Assange’s extradition from the UK for having revealed war crimes that deserved being hidden for eternity from the prying eyes of journalists and historians. 

      Many observers expected Biden to return to the prudent wisdom of Obama and break with Trump’s vindictive initiative. He could have quietly accepted the British judge’s decision pronounced in January. Instead, his Justice Department appealed. Unlike Trump, who sought to undermine everything Obama had achieved, Biden has surprisingly revealed a deep, largely passive respect for his predecessor’s most dangerous innovations — not challenging corporate tax cuts, the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and Trump’s aggressive support for Israel’s most oppressive policies with regard to Palestinians.

      Biden’s eagerness to follow Trump’s gambit aimed at subjecting Assange to the US brand of military-style justice allowed New York Times journalists Megan Specia and Charlie Savage to describe Friday’s decision by the British court as a success for the administration. “The ruling was a victory,” they wrote, “at least for now, for the Biden administration, which has pursued an effort to prosecute Mr. Assange begun under the Trump administration.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Victory:

      Triumph in combat, including, at two extremes, cases marked by heroic action and others prompted by malicious self-serving motives and driven by the perpetrator’s confusion of the idea of justice with sadistic, vindictive pleasure

      Contextual Note

      The Times journalists quote Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, who “said the government was ‘pleased by the ruling’ and would have no further comment.” At no point in the article do the authors evoke the hypothesis that Biden might have sought to overturn Trump’s policy. Nor do they analyze the reasons that could undermine the government’s case. They do quote several of Assange’s supporters, including one who called “on the Biden administration again to withdraw” the charge. Serious observers of the media might expect that a pillar of the press in a liberal democracy might be tempted to express its own concern with laws and policies that risk threatening its own freedom. Not The New York Times. This story didn’t even make its front page. None of its columnists deemed it deserving of comment.

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      Journalist Kalinga Seneviratne, writing for The Manila Times, offered a radical contrast. “If this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is about promoting ‘press freedom,’” he speculates, “the Norwegian Nobel Committee missed a golden opportunity to make a powerful statement at a time when such freedom is under threat in the very countries that have traditionally claimed a patent on it.” He quotes the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, who claims that “what has been done to Julian Assange is not to punish or coerce him, but to silence him and to do so in broad daylight, making visible to the entire world that those who expose the misconduct of the powerful no longer enjoy the protection of the law.” 

      Deutsche Welle’s Matthias von Hein noted the interesting coincidence that three converging events took place on the same day. “In a bitter twist of irony,” he writes, “a court in London has essentially paved the way for Assange’s prosecution on Human Rights Day — of all days. And how ironic that it happened on the day two journalists were honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Last, but not least, it coincided with the second day of the Summit on Democracy organized by US President Joe Biden.”

      Von Hein added this observation: “We’re constantly hearing how Western democracies are in competition with autocratic systems. If Biden is serious about that, he should strive to be better than the world’s dictators.” But, as the saying goes, you can’t teach a 79-year old dog new tricks.

      Historical Note

      The coincidences do not end there. On the same day the news of Julian Assange’s fate emerged, Yahoo’s investigative reporter Michael Isikoff recounted the story of another man “brought to justice” by US authorities: Mohamedou Ould Slahi. The Mauritanian citizen had the privilege of spending 14 years in the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba without ever being charged with a crime, even after confessing to the crimes imagined by his torturers.

      It turns out to be a touching moral tale. Even after years of imprisonment and gruesome torture, Slahi “holds no personal animus against his interrogators.” According to Isikoff, “he has even met and bonded with some of those interrogators,” years after the event. “I took it upon myself,” Slahi explained, “to be a nice person and took a vow of kindness no matter what. And you cannot have a vow of kindness without forgiving people.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      It wasn’t the Prophet Muhammad who said, “turn the other cheek” or “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Those words were spoken by the man George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld claimed to revere and whom Bush considered his “favorite philosopher.” The Quran did continue the original Christian insight, pronouncing that “retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it,” and that reconciliation and forgiveness will be rewarded by Allah.

      There has clearly been no forgiveness in Washington for the “evil” committed by Assange: exposing war crimes conducted in secret with American taxpayers’ money. Slahi’s torture was conducted by the declared proponents of “Judeo-Christian” culture. Shahi’s forgiveness stands as an example of what that culture claims as a virtue but fails to embrace in its own actions.

      Shahi is reconciled with his interrogators. But does he also feel reconciled with those who gave them their orders? In 2019, he said, “I accept that the United States should follow and put to trial all the people who are harming their citizens. I agree with that. But I disagree with them that if they suspect you, they kidnap you, they torture you, and let you rot in prison for 15 or 16 years. And then they dump you in your country and they say you cannot have your passport because you have already seen so many things that we don’t want you to travel around the world to talk about.”

      Despite appearances, Mohamedou Ould Shahi’s case is not all that different from Julian Assange’s.

      *[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

      Can Self-Help Diplomacy Lower Political Heat in the Middle East?

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      Since the end of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the United States has been the unchallenged dominant power in the Middle East and North Africa. As such, it often saw its role, for better or worse, as fixing the region’s many problems. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq and Saddam Hussein, Iran, high oil prices, Gulf security, Western Sahara, menacing non-state organizations, counterterrorism, human rights, democracy, autocratic leaders, failed states — whatever the concern or challenge, the Americans came to view them as priority issues and their responsibility. Moreover, many regional states and even their citizens often saw America’s involvement as a necessity, sometimes even an obligation to tamp down the region’s frenzied political climate.

      Will Saudi-Iran Talks Lead to Anything?

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      But times have changed. Three recent presidents — Barack Obama, Donald Trump and now Joe Biden — have made efforts to distance the US from its endless, exasperating entanglements in the Middle East. Those efforts had distracted the United States from its principal challenges in the world — China and Russia — and sapped it of its military, economic and political might and influence. America received very little in return on its investment. Furthermore, years of US involvement in the region had also fractured the American public’s support for the more critically important role it must play in anchoring the international order.

      Enter the Others

      Downgrading America’s involvement in the Middle East isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For decades, many in the Middle East and in the US had argued that the region’s problems must be tackled by the governments and people of the region. Outsiders can play a supporting role, but the tough decisions can only be made by the governments themselves. That may now be happening.

      But handing off the task of addressing the region’s manifold challenges got off to a poor start. Neither the US, nor the international community, nor the states of the Middle East seemed able to solve the conundrum of the region’s three failed states.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Then, starting around 2015, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman started ordering others around — imposing a blockade on Qatar, detaining the Lebanese prime minister, jailing courageous dissidents and largely harmless millionaires, ordering a hit job on journalist Jamal Khashoggi and jumping into the Yemeni Civil War. And it all went bad, very bad in fact. Additionally, it provoked other would-be movers and shakers to get in the act, including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iran, China, Russia and even Israel. And not always with good intent or positive results.

      After years of misdirection, however, governments now seem to be taking a more sober and responsible approach that could prove genuinely beneficial for the region. For starters, they have embarked on a simple approach: dialog. They are talking about their problems, especially those between and among one another. Dialog leads to understanding, which can lead to shared interests. Ultimately, to be effective, dialog must lead to compromise. That involves the inevitable give-and-take that allows nations, especially those close to one another, to live and thrive in peace and prosperity.

      It’s a Start

      One of the most encouraging initiatives may be the most unexpected: dialog between the Middle East’s two major powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and hosted by perhaps the most unlikely state, Iraq, unquestionably the region’s most conflict-ridden for decades. The issues are many between these two historic rivals, separated by a narrow gulf on whose name neither seems able to agree. But the larger gulf lies in their differing views of the other, their competing religious sects — the Saudi uber-conservative Wahhabi Sunni Islam vs. Iran’s clerically-led, conservative Shia Islam — perceptions of the other’s role and intentions in the region, their wealth, and relations with and ties to the broader international community, almost non-existent in the case of Iran.

      One especially neuralgic issue for both is their respective roles in the Yemen War. It is now abundantly clear that the Saudis’ overwhelming military power, bolstered by the US and some European nations, cannot defeat the Houthi rebels. Nor can it end either the war or even its costly intervention in it. The Saudis need help. Enter the Iranians, who have been supporting the Shia-affiliated Zaydi Houthis in this war since 2013. With ideology and much-needed weapons and funding, though much less than what Saudi Arabia has expended, the Iranians have empowered the rebels to the point where they are now an established power in a future Yemen, whether unified or bifurcated.

      So, the two regional powers are talking it out. The Saudis want out of the war, but they also want reliable security along their southwestern border. The Iranians want a Shia power on the Arabian Peninsula, but preferably one at peace.

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      Yemen may be the most immediate challenge for the two states. But there are others. More broadly, Saudi Arabia and Iran need to reach a modus vivendi in the region. On-again, off-again formal relations, menacing behavior toward each other’s oil and shipping interests, and verbal assaults do little more than increase the temperature in a region plagued by heat, literally and figuratively.

      Brothers Reconcile?

      Saudi Arabia has also launched a campaign to repair the frayed relations among its Arab neighbors. Last week, Mohammed bin Salman week began a PR campaign to demonstrate a new and improved political environment. In a swing through the neighboring Gulf states of Oman, the UAE, Bahrain and, most importantly, Qatar, he seems to be trying to rebuild what once had been the region’s preeminent multilateral organization, the Gulf Cooperation Council.

      Mohammed bin Salman single-handedly fractured the Gulf alliance when he imposed his 2017 blockade on Qatar, joined by the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt. It backfired. Qatar remained in the good graces of the US, drew the political and military support of peripheral power Turkey and earned the support of Iran. Consider it the young prince’s on-the-job training in global as well as regional politics. He is now devoting particular attention to Doha in the hope of what yet we aren’t quite certain. But this repair work and goodwill tour cannot help but create progress.

      And not to be outdone, the Gulf’s other power, the UAE, has embarked on its own diplomatic repair mission. Like the Saudis, the Emiratis want to lower the temperature in the Gulf, and their position as the region’s prime economic entrepôt gives them special heft. The UAE’s ties to the US, still the unquestioned but now quiescent power in the Gulf, also lend special weight.

      Could It All Be for Naught?

      Looming over all of these laudable efforts, however, is Iranian behavior in the region. All eyes are now on the recently restarted talks over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, Austria. Following a near-six-month hiatus at Iran’s request, the P5+1 group and Iran renewed negotiations to reinstate the JCPOA — aka the Iran nuclear deal.

      But it is the critical non-dialog between the US and Iran — the two countries are still not meeting face-to-face but rather communicating through the intermediation of the other P5+1 countries — that bears the most serious watching. Unless they can agree on a way forward that puts Iran’s nuclear weapons potential well into the very distant future while also lifting America’s onerous and inescapably crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic, the heat in the Middle East will become white hot.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Judging from the US State Department’s uncharacteristically downcast semi-official readout of the first round of the negotiation restart, there is cause for concern. Iran’s counterproductive, albeit predictable, maximalist opening gambit soured the P5+1, even China and Russia. Negotiators met again last week. Unless there is a greater attitude toward compromise, however, pessimism will win out. Positions will harden. And more extreme (and dangerous) measures will become viable.

      President Biden has reiterated the US pledge that Iran will not get nuclear weapons. But neither he nor his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will state what the consequences of failed talks might be.

      Israel, however, is not so coy. Recent Israeli statements confirm that the military option is very much in play. As if to put an even finer point on the matter, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Jerusalem late last week for meetings with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Benny Gantz. Both men are retired top generals of their respective armed forces and will have discussed military and other options.

      Military action would be an unspeakable disaster for the Middle East. But so would a nuclear-armed or even nuclear-capable Iran. Even an approach that stops short of armed conflict will impose extraordinary hardship on the region, certainly prompting other states to consider acquiring nuclear weapons and further isolate Iran.

      It would be unfair to place the entirety of the burden for the success of these talks on Tehran. However, unless Iran understands the futility of its mindless pursuit of nuclear weapons, no effort at fostering understanding elsewhere can temper the region’s mercury-popping political heat.

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