World news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in World Politics

      The Mechanics of Discontent Visible in Berlin

      by

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

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

      The Mad Complicity of Trump, Pompeo and the Media

      READ MORE

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

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Egoist outrage:

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

      Contextual Note

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

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

      Embed from Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

      Historical Note

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

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

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

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

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

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

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in World Politics

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

      by

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

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

      Han and Hindu Nationalism Come Face to Face

      READ MORE

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

      Refuge in India

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

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

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

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

      Long Ignored

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

      Embed from Getty Images

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

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

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

      Chinese Domination

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

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

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

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

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

    • 75 Shares189 Views

      in World Politics

      Will Chile Listen to Its People?

      by

      The country with the highest per capita infection rate of COVID-19 is in South America — but it isn’t Brazil. Chile, despite its high incomes and access to resources, has struggled to keep the pandemic under control and suffers from infection rates higher than the United States, which currently leads with the highest number of total coronavirus cases in the world. What the pandemic has done is highlight one of Chile’s biggest problems — income inequality.      

      Mortality rates in Santiago’s public hospitals are twice that of the nation’s private hospitals. However, those with fewer resources in Chile have been marginalized from the elites in the nation’s capital long before the virus. A highly privatized economy has allowed many to fall through the cracks, bringing millions of Chileans to the streets in protest in 2019. To close this gap, economic, social and educational reforms are required.

      What Is Driving the Protests in Latin America?

      READ MORE

      The Chilean government is aware of the discontent among its citizens. In 2006, 800,000 students took to the streets, with subsequent protests in 2008 and 2011 in response to the rising costs of higher education. Then, in October last year, a 4% subway fare increase sparked nationwide protests that brought over a million Chileans to the streets of Santiago, the largest protest in the country’s history. The 2019 protests have resulted in at least 30 deaths and 11,000 injured. Human rights organizations have reported incidents of torture, sexual abuse and assault by Chilean security forces.

      Most Unequal

      The government of President Sebastian Pinera has responded with various reforms, such as a middle-class stimulus package, early access to pensions as well as a promise of a vote on a new constitution. Chile’s current constitution was written in 1980, during the 17-year military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, furthering the need for a new democratic framework. The Chilean government must make good on its promises if it is to shake its place as the most unequal among the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

      The virus has disproportionately affected Chile’s poorest citizens, who often live in densely populated areas and do not have the luxury of working from home. Speaking to The Guardian, a university professor commented, “What are people in poor rural communities supposed to do with online yoga and cooking classes?” Chile must reach into its savings and provide immediate relief for those who are struggling. A stimulus package that benefits low-income populations should be implemented immediately.

      In the long term, Chile must reverse its stance on fiscal prudence. Savings can help mitigate recession, but Chile’s conservative fiscal management is its Achilles’ heel. Chile offers very few social services, ranking second only to Mexico in social spending among OECD countries. Even water is a private commodity. However, Chile has taken actions that indicate less austere policies may be coming. The lower house of parliament voted to allow Chileans to dip into their private pensions to provide immediate COVID-19 relief. President Pinera announced a 1$.5-billion middle-class stimulus as well. This is a positive step, but more funds must be directed to the country’s poorest citizens.

      “One Bread per Person”

      Looking to the long term, educational reform must be prioritized. Public schools in Chile are underfunded, while private education is often unaffordable. Average annual college tuition in Chile is $7,600 — approximately half of the median income and among the highest in the world; only American private universities and British universities have higher tuition rates adjusted for income.

      There have been efforts to reduce public university costs, such as when the gratuidad system was introduced in 2016. While the program mitigated university costs for low-income students, it has reduced funding for public universities. For public universities to be competitive with their private counterparts, funding is critical. Not only is an improved education system perhaps the most important factor in reducing inequality, but it is something that Chileans have been asking of their government for over 15 years.

      Feeling pressure from its citizens, Chile has pushed forward an agreement to vote on a new constitution in October. Polling showed last year that three-quarters of Chileans supported the protesters, with 87% backing the demand for constitutional reform. Camila Meza, a 28-year-old publicist living in Santiago, agrees with the need for a new constitution: “The need for a new constitution is paramount. One that allows for a more efficient response to issues of citizen interest, such as education and guaranteed health care.”

      A government directly addressing public needs amidst protest is not a given. But there should be optimism for a better, more stable Chile. It is important for the country to push forward with the drafting of a new constitution. Otherwise, the capacity for further violence and unrest will remain. The late Chilean poet Nicanor Parra said it best: “There are two pieces of bread. You eat two. I eat none. Average consumption: one bread per person.” 

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

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

    • 75 Shares169 Views

      in World Politics

      Donald Trump’s War With the Troops

      by

      My father enlisted in the Army to fight in World War II. He was 19 or 20 years old, and he wanted to defeat the Nazis. He was one of a million other young Americans to sign up that year. But my father was also a fun-loving guy who played clarinet in a jazz band and liked to party. Instead of reporting for duty, he went AWOL on a bender. When he showed up late at the military base, he was assigned to the kitchen patrol to peel potatoes. As a result, he stayed behind when his unit shipped out. According to my father’s version of events, that entire unit perished somewhere in the Pacific.

      Can US Special Operations Command Be Held Accountable?

      READ MORE

      From then on, my father did everything he could to avoid getting sent overseas. He was part of a group of radiomen who continually failed their final test. Spending the entire war stateside in a succession of Army bases, he developed a distinctly anti-war perspective. Together with my mother, whom he met at an Army dance, he passed that philosophy onto his children.

      Stupid War

      I shudder to think that I have any overlap with US President Donald Trump. But we both inherited our discomfort with the military from our fathers. Fred Trump preferred to focus on the business of making money. My father had his close brush with war, and it changed his life.

      Many other members of the Greatest Generation had a similar change of heart as my father. Like every preceding generation, they experienced the horrors of combat and suffered trauma for much of their postwar lives. Some learned that the other side, too, used the language of “sacrifice” to push young men into battle and persuade families on the home front to accept economic austerity. Some even came to agree with Smedley Butler, the retired Marine Corps major general who wrote, in 1935, that “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.”

      Donald Trump knows a racket when he sees one. Growing up wealthy and white, Trump saw no reason to sacrifice limb or life to serve his country. The military was a lousy career for a would-be billionaire who had his own scams to foist on the American public. As my father discovered, the military was often a career-ender, particularly during wartime. Lots of other men of Trump’s generation avoided the military. Joe Biden received five deferments, and so did Dick Cheney. Bernie Sanders applied for conscientious objector status and then aged out of the draft. Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, John Bolton — they all somehow skipped the Vietnam War.

      Unlike these men, however, Trump said aloud what most of them must have been thinking — that the United States was involved in a “stupid war” in Vietnam. Trump has gone much further by disparaging military service his entire life. Trump’s anti-military remarks reported in a recent article in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, “Trump Calls Americans Who Died in War ‘Losers,’” are no surprise. Because they are blunter than even what the president blurts in public, the alleged remarks are causing a larger than usual frisson of schadenfreude among anti-Trumpers, and I confess to my own delight at the frenzy of denials coming from the White House.

      Perhaps The Atlantic article will subtract just enough supporters from Trump’s side to ensure his defeat in November. Military support for the president was already slipping before the publication of the article: Trump had a 20% lead over Hillary Clinton in active-duty support in 2016, but Joe Biden now has the edge of 4% in this critical demographic. The military remains the most trusted institution in American society. It’s political suicide to diss the troops.

      Trump’s comments are not going to change the way Americans think about war. He has neither the war record nor the gravitas of a Smedley Butler. But with the coronavirus pandemic is racking up more casualties on the home front than the United States lost in combat during World War I, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined, America is perhaps at a watershed moment when it comes to the meaning of sacrifice.

      Trump’s Approach to War

      Americans are tired of war. That was one element of Trump’s support in 2016. He criticized America’s “endless wars,” promised to bring US soldiers home and decried the corruption of the military-industrial complex. Aside from some token reduction of troops from Afghanistan and Syria and the closure of a US base in Germany, Trump has not honored his promises. He has pumped money into the military-industrial complex and brought its top people into his administration, like Defense Secretary Mark Esper, a former Raytheon lobbyist. Nor has Trump fundamentally altered US military footprint in the world.

      True, Congress and the Pentagon have blocked some of Trump’s plans. But the real problem has been Trump’s own ambivalence. The man might not like soldiers or the military more generally. But he likes power and force. He likes to give orders to all the generals he has appointed as advisers. Above all, Trump likes to break things. If your intention is to smash a china shop, the Pentagon is just the bull you need.

      Remember, this is the guy who promised to “bomb the shit” out of the Islamic State. He fulfilled that promise, killing a large number of citizens in the process. Trump also refused to stop helping Saudi Arabia do the same to Yemen. Last year, he vetoed a bipartisan congressional effort to withdraw US assistance for a war that has pulverized one of the poorest countries in the world. In his statement, Trump said, “This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      It’s difficult to imagine that an effort to end a war would endanger the lives of “brave service members.” But read another way — that weakening Trump’s power endangers American citizens and soldiers — the sentence perfectly encapsulates the president’s me-first mentality.

      Trump might have an aversion to putting US boots on foreign soil, but he sure loves waging war from the air. In his first two years, Trump ordered 238 drone strikes — compared to the 186 strikes that Obama launched in his first two years. And he has made it more difficult to find out how many people have died in those strikes. Yet, as The Intercept reports, intrepid organizations continue to try to determine how often the administration conducts its aerial missions: “The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that the U.S. carried out about 1,000 airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen in 2016 — that is, strikes by both drones and manned aircraft. So far in 2019, they believe that the U.S. has conducted 5,425 airstrikes, five times as many. In the month of September, the U.S. upped the pace to almost 40 airstrikes per day.”

      Then there are the wars that Trump is threatening to unleash. He has continually upped the ante in the conflict with Iran, most recently attempting to trigger “snapback” sanctions that would doom the nuclear deal once and for all. Allies and adversaries alike rejected the US gambit. Meanwhile, even as he adds yet another round of sanctions against Chinese firms, Trump is pushing the US military to confront China in its own backyard by increasing U2 overflights and “freedom of navigation” exercises in the South China Sea.

      Lest you think the war on terror has ended in other parts of the world, the US Africa Command continues to conduct operations across the continent. As Nick Turse, Sam Mednick and Amanda Sperber report in the Mail & Guardian:

      “In 2019, U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 22 African countries: Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Côte D’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Tanzania, and Tunisia.

      This accounts for a significant proportion of U.S. Special Operations forces’ global activity: more than 14 percent of U.S. commandos deployed overseas in 2019 were sent to Africa, the largest percentage of any region in the world except for the greater Middle East.”
      So, let’s put to rest (once again) the notion that Donald Trump is interested in restraining the military. In addition to pumping the Pentagon full of cash, he has ensured that it can conduct its actual war-fighting with as much flexibility and in as many places as possible.

      Post-Trump Sacrifice

      Donald Trump has devoted his life to hedonism and the accumulation of personal power. His dismissal of military service is actually the least of his sins. He doesn’t believe in sacrificing anything for others. He entered politics purely as a vehicle for his own self-aggrandizement. But the alternative to Trump is not the glorification of military service. War is stupid. Devoting one’s life to extinguishing the lives of others is not the answer the world needs at this time of pandemic and climate catastrophe.

      Coming out of the Trump era (I hope), it’s difficult to imagine Americans making a collective sacrifice for anything when even the mandatory wearing of masks is seen by some as too much of an abridgment of individual liberty.

      Imagine asking gun-owning Americans to hand in their weapons, en masse, in order to make the country a safer place. Imagine asking wealthier Americans to tighten their belts in order to rebuild the economy along more equitable lines. Imagine asking Americans to give up their non-electric cars, their jobs in the dirty-energy sector or their frequent airline travel to help save the world from climate catastrophe.

      Embed from Getty Images

      At the same time, the pandemic has brought mutual aid to the foreground. In the absence of coordinated responses from states, people have banded together to help their friends, neighbors and communities. This is all impressive, but it’s a stopgap, not a strategy. The problems facing the world can’t just be solved by individuals volunteering their time and energy. Indeed, the notion of voluntary service, like enlisting to fight in World War II, is antiquated. Ultimately it is as fragile a concept as the voluntary compliance expected of the world’s nations in the Paris Climate Agreement.

      Imagine if traffic were organized on the basis of mutual aid and volunteerism. There would be a few well-run intersections. The rest would be chaos and accidents. Traffic on the ground, on the water and up in the air requires states to establish the rules of the road and punish non-compliance. That is what is necessary, post-Trump. US society desperately needs fair, equitable rules of the road. And scofflaws have to be punished.

      The next administration needs to reestablish the rule of law in America, cracking down on vigilante violence, police violence and executive-branch violence. I can’t think of a better place to begin than by putting the Scofflaw-in-Chief on trial for all of his law-breaking. A long prison sentence would be a fitting cap to Trump’s career.

      But poetic justice dictates a different punishment. After a lifetime of selfishness, Trump should be sentenced to a very long period of community service. Wouldn’t you like to see the former president picking up trash by the side of the road for the rest of his life?

      *[This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.]

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

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Religious right in drive to police election amid dubious voter fraud claims

      by

      Religious right and social conservative groups are training thousands of volunteers in key 2020 battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to watch for alleged fraud with the expansion of mail-in ballots, plus filing lawsuits to block more voting by mail, which they claim with scant evidence will lead to sizable election fraud.Texas-based True the Vote, a central player in the right’s anti-vote-by-mail drives, has trained about 10,000 volunteers in areas including handwriting analysis who are expected to volunteer in key counties such as Allegheny in Pennsylvania and Las Vegas in Nevada to detect voting fraud by mail and at the polls, said True the Vote’s founder, Catherine Engelbrecht.True the Vote, which has Tea Party roots, has done training sessions with several national religious and social conservative groups such as Intercessors for America, the Thomas More Law Center and Eagle Forum, as well as a few dozen smaller local groups nationwide, said Engelbrecht.“I’m particularly concerned about mail-in voting fraud,” Engelbrecht said, though there has been little evidence produced that mail-in voting fraud has ever been a significant problem in American elections.For Engelbrecht, however, the mission to police the 2020 electoral process is almost a religious one. That message was palpable on a 1 May monthly prayer call hosted by Intercessors, when Engelbrecht called the fight to curb mail-in voting a “spiritual battle” for “control of the free world”, according to Right Wing Watch, which tracks conservative groups for the liberal People for the American Way.Dave Kubal, the Intercessors president who participated in the prayer call, reportedly said that Engelbrecht had been “anointed” by God for her current work, and hailed her as a “warrior for liberty”.As part of its 2020 battle plan to monitor both mail-in voting and the polls for fraud, Engelbrecht said that True the Vote is recruiting thousands of military veterans including from the American Legion and the Seal community, to join its “Continue to Serve” program. “We’re reaching out to veterans groups and first responders.”True the Vote says it is promoting “free and fair elections” but independent election law experts say that historically the group has backed measures to curb minority voting – including voter-ID laws and voter-roll purges – and organized election observers who have been charged with intimidation.“True the Vote is a misnomer,” said Gerry Hebert, a leading voting rights lawyer who worked on the issues for 21 years at the justice department. “They should be called Suppress the Vote.”While True the Vote’s volunteer training this year has been heavily focused on the risks of mail-in voting fraud, Engelbrecht noted that since NBA teams have opted to deploy some arenas for in-person voting, True the Vote has begun volunteer training plans to monitor these large voting sites.Engelbrecht said that the majority of True the Vote’s election training was being done with small local groups in a few dozen counties in swing states nationwide, but she declined to name any of the local groups.To help coordinate its training with local groups and some national ones, True the Vote intends to launch a “command center” later this month to advise and respond to questions from people interested in working in different counties.[Vote-by-mail supporters] want to cause chaos, and they’re going to spread it across the country like a virusCatherine EngelbrechtThe religious right’s battle to thwart mail-in voting overlaps larger poll monitoring and legal drives by the Republican National Committee and Donald Trump’s campaign, which have spread unfounded claims about the risks of mail-in voting and the need to monitor polls for fraud. The RNC has said it planned to recruit 50,000 poll watchers and was budgeting $20m for election legal fights.Trump himself has made numerous specious claims that large expansions of mail-in voting will lead to massive fraud, and attacked Democrats for seeking to boost mail-in voting in light of Covid-19. In June, Trump tweeted without evidence that “millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries and others,” creating the “scandal of our times”.And at a North Carolina rally this month, Trump even urged his followers illegally to vote twice – by mail and at the polls – to test the system for fraud.The specter of mail-in voting fraud is fueling other religious conservative projects.True the Vote joined a coalition in late August that is backing the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Center in lawsuits accusing Michigan’s governor and secretary of state of endangering the integrity of the election and silencing political speech through emergency orders and actions spurred by pandemic health concerns.One Amistad lawsuit filed in a MIchigan claims court challenges the secretary of state’s moves to expand access to mail-in and absentee voting, which the lawsuit claims endangers election integrity. The Amistad Project is run by the ex-Kansas attorney general Phill Kline, whose law license was suspended indefinitely several years ago after a Kansas agency found he committed 11 ethical violations in investigations of abortion providers.This week, True the Vote also sued Montana’s governors for offering counties the option to conduct universal mail-in voting in this year’s elections.Election law experts warn that True the Vote and its allies’ drives, coupled with Trump’s blistering attacks against expanding mail-in voting, will fuel voter suppression.“True the Vote is not interested in preventing fraud,” said election lawyer Hebert. “They’re interested in perpetrating it, by denying and obstructing the rights of minority voters to cast their ballots.”But Engelbrecht seems to see her battle against mail-in voting in apocalyptic terms to judge by her 1 May prayer call with Intercessors, according to Right Wing Watch.Vote-by-mail supporters “want to cause chaos, and they’re going to spread it across the country like a virus,” Engelbrecht said. “We know that this is from Satan.” More

    • 175 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      When will we know who’s won the US election?: Politics Weekly Extra – podcast

      by

      This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Guardian’s Sam Levine about why election night might turn into election week … or month

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      This week the question might seem a simple one, but it isn’t. Jonathan asks Sam Levine in New York about how the Covid-19 pandemic will affect the US election on 3 November, and the conversation leads to Jonathan reminiscing about the infamous 2000 presidential election, when George W Bush narrowly (and potentially wrongly) pipped Al Gore to the Oval Office. So, when will we know who’s won this year? Let us know what you think of the podcast: send your feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Woodward tells how allies tried to rein in 'childish' Trump's foreign policy

      by

      Four days before ordering a drone strike against the Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani, Donald Trump was debating the assassination on his own Florida golf course, according to Bob Woodward’s new book on the mercurial president.Trump’s golfing partner that day was Senator Lindsey Graham, who had emerged as one of his closest advisers, and who urged him not to take such a “giant step”, that could trigger “almost total war”.Graham warned Trump he would be raising the stakes from “playing $10 blackjack to $10,000-a-hand blackjack”.“This is over the top,” the senator said. “How about hitting someone a level below Suleimani, which would be much easier for everyone to absorb?”Trump’s chief of staff at the time, Mick Mulvaney, also begged Graham to help change Trump’s mind.Trump would not be persuaded, pointing to Iranian-orchestrated attacks on US soldiers in Iraq, which he said were masterminded by the Iranian general, the leader of the elite Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.Suleimani was killed in Baghdad on 3 January, triggering a retaliatory Iranian missile strike against a US base in Iraq, but so far not the large-scale conflict Graham and others warned the president about.The golf course exchange is described in a forthcoming book, Rage, a second volume on the Trump presidency by Woodward, a veteran investigative reporter famous for covering the Watergate affair and the consequent fall of an earlier scandal-ridden president, Richard Nixon. More