Slaughter of Gaza family reverberates 10 years later

A scene from Samouni Road, which uses animation to show life before, during and after the attack that claimed nearly two dozen members of a single family.


Mousa Tawfiq - 3 January 2019

On 3 January, 10 years ago, the ground invasion stage of Israel’s 2008-2009 assault on Gaza began.

As with much else during what is known as Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli army exploited its massive military advantage to the full. Palestinians in Gaza paid a devastating price.

More than 1,400 people were killed in Gaza during the attack. The vast majority, some 1,200, were civilians.

Among them, few suffered more than the Samouni family.

Twenty-three members of the extended family were killed in two separate incidents on 4 January and 5 January 2009. Twenty-one of those perished in a missile strike on a house they had been ordered into by Israeli soldiers on the ground. The UN subsequently deemed the slaughter of the Samounis to be war crimes, but Israel – which denies the accusation – has never been held accountable.

The Samouni story is the subject of an Italian documentary by filmmaker Stefano Savona. Samouni Road won international recognition at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it garnered the L’Œil d’or prize for best documentary.

For Palestinians it has special resonance. For those of us from Gaza who lived through those dark days, it’s personal.

“It’s a very deep and special documentary,” said Rola Mattar, 25, a student from Gaza currently living in Paris with whom I watched the movie in the French capital recently. “I loved it.”

Rola barely stopped crying during the two hours the movie lasted. In spite of time and distance, memories of war are haunting. As we watched and cried, the sounds and images of war – the bombs and sirens, the pictures and footage of the dead and wounded – came back to us both, reviving the state of fear and anxiety we had both experienced.

We were both only in our teens then, but the memories are vivid. It was perhaps for that reason while watching Samouni Road, the really shocking thing for us to realize was that our traumatic experiences pale in significance compared to those of others in Gaza, like the Samounis.

“We think that we lived the war. No, we didn’t,” Rola concluded after the film. “We were scared of the sounds and the news. But those people were inside the bombings. They were the direct victims of airstrikes and bombs. I feel privileged how I lived in Gaza, and this is a bad feeling.”

The film’s sequence of events follows the narrative told by survivors of the Samouni family.

The key scene is the first. Here, Amal Samouni, a young girl who was injured and lost her father and brother during the attack, tells the director, in response to a question about what happened, that she doesn’t know how to tell a story.

Effective, harrowing and innovative

I believe Savona started the film with this particular phrase to remind the audience that the story of the Samounis is similar to so many others where people don’t know how to tell their own stories. It is the mission, the filmmaker seems to be suggesting, of filmmakers and journalists to tell these stories, to help people to find their voice.

This is a journey that an audience can also share, and is one of the reasons the film has such impact and immediacy.

The documentary includes videos and interviews with survivors of the Samouni family, some shot in 2009 just after the end of the war, others were filmed a year later. The film also makes extensive and innovative use of animation to show family life before, during and after the attack.

Samouni Road includes videos and interviews with survivors of the Gaza City massacre in 2009.

Hisham Abu Shahla, who was responsible for translation and editing dialogue, said the animation was necessary to include all those who died as well as to illustrate the extent of the destruction in Zeitoun, an area east of Gaza City, where the Samounis lived.

“We used animation to give life to people and places that were no longer there,” he told The Electronic Intifada. “It would have been impossible to make a film where the main characters and locations existed only in the memories of the speakers.”

Now pursuing a doctorate in political science, Abu Shahla moved to France from Gaza in 2009. Having lived through the war, he said, helped him in his translation, even if the work proved a harrowing undertaking.

“It took me a year to translate the film. Although I benefited from my background as a Palestinian from Gaza, working on the film was a deeply moving experience that helped me understand what those people went through.”

Innovative and touching, Samouni Road has reached beyond the usual crowd of exiled Palestinians and Arabs and solidarity activists. When I went to see it, I was pleased to note that most of the audience members were not only French, but from different age groups.

Jean-Claude Puech, 52, is a school teacher. He liked the mix of interviews and animation, he told The Electronic Intifada.

“I’m used to coming to this cinema to watch non-commercial films. I decided to watch this film after reading about its prize at Cannes,” he said. “It isn’t an ordinary film. The mix of interviews and animation is very meaningful and clear. The director conveyed his messages without the need to show any blood or dead bodies. This is rare and special.”

Adrien Pouyaud, 20, meanwhile, said he thought the movie represented a side of Gaza that is not commonly seen. A university journalism student, Pouyaud said mainstream media seldom portray such aspects of daily life in Gaza.

I was also impressed with the film. It avoids rendering Palestinians solely as victims and brings Gaza to life through interviews and the use of animation in a manner rarely seen.

The simple words of ordinary people from Gaza are also extremely powerful. What better way to talk to international audiences than to do so directly?

Mousa Tawfiq is a journalist formerly based in Gaza, now living in Paris.

The Small War That Wasn’t

Why the Kosovo conflict still matters today.

(Illustration by Joan Wong for Foreign Policy; photos by U.S. Navy/ Roger Lemoyne/Getty Images/Charlie Archambalt/Getty Images/Couple/Globalphoto.com/Liaison/Getty Images)

BY CAMERON ABADI

| JANUARY 2, 2019, 10:23 AM

The years between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 9/11 attacks are largely thought of as a footnote to history—one eventually interrupted by Islamist terrorism, economic crisis, and genuine geopolitical competition from China and Russia. The meager legacy of Washington’s military intervention in Kosovo is a case in point: It is seen as a brief, successful, and low-stakes war, remembered as insignificant when it’s remembered at all—which it rarely is by Americans, even as the war’s 20th anniversary approaches in March.

The consensus, however, is wrong. The Kosovo war was short (just three months), but it wasn’t small. In fundamental ways, it was a turning point for international politics.

The crisis pitted military forces led by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, already infamous for his murderous actions in the Bosnian conflict, against ethnic Albanian Kosovar insurgents, who resented growing repression in the province. In March 1999, fighting intensified, Kosovo’s neighbors were flooded with refugees, and the West got involved. When Milosevic ignored demands for a negotiated solution, NATO used force. After 78 days of bombing, Serbian troops withdrew, and NATO ground troops moved in.

The war started a conversation about humanitarian intervention that continues to this day. The agonized policy debates in recent years about entering Syria and Libya to oppose brutal dictators are reprisals of concerns first raised in the Balkans.

At the time, British Prime Minister Tony Blair openly described the intervention in Kosovo as “a battle between good and evil; between civilisation and barbarity; between democracy and dictatorship.” But the story was hardly so pure. The case for humanitarian intervention under international law was based on preventing more Serb atrocities, but in practice that meant supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)—a group that U.S. officials had previously described as terrorist. It was fighting for full independence rather than Washington’s more limited goal of political autonomy. U.S. officials were aware that moralistic rhetoric cloaked political risks: Intelligence agencies privately warned that the KLA was trying to provoke Serbian massacres in hopes of persuading NATO to support its bid for independence.

Kosovo also raised serious new concerns about NATO’s military utility that echo loudly today.
NATO’s European members hindered the war effort even from its earliest stages. When Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO’s top commander at the time, briefed allies in July 1998 on the plan drawn up by the U.S. military, which included going after the “head of the snake” by bombing Belgrade, skittish European officials believed it was “too large, too threatening” and demanded more limited options. NATO settled on only a small number of military targets in Kosovo itself—and Europeans at the highest levels of national governments insisted that they be allowed to sign off on the targets.
Milosevic then seized the advantage to ramp up the ethnic cleansing of Albanians. Only when the United States, two months into the war, insisted on a change in strategy—bombing targets deep in Serbian territory—did the momentum shift. Americans also picked up an increasing share of the operational slack, not least because of the wide gap in capabilities between U.S. and other NATO air forces. By the war’s end, the United States had conducted about two-thirds of all sorties while undertaking the majority of reconnaissance, suppression of air defenses, and precision-guided strikes.
For the United States, NATO’s contribution to the war was mostly political—it helped create and maintain public support among Americans for the campaign. In military terms, however, the allies were mostly dispensable. This experience laid the groundwork for later instances of unilateralism, including the George W. Bush administration’s decision to forgo seeking NATO’s backing before its invasion of Iraq and President Donald Trump’s outright threats against Europe for its overreliance on the U.S. military for its own defense.

The Kosovo war also foreshadowed the return of great-power politics, spurring the rise of revanchist nationalism in both Russia and China that the West contends with today.

Although Russia has traditionally been a Serbian ally, the Kremlin initially positioned itself as the West’s partner in finding a solution to the crisis. The bargain was both instrumental (Russia’s economic troubles made it dependent on foreign assistance) and strategic: President Boris Yeltsin believed Russia could cooperate with Western institutions in maintaining global order. Russian diplomats even communicated to their Western counterparts that, although they would veto any U.N. Security Council resolution approving a war, they had nothing against airstrikes. As Richard Holbrooke, a U.S. diplomat, once said, “For them, it was all about respect.”

By that measure, the war was a disaster. Russian public opinion turned against the airstrikes as they targeted the capital of Russia’s Serbian ally and Russian attempts to negotiate peace were unceremoniously rejected by U.S. officials. As Yeltsin faced increasingly irate opposition in parliament, Russian officials’ rhetoric became more bitter and their behavior more obstinate. After Milosevic’s capitulation, Russian military forces violated the peace agreement by rushing into Kosovo and capturing Pristina’s airport on June 12—a move that nearly led to a direct confrontation with U.S. forces. It wasn’t clear whether Yeltsin ordered that operation—but six months later, he would resign, making way for Vladimir Putin.

The Kosovo war was also a teachable moment for Beijing about the power of domestic nationalism.

On May 7, U.S. B-2 stealth bombers largely destroyed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese nationals and injuring 20 others. NATO insisted the incident was an accident (the result of the CIA providing the wrong coordinates for a nearby Serbian military target). The Chinese government declared it a “barbaric attack” and seemed to encourage, and even help organize, the protests that erupted across China. Thousands of Chinese threw rocks at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, trapping officials inside for days, while protesters tried to set fire to the U.S. consulates  in Chengdu and Guangzhou.

When President Bill Clinton and U.S. State Department officials formally apologized for the attack, Chinese state-run media did not broadcast the news for several days as demonstrations continued. It was a strategy of stoking domestic victimization that the Chinese would return to for years afterward, most notably in the 2012 territorial disputes with Japan over islands in the East China Sea.

The Kosovo war officially ended in June 1999, but violence continued unabated in the immediate aftermath, as Kosovar refugees returning home took vengeance against Serbs. The United Nations and NATO spent years trying to figure out how to pass on the responsibility for governing the territory. Now, as the United States struggles to extract its troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, decades after first sending them there, the relevance of that earlier experience speaks for itself.

It’s tempting to dismiss the events in Kosovo as the epitome of America’s short-lived unipolar moment—a war of choice marginal to the interests of major powers, including the United States. The premise is mostly correct but the conclusion false. Washington’s intervention was a war of choice, but that made it a mirror of its foreign-policy psyche—one that magnified America’s ambitions and its blind spots and affected the world accordingly. The world indeed became stormy after 9/11—but storms always gather force in the calm that precedes them.

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2019 issue of Foreign Policy magazine.

 Protests paralyse Kerala after women defy temple ban

Supporters of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) attend a protest rally during a strike against the state government for allowing two women to defy an ancient ban and enter the Sabarimala temple, in Kochi, January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Sivaram V

Sudarshan Varadhan, Neha Dasgupta-JANUARY 3, 2019 

KOCHI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Conservative Hindu groups paralysed Kerala on Thursday protesting against the state government for allowing two women to defy an ancient ban and enter the Sabarimala temple.

Many small businesses were shut after the groups called for a state-wide stoppage. Most bus services were halted and taxis were refusing to take passengers as some drivers said they feared they would be attacked.

Some protesters burst makeshift bombs outside a police station in capital Thiruvananthapuram, police said.

On Thursday morning, about 400 protesters - including some women - marched towards the main city junction in Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala, to stage a sit-in, shouting slogans and waving flags, with streets otherwise deserted.

They were backed by officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the BJP.

India’s Supreme Court in September ordered the lifting of the ban on women of menstruating age entering the Sabarimala hill temple, which draws millions of worshippers a year.

The temple has refused to abide by the ruling and subsequent attempts by women to visit have been blocked by thousands of devotees.

On Wednesday, two women were escorted by police into the temple through a side gate. They offered prayers from the top of a staircase where they could see the deity below without drawing the attention of the priest or other devotees, a police official familiar with the operation said.

He did not wish to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The Kerala state government is run by left-wing parties and has sought to allow women into the temple, a position that has drawn criticism from both of India’s main political parties, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress.

 

BUSES DAMAGED

The state’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters women were the target of some attacks by protesters, including women journalists covering the event.

On Wednesday, a woman police constable was molested by five protesters near Kochi, while a protester was pelted with stones and killed in a southern district of the state, police said.

The protests on Thursday remained largely peaceful, Vijay Sakhare, Inspector General of Police Kochi Range, told Reuters.

Since Wednesday, police have arrested more than 700 people and taken more than 600 protesters into preventive custody, V.P. Pramod Kumar, deputy director, public relations, state police headquarters, told Reuters. He said police had riot gear, teargas and water cannons in case protests became unruly.
In several places protesters damaged state-run buses, Kumar said.

Slideshow (4 Images)

A majority of stores in one of the busiest markets in Kochi remained shut even after protesters dispersed in the evening, according to M.C.K Jaleel, the state joint secretary of Kerala Samsthana Vyapari Vyavasayi Samithi, one of the largest merchant associations in the city.

DEFIANCE BY STEALTH

The women, Bindu Ammini, 42, and Kanaka Durga, 44, had approached state police to find a way to enter the temple after a failed attempt on Dec. 24.

For more than a week before Wednesday’s visit, the women were under police protection at an undisclosed location, unknown even to their families, to prevent the plan from leaking out, the police official said.

In the early hours of Wednesday, the police took the two women to the hill temple inside an ambulance to avoid attention. Medical services are frequently used outside the temple to help the elderly who go on the trek, the official said.

After offering prayers, the women merged with the crowd and headed to the exit, accompanied by four police in plain clothes, the police official said.

 

“Every minute, about 100 devotees throng to the sanctum sanctorum and there was no way the priest would have noticed these two,” he said.

Several women turned away by devotees in previous attempts to enter the temple said they had faced a backlash.

Bindhu Thankam Kalyani, 43, a teacher in Kerala, who tried to enter Sabarimala in October, said she was harassed by protesters. “They would come to my school and intimidate me,” she said.
However, some women who support the ban have criticised the women, saying they were defying religious tradition.

“We have been taught from our childhood that women should not go,” said Saritha C. Nair, 35, an entrepreneur.

Additional reporting by Jose Devasia; Editing by Janet Lawrence

Police reinforcements for Northern Ireland in case of no-deal Brexit

Almost 1,000 officers from rest of UK to start training to deal with trouble arising from hard border

A Northern Ireland police vehicle is attacked as officers try to stop an unregistered parade in Derry last April. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

Vikram Dodd, Jennifer Rankinin Brussels and Rajeev Syal-Thu 3 Jan 2019 20

Almost 1,000 police officers from England and Scotland are to begin training for deployment in Northern Ireland in case of disorder from a no-deal Brexit, the Guardian has learned.

The plans were put in place after Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chiefs asked for reinforcements to deal with any trouble that arises from a hard border. The training for officers from English forces and Police Scotland is expected to begin this month.

The news came on a day of growing concern that a no-deal Brexit is becoming a distinct possibility, on which:

• The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, said Ireland was “now preparing for no deal with the same level of seriousness that we would” Theresa May’s deal, adding that he and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had spoken and agreed that there could be no change in the offer to the UK.

• EU leaders rebuffed May’s hopes that her round of phone diplomacy could prompt any movement, saying “negotiations have concluded”.

• May’s attempts to woo the Democratic Unionist party were again rejected after two days of intense negotiations, making the chance of victory for the prime minister in the crucial mid-January vote on her deal still more remote.

The prospect of large numbers of English and Scottish officers being deployed on the streets of Northern Ireland after 29 March could anger republicans and complicate efforts to restore the power-sharing executive at Stormont, which collapsed in 2017.

The option of reinforcements is deemed necessary to cover the possibility of civil disorder arising from disquiet about border arrangements that could be put in place after a hard Brexit.

The police training will require officers to be pulled from their regular duties. It is needed because some of the equipment and tactics used in Northern Ireland vary from those used in the rest of the UK.

The PSNI request was made under mutual aid arrangements, which are in place to enable local police forces to help each other in times of heightened demands.

A team at the National Police Chiefs’ Council are planning for a no-deal Brexit which will also see extra demands on policing across the UK. Demands for reinforcements for Northern Ireland in the event of no deal come as forces with major ports in their jurisdiction prepare for chaos, especially at Dover in Kent.

Plans for a national mobilisation of police, which were devised after the 2011 riots across England, are being revised and adapted for the tensions thrown up by a no-deal Brexit.

The size of PSNI’s request for reinforcements from the rest of the UK because of Brexit is roughly double those it has made in recent years for the province’s marching season, when extra officers are needed to police tensions between Protestant and Catholic communities.

In remarks rejecting the government’s latest overtures to the DUP, the party’s Nigel Dodds said fears of a hard border were “nonsense propaganda”, adding: “With this clarity emerging in London, Dublin and Brussels, there is evidently no need for this aspect of the withdrawal agreement.”

Sources suggested that the meetings with May and the Conservative chief whip, Julian Smith, were “Groundhog Days” for those present. Significantly, there are no scheduled plans for further meetings between the prime minister and the DUP to discuss the backstop, the fallback plan to prevent the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

But Varadkar said the EU’s existing offer would not change. Saying he had “given up speculating” on whether the UK would leave the EU without a deal, he added that despite May’s attempts to find support in her phone calls to Merkel and others in recent days, European leaders stood united on the issue.

“We’re happy to offer reassurances and guarantees to the UK, but not reassurances and guarantees that contradict or change what was agreed back in November,” he said.

Irish and British government officials would be speaking by phone on Friday, Reuters reported Varadkar as saying. He added that the calls would be followed up with “direct contact” between the two prime ministers as needed.

Like its counterpart in the Republic of Ireland, the UK government is stepping up plans for a no-deal scenario. The Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, said the government was to “accelerate our no-deal planning further” to include a public information campaign, using radio and social media to raise awareness about the need to prepare.

With only 85 days until the Brexit deadline, the government has been pushing for further guarantees on the backstop.

But a European commission spokeswoman said talks could not be reopened. “The deal that is on the table is the best and only deal possible and the EU27 leaders confirmed on 13 December in their conclusions that it will not be renegotiated,” she said. “As I understand for now, no further meetings are foreseen between the commission’s negotiators and the UK’s negotiators, as negotiations have indeed concluded.”

An EU source said nothing had happened regarding Brexit over the last 10 days, although May had spoken with the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, on Wednesday. The prime minister spoke to Merkel twice during the holiday period.

The EU’s reluctance to reopen talks reflects the deeply held view among officials that the bloc has gone as far as it can in offering reassurance on the backstop.

“There is a general frustration with the whole process. We have worked very hard for the last 18 months,” said one EU source. “We have compromised, we have done a lot to get this nailed down on time.”

No one cares as Trump plan delayed again

Trump’s peace plan is seemingly nothing more than a call on Palestinians to stop demanding their rights.Ashraf AmraAPA images

As the year came to an end and another began,
And the snowflakes took flight all over the land,
Crazy tales were told to rapt children ‘round fires,
of a plan – a great plan – to bring peace to holy shires.

The Ultimate Deal™, the Deal of the Century,
call it what you will, this plan will give sanctuary,
to the weak and the weary and the rich and the poor,
to all except you, you’re Palestinian, you sucker!

Omar Karmi - 2 January 2019

This was not Nikki Haley’s Christmas message to the United Nations. Which is a shame: It would have been honest.

But at least she talked. Hers remains the last public commentary we have from any senior US official on the much-awaited, almost mythical unicorn peace plan that is going to solve the Palestine question for once and all and is being worked out in the Donald Trump White House by son-in-law Jared “if he can’t do it no one can” Kushner.

The plan, she informed us on 18 December, would offer a “choice between a hopeful future that sheds the tired, old and unrealistic demands of the past, or a darker future that sticks with the proven failed talking points.”

The key word here is “unrealistic,” and the key audience is the Palestinians. Give up, Haley is saying in not so many words, on your “tired, old” aspirations for justice and freedom, these “talking points.” Accept instead a “massive improvement” in your quality of life and “far greater control” over your future.

What an offer this promises to be. Imagine the relief of the slave with just one shackle attached facing the prospect of “far greater freedom,” or the wrongly accused death row prisoner whose sentence is commuted for a decades-long prison sentence and “far greater life.”

Who said America, the land of the free and home of the hotdog, did not stand up for the little guy? Is that a shining city on the hill, a beacon of democracy, liberty, individual freedom and the pursuit of happiness? Or just some light escaping a gold brick crap house?

A little relief

It is of course news to no one (except perhaps those in the Beltway bubble) that the US has never been a force for democracy, human rights, freedom and all good things to all mankind. In this way at least, the Trump administration’s more transactional, more nakedly self-interested approach, in which vice has long stopped paying tribute to virtue, is a welcome relief from the delusions of the past.

The US should not – as Trump recently said – be policeman to the Middle East or any other part of the world. Any such role cannot be entrusted to a single country, especially not one so in thrall to special interests. You want an international policeman? Abide by international law, and agree that the body tasked with administering it, the UN, be enabled to enforce it.

But Washington’s current penchant for 20th century nation-state power politics does nothing for anyone not already on top, least of all the Palestinians.

In her December UN swan song, Haley suggested that Israel would take greater risks while Palestinians would reap greater benefits from accepting the Trump plan.

It is incredibly hard to see what risks Israel is running, however. Washington has, after all, already taken the refugees and Jerusalem off the table.

What’s left? The booming settlement construction sector? What harm to Israel could possibly arise from a plan put together by settlement benefactor Jared Kushner, settlement advocate David Friedman, and settlement guard Jason Greenblatt?

In this shambles of a state of affairs, two things bring relief in the new year.

First, no one is going to have to suffer the indignity of pretending to take the US administration’s plan seriously for a while. By all accounts, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to call early elections and ward off the threat of corruption charges has caused the White House to delay releasing its plan until after that April vote.

Secondly, Americans on the right, supporters of Trump and Israel, those rarely reached by the likes of this august publication, will become increasingly aware of the actual cost to the US of America’s support for Israel: $4.5 billion a year and more “frankly … if you look at the books.”

Exclusive: New revelations about ferry firm awarded no deal contract

3 Jan 2019

The Transport Secretary Chris Grayling yesterday assured this programme that his department had done “detailed work” on the financial and operational plans of the British company Seabourne Freight, which has been contracted to supply ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

But we have been told that Chief Executive Ben Sharp once ran a shipping company that ceased trading –  owing more than a million pounds to multiple shipping companies.

Mr Sharp has denied the allegations. Our Business Editor Siobhan Kennedy has this exclusive report.

Justice Dept. investigating whether Zinke lied to inspector general

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke testifies at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing in March 2018. (Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

By Matt Zapotosky ,Josh Dawsey ,Juliet Eilperin and Lisa Rein-January 3 at 1:03 PM

The Justice Department’s public integrity section is examining whether newly departed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to his agency’s inspector general investigators, according to three people familiar with the matter, a potential criminal violation that would exacerbate Zinke’s legal woes.

Zinke, who left the Trump administration Wednesday, was facing two inspector general inquiries tied to his real estate dealings in his home state of Montana and his involvement in reviewing a proposed casino project by Native American tribes in Connecticut. In the course of that work, inspector general investigators came to believe Zinke had lied to them, and they referred the matter to the Justice Department to consider whether any laws were violated, the people familiar with the matter said.

The department’s public integrity section has since been exploring the case, the people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The extent of its work is unclear, though the inspector general had questioned witnesses in an apparent attempt to scrutinize Zinke’s account, one of the people said.

[Zinke’s own agency watchdog just referred him to the Justice Department]

A spokesman for Zinke said Zinke voluntarily participated in two inspector general interviews about the Connecticut tribal matter and “to the best of his knowledge answered all questions truthfully.” The spokesman said Zinke had not been contacted by the Justice Department and that disclosures about the matter violated inspector general and Justice Department protocols.

On Wednesday, Zinke wrote a farewell letter to staff and posted a handwritten note on Twitter, but neither made mention of the ethics allegations that prompted his departure.

Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke resigned on Dec. 15, as he faced intense pressure to step down due to multiple probes. (Video: Luis Velarde /Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

“When I was a Boy Scout, I was taught to leave the campsite better than I found it,” he wrote to Interior’s 70,000 employees. “I am confident that over the last 2 years, we have done that together for our public lands and the Department of the Interior.”

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

The Justice Department’s interest in the matter is significant, signaling prosecutors felt Zinke’s account was suspect and warranted further scrutiny. Department officials have not yet decided, though, whether he should face charges, people familiar with the matter said.

The crime of making false statements can be difficult to prove because it requires investigators to show a person “knowingly and willfully” lied, rather than simply misstated a fact. Zinke’s resignation, too, could make him a less appealing target for prosecutors.

Several former Trump advisers have pleaded guilty to lying to investigators or to Congress, including his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and a former campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos.

Zinke, who submitted his resignation last month, had faced intense pressure to step down because of the probes into his conduct, though President Trump had soured on him for other reasons, too, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. In particular, this person said, Trump was upset Zinke would not challenge Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in last year’s election and over how Zinke handled the administration’s plan to expand offshore drilling.

[White House concerned Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke violated federal rules]

Last January, Zinke flew to Florida and, without consulting the White House, announced in a news conference with then-Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) that Interior would exempt the state from offshore drilling. The move raised ethics questions, along with an outcry from other governors whose coastal states were affected by the plan.

It was not clear precisely what Zinke is thought to have lied about, but two of the people familiar with the matter said it was not about a land deal Zinke struck with the chairman of oil services giant Halliburton in his hometown of Whitefish, Mont. Interior’s inspector general has been probing that as a possible conflict of interest.

The inspector general has also been exploring Zinke’s involvement in a dispute over a bid from two Native American tribes to operate a casino in East Windsor, Conn.

The feud over the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes’ quest to jointly operate a gambling facility has sparked intense lobbying, since the outcome affects the flow of hundreds of millions in annual gaming revenue. The tribes allege Zinke succumbed to political pressure in not granting their application.

The two tribes sought federal approval to run the commercial casino off reservation land as part of an agreement with Connecticut officials, which required an amended agreement to ensure the new operation would provide 25 percent of its slot machine revenue to the state.

MGM Resorts International objected because the casino would compete with its gaming complex 12 miles away in Springfield, Mass., and could jeopardize its chances of opening a casino in Connecticut.

Interior officials — including career staff and even some Trump appointees — had been poised to approve the agreement last summer, according to interviews with current and former employees and documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. Politico first reported career staff’s support for the tribes’ petition. Ultimately, though, the department refused to sign off on the Mashantucket Pequot’s proposal, sparking a lawsuit from the tribe and the state of Connecticut.

In September, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras dismissed the tribe’s initial claim. The Mohegan tribe withdrew from the litigation after Interior acknowledged the validity of its gaming agreement in June.

But the tribe — which was nearly wiped out four centuries ago by the English — has continued to press its case. It sought to amend its claim in October, arguing in court documents that Interior staff had “prepared draft approval letters” on Oct. 8, 2017, but then informed the tribes a week later it would take no action on the petition, stymieing the project. The tribe charged that “the Department ultimately buckled under undue political pressure” from two Republican members of Congress from Nevada, Sen. Dean Heller and Rep. Mark Amodei.

Heller, who has since left the Senate, having lost his reelection bid last year, could not be reached for comment. Amodei said in an October 2017 interview with newspaper columnist David Collins that he told Interior officials to “do their job” and was merely acting on behalf of a licensed gaming operator in Nevada.

The court filing alleges “Senator Heller directly pressured Secretary Zinke to do what was necessary to stop the Tribes’ joint venture casino project during a private dinner at a steakhouse in Las Vegas, on or about July 30, 2017.” Zinke’s official calendar shows he was in Las Vegas that day, before catching a late-night flight back to Washington, but it does not list his activities there.

With Zinke gone, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is trying to get his successor to approve changes to the tribal-state compact, so the East Windsor casino can proceed. Connecticut state lawmakers are also considering new legislation that would eliminate the requirement that the tribes receive approval from Interior before moving ahead with the casino.

Reflections on 2018, Forecasting 2019

by Robert J. Burrowes-Jan 3, 2019

Jan 3, 2019

In many ways it is painful to reflect on the year 2018; a year of vital opportunities lost when so much is at stake.

Whether politically, militarily, socially, economically, financially or ecologically, humanity took some giant strides backwards while passing up endless opportunities to make a positive difference in our world.

Let me, very briefly, identify some of the more crucial backward steps, starting with the recognition by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in January that the year had already started badly when they moved the Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight, the closest it has ever been to ‘doomsday’ (and equal to 1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclear weapon matching the US capacity). See ‘It is now two minutes to midnight’.

Reflections on 2018, Foreca... by on Scribd

America’s 'No' to global policeman role, a notable foreign policy shift

US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet members of the US military during an unannounced trip to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq on December 26, 2018.

January 2, 2019, 10:15 pm 

The decision by US President Donald Trump to withdraw his country's troops from Syria with the declaration that the US would be no more the global 'policeman' marks a notable shift in US foreign policy. Up to now, the world was not given any reason to believe that the US would cease from being militarily involved, in a largely offensive mode, in the world's conflict and war zones, but Trump's pronouncement ought to set the world thinking.

If the US President is to be taken at his word, the US would drastically reduce its active military presence the world over, beginning with Syria, to be apparently followed by Afghanistan. Paying a lightning visit to US troops in Iraq at Christmas time, Trump was quoted as saying by way of justification for his withdrawal decision that, 'It's not fair when the burden is all on us. We don't want to be taken advantage of any more by countries that use us and use our incredible military to protect them. They don't pay for it and they're going to have to.'

If the US goes ahead with this decision in a thoroughgoing manner, there could not only be a drastic US military disengagement from the world, but also an eventual total international withdrawal on the part of the US in the vital area of global security. Is, then, the US heading for a policy of international isolation? 'This is the Question'.

The minds of the more seasoned observers of international affairs ought to go back to the inter-war years when the US opted for a policy of international isolation. It persisted in this stance until the compulsions of World War Two, such as the non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union at the height of the war, coupled with Japan's alliance with Germany, compelled the US to enter the war on the side of the Western alliance.

The decision by the US to enter the war proved crucial in that it enabled the West to triumph over Germany. Needless to say, this result led to the emergence of the US as a super power along with the eventual domination of world affairs by the West. The post-war international power system would have been vastly different if the US persisted in its policy of international isolationism.

Thus, the US has proved a crucial factor in protecting and perpetuating Western interests in the world system over the decades. The presence of the US in international politics in the post-World War Two order did not necessarily translate into sustained support by the US for liberal democracy world wide but the US has proved an important counter-weight to repressive, totalitarian powers that were not fully supportive of liberal democracy in its more vital pro-people aspects. Accordingly, the US played a role in maintaining some space in the international system for liberal democracy although it was also an opportunistic backer of repressive regimes in the then Third World, which were prepared to serve its ideological, strategic and economic interests.

However, we now live in substantially different, post-Cold War times when multi-polarity and not bipolarity is the chief characteristic of the world power system. The US is under no compulsion to counter-balance the power and influence world wide of an ideological arch rival such as the Soviet Union. Instead of the two international power blocs led by it and the Soviet Union in Cold War times, the US has to now contend with a multiplicity of powers that are in competition with it and among themselves for global economic and strategic influence. Chief among the latter is China.

Tense although the present times may be, considering that the world is multi-polar in nature, there is no danger of wars on the scale of the two World Wars breaking out. The Trump administration has made it plain that it does not intend to prove a staunch ally of the US' former partners of the West. It is not burdened with any 'ideological luggage' from the past. Instead, the US has made it clear that it intends 'to go it alone', seeking to protect, in the main, what it sees as its national interests. Hence the slogan 'America First'.

Accordingly, the US could seriously consider disengaging from the world, if its interests are well served by such a policy stance. It could well afford to do this currently because it remains the world's number one military, economic and political power.

The confidence deriving from the consciousness of its prime power status is such that the US could even afford to be dismissive of China's undoubted power. The current US-China trade war is proof of this. But there is some 'method' in this seeming 'madness'. This is because the Trump administration sees, very correctly, that the basis of international power is today, primarily, economic and not military in nature. The primacy of economic power renders 'hot' wars superfluous although the US would need to constantly look over it shoulders at states such as China, Russia and Iran which would resist falling easily in line with it.

Besides, the US is forging close relations with India with a view to counter-balancing China's influence and power in the South and South-east Asian regions. It already enjoys close ally status with the number one powers of the Far East such as Japan and South Korea besides establishing progressively close economic links with the up and coming economic powers of ASEAN, such as Vietnam and the Philippines. Through its breaking of ice with North Korea, the US is further bolstering its influence in the Eastern theatre which was at one-time a stronghold of Russia and China.

Accordingly, the US could afford to play a hands-off role in the world's trouble spots. The fact that it need not conduct any proxy wars of the Cold War kind in the global South any more makes an isolationist policy very amenable to the US currently.

However, as pointed out in this column frequently, civilians are dying in mind-numbing numbers in the war zones of the South, including Syria, the Middle East and Afghanistan. What could be done to alleviate human suffering in these regions of war is the moot issue. The Trump administration ought to be reminded by the more humanistic sections of the US that it could not continue to turn a blind eye on these hapless humans. Its standing as a civilizing influence could very well be at stake.

Trump’s aversion to multilateralism plunges world into multilateral crisis

Selective multilateralism: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivering his speech at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels

 2019-01-04

ax Americana 2.0 is the title of a political discussion on Russia Today television on New Year’s Eve.  The Crosstalk programme conducted by Peter Lavelle had as its theme a recent speech delivered by the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.  
Addressing European leaders last month at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels, Secretary Pompeo critiqued multilateralism and questioned the worthiness of international institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation and the International Criminal Court.  The topic of the lecture was “Restoring the role of the nation state in international order.” 

Pointing out that the United Nations was founded as an organisation of peace-loving nations, he asked whether the world body continued to serve its mission faithfully.  His answer was that not only the UN, but most multilateral institutions also had not lived by their ideals. 
Then dismissing criticism that the Donald Trump administration has undermined multilateralism, Pompeo said, “Critics in places like Iran and China, who really are undermining the international order, are saying the Trump administration is the reason this system is breaking down. They claim America is acting unilaterally instead of multilaterally, as if every kind of multilateral action is by definition desirable. Even our European friends sometimes say we’re not acting in the world’s interest. This is just plain wrong.”

Though, Pompeo was critical of multilateralism, he defended NATO, describing it as “an indispensable institution. He called on all NATO allies to strengthen what he hailed as “the greatest military alliance in all of history.” Perhaps, such praise was heaped on NATO because since it was set up in 1949, it has been acting like an appendage of the US military. This is selective and self-centred multilateralism, which gives little thought to humanity’s wellbeing or the health of the Planet Earth.Though the US Secretary of State declared in international affairs multilateralism was a failure, he was promoting a new liberal order led by the US, prompting the Russia Today programme host to ask whether such an international order meant the universalisation of American law and whether it would limit sovereignty for the rest of the world. 

From Day One, the Trump administration has made it clear that it will not uphold multilateralism at the cost of the United States’ national interest.  Trump’s ‘America First’ declaration is paved with selfish undertones which are now evident in his administration’s international, political and trade relations.  This does not mean that his predecessors did not put America first in their foreign and trade policies. The difference is that they understood the larger picture and realised the importance of making compromises in bilateral and multilateral agreements. They believed that multilateralism with a give-and-take spirit would be beneficial to the United States in the long run. If not in terms of immediate economic benefits, it was still a price worth paying for in terms of long-term benefits and, of course, to maintain the United States’ global leadership.

But in his first act symbolising the America First Policy since taking office on January 20, 2017, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, a trade deal that was pressed ahead by his predecessor Barack Obama to prevent a China-led international trade order from taking shape.  The Trump administration has since then withdrawn from the Paris climate deal and from the United Nations Human Rights Council. On January 1 this year, the US formally withdrew from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), accusing it of having an anti-Israel bias.  

Nikki Haley, the outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations, in a harsh tweet blasted the UNESCO as being among the most corrupt and politically biased UN agencies. “Today the U.S. withdrawal from this cesspool became official. #USStrong” she tweeted, bringing out the incompatibility between Trump’s America Frist policy and multilateralism. 

The appointment last year of hardcore Neocon John Bolton as Trump’s National Security Advisor is yet another proof of the Trump administration’s aggressive nationalism and contempt for multilateralism. Bolton once disdainfully remarked that the UN headquarters could easily lose ten of its floors without any impact. On another occasion, he remarked that there was no United Nations.

True, in a stricter sense, there is little altruism in multilateralism. Countries subscribe to multilateralism because there is much to gain from it.  In overcoming the challenges the humanity faces at large, concerted action through multilateralism can bring quicker and speedier results than what can be achieved individually at national level.  The Ebola outbreak in Africa was a case in point.  If Liberia, for instance, had been left alone to tackle the issue on its own, it would have failed miserably and millions would have died, while the disease would have become a worldwide pandemic. It is largely because of global efforts and the involvement of the World Health Organisation that the outbreak was contained. 

Then take the crucial issue of climate change.  Although the Trump administration, in keeping with its disregard for multilateralism, has withdrawn from the Paris agreement, other nations are not as mindless as Trump’s America as to dismiss climate change as a hoax.  It goes without saying that the global warming can be contained only if the entire world comes together. 

Multilateralism has contributed towards the relative success of the UN’s ambitious Millennium Development Goals.  As a result, member-states have been motivated to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal targets now.  Multilateralism has improved the quality of life of billions of people worldwide. Life expectancy, literacy and access to health have seen remarkable gains in the past fifty years largely due to multilateral efforts. 

Despite criticism, multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund have contributed towards the smooth functioning of world trade and helped many nations to overcome economic crises. 
If multilateralism collapses, it would only spell further misery to humanity. Already, in many countries, anti-multilateralism sentiments have led to the erosion of liberal values.  Right wing demagogues opposing multilateralism are gaining strength in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere.  One wonders whether the disturbing trend has a direct correlation to the US failure to live up to the values multilateralism advocates.

Washington needs to realize that the collapse of rules-based multilateralism could lead to world wars and an erosion of values. In this international anarchy, powerful countries will try to pursue their empire-building ambitions.  
With the US not in favour of all-out multilateralism, while the European Union is under strain due to a tendency to disintegrate following the Brexit example, is the alternative a China-led multilateralism in which universal values such as democracy, human rights and freedoms of speech, movement and worship have little or no recognition? 

Regardless of China’s quest to be the world’s number one economic power, the US could still be the world leader if it gives leadership to a rules-based global order and takes genuine measures to promote peace and justice. Is this wishful thinking?