France’s Election Is Trump vs. Merkel vs. Modi vs. Corbyn

BY JAMES TRAUB-APRIL 20, 2017

When she launched her campaign for president of France earlier this year, Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front Party, reminded a jam-packed crowd of 3,000 activists of “the two totalitarianisms” she had pledged to fight: “Islamism” and “financialism.” In the face of this “civilizational choice,” Le Pen solemnly pledged to “defend the outer walls of our society.”

The French go to the polls on Sunday. According to the most recent polls, Le Pen is one of four candidates who have a chance to finish in the top two and thus contest the runoff on May 7. If you made a matrix with Le Pen’s two master issues — national identity and globalization — along the side, and the two essential responses — “liberal” and “anti-liberal” — along the top, you would find that each of the four candidates fill one of the resulting boxes.

Le Pen’s chief rival, Emmanuel Macron of En Marche!, is liberal on both counts; François Fillon, the Republican candidate, is illiberal on identity and liberal on the economy; and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the far left La France Insoumise, is the opposite. Astonishingly, then, on the eve of the election French voters are almost equally divided among the four cardinal positions on the great issues of the day.

This is clarifying. After the shock of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, there is a natural tendency to imagine that the Western world has been divided into great camps — the illiberal governments of Eastern Europe and the United States whose programs resemble Le Pen’s, versus the Macroniste liberal regimes of Western Europe. But beyond those frontiers lie Filloniste democracies like India and Turkey, increasingly nationalistic but nevertheless eager to exploit the benefits of globalization. Meanwhile, analogues of Mélenchon’s (or Bernie Sanders’) anti-globalization left have managed to reach national power only in Greece, with Syriza, but such parties are riding a wave of popularity in southern Europe, including Italy and Spain.

The future may belong neither to the pure liberals nor the pure illiberals; the convulsion that has upended the politics of the West is still in its early years.

The future may belong neither to the pure liberals nor the pure illiberals; the convulsion that has upended the politics of the West is still in its early years. The French election hardly exhausts the possibilities, but it does show that we need to think beyond our binary categories.

Let’s start with culture and national identity. Unlike in Germany, Sweden, and Hungary, where the refugee crisis has suddenly provoked fears that traditional identity is under siege from a wave of alien newcomers, culture has been contested terrain in France, and in French politics, for well over a decade. As in the Netherlands (which I wrote about last month), politicians have made hay by exploiting fears that immigrants, above all Muslim immigrants, do not integrate into the national culture, cluster in ghettos, commit crimes, and of course carry out terrorist acts. Trump’s electoral victory put to rest any lingering questions about the effectiveness of this political strategy.

This is Le Pen’s wheelhouse. She has called for restricting immigration to 10,000 per year, or about 5 percent of the current annual total. She has railed against “communitarianism,” the French term for group identity. She has trained her fans to shout “On est chez nous!” — “It’s our home!” — in response to red-flag words like “foreigner” and “Islam.” She also wants to withdraw from the European Union and the euro. For Le Pen, everything not-French is a threat to the French; the more not-French, the greater the threat.

Fillon, the center-right candidate, plays these notes in a more muted vein. All serious French candidates write a campaign book, and sometimes more than one; Fillon titled his Defeating Islamic Totalitarianism. “France doesn’t have a problem of religion,” he wrote. “It has a problem connected to Islam.” He has called for a new form of “administrative control” of French mosques, and would change the French Constitution to permit legislators to assign an annual immigrant quota, including country-specific quotas. The United States has long maintained just such a system, but it violates Article 1 of the French Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law irrespective of national tradition. Blatant appeals to France’s threatened Christian culture helped lift Fillon over his primary challenger, Alain Juppé, who bravely — and unsuccessfully — raised the banner of a French “identité heureuse,” or positive identity.

Though he has endured a good deal of mockery for his unwillingness to commit himself on controversial subjects, Macron has shown real courage on questions of immigration and identity. In the aftermath of the December 2016 terrorist attack on the Christmas market in Berlin, which left critics of Germany’s open-door refugee policy feeling vindicated, Macron took to the pages of Le Monde to proclaim that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German society “have saved our collective dignity by welcoming refugees in distress, by housing them and by training them.” He has heaped scorn on Le Pen for seeking to divide the French against themselves. He is a passionate advocate of the EU. Macron is the candidate of the identité heureuse.

Mélenchon, a former Trotskyist, arrives at a cosmopolitan vision from a base of Marxist universalism. He urges his followers, as I heard him do in one speech, to stand up for “those dying abandoned in the streets, those driven to suicide at work, those drowned in the Mediterranean.” In the candidates’ debate in late March, he insisted that the French tradition of laïcité “must not serve as a pretext to attack Muslims,” and mocked Le Pen’s campaign against the veil by suggesting a clothing police to arrest people with green hair or women with short skirts.

But openness toward other peoples, religions, and tongues does not dictate openness toward trade and capital from beyond the border. On such matters, Le Pen and Mélenchon find much to agree on. Where the former speaks of “financiarisation,” the latter, more picturesquely, flays “the financial funds which are parasites and leeches on the productive body.” (Le Pen is not above the anti-Semitic dog whistle, as when she pointedly refers to Macron as “the candidate of the Rothschild Bank,” where the leader of En Marche! once worked. Mélenchon does not descend to such calumny.) Both despise labor reforms designed to make it easier for French companies to hire and fire employees. Both lavish obloquy upon the regime of austerity dictated by the EU. Both oppose free trade and believe, along with Trump, that the national economy would somehow flourish behind protectionist walls.

After standing aside during a feverish debate about France’s 35-hour workweek, Le Pen said drolly, “I didn’t want to intervene in the ultraliberal debate” between Macron and Fillon. She’s right to say that the two are outliers in French terms. Fillon writes on his website, “I want to finally break the lock of 35 hours. This utopia, which has remained a French exception, must be abandoned.” Macron proposes allowing individual companies to negotiate a longer workweek. The 2014 “loi Macron,” named after the then-minister of the economy, made it slightly less cumbersome for employers to fire workers and eased the rules around Sunday opening for retailers, among other things. The law has made Macron a reviled figure on the left. Fillon and Macron propose to further liberalize work and retirement rules, both want to cut corporate taxes, and they are free traders in a country that regards globalization with deep suspicion. However, Macron, an ex-socialist, focuses more on strategic government investment and Fillon more on budget-cutting; Macron favors a stronger EU, while Fillon caters to widespread public contempt for European governance.

Despite their reputation for Cartesian habits of thought, the French are not going to actually choose a candidate on Sunday based on categorical distinctions.

Never before have so many voters remained undecided so close to Election Day; many will be making choices based on a strategic calculus rather than an assertion of preference.

Never before have so many voters remained undecided so close to Election Day; many will be making choices based on a strategic calculus rather than an assertion of preference. That calculus is: How can I prevent Marine Le Pen from becoming president of France? Le Pen’s nationalism is far more radical than Fillon’s, and her economic policy even more ruinous than Mélenchon’s. Recent revelations that some of Le Pen’s closest advisors are Nazi sympathizers have only ratcheted up fears of a National Front victory. Voters on the left are racking their brains over the ideal strategy to keep that from happening.

The likeliest beneficiary of the so-called vote utile is Macron, whom moderate leftists and moderate conservatives both feel they can live with. Macron is young, handsome, dynamic, and feels more like the future than his rivals. Nevertheless, it’s very strange to contemplate the possibility that French voters, traditionally hostile toward the free market, and deeply worried about terrorism and
“communitarianism,” may choose a genuine liberal as president. Macron may find that he has very little ability to bring his citizens to a more classically Anglo-American worldview, especially when the Anglo-American world is heading in the opposite direction. He could be a president without a mandate.

There are good reasons why three of the four viable candidates have rejected central elements of the liberal consensus — even if in doing so they have mined some of the public’s darkest instincts. The faith in free markets and free trade no longer speaks to a middle class that feels left behind by the forces of globalization. And the cultural universalism that welcomes refugees and immigrants has run into the reality that many Muslims do not accept the secularism and the progressive values of the West, even if only a minute fraction of them actively seek to harm those values. Thus it is not enough to repeat the shibboleths of the triumphal post-Cold War moment. Le Pen likes to say that the great struggle of our time is between “mondialisation” and “patriotisme.” Liberalism must find a language, and a set of policies, to pry patriotism from the clutches of the nationalists and the xenophobes. A cosmopolitan identity, or even a European one, is too flimsy a garment for most people to wear. The real struggle of the future may be the effort to define an affirmative patriotism. French voters will join that struggle on Sunday.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Venezuela seizes a General Motors plant amid anti-government protests

An antigovernment demonstrator throws a molotov bomb at security forces in Caracas on Wednesday. (Fernando Llano/AP)

By Nick Miroff April 20 at 1:08 PM

General Motors announced on Thursday that it was pulling out of Venezuela after authorities seized its auto plant, in a fresh sign of the turmoil gripping the South American country as anti-government protests swell.

The plant takeover happened on the same day that huge crowds of demonstrators marched against President Nicolás Maduro’s government, calling for new elections and a return to democratic rule. The move against GM could further strain relations between Venezuela’s leftist government and Washington.

GM called the expropriation of its factory “an illegal judicial seizure of its assets” and announced it would cease operations in the country, where it employs nearly 2,700 workers.

The company is not the first foreign firm whose assets have been confiscated by Venezuelan authorities, but those actions have typically been preceded by repeated public threats from the socialist government.

On April 19, the Venezuelan government seized a General Motors plant, after opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro held the largest protest so far that month. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

[Venezuelans flood streets in big demonstration against Maduro government]

Venezuelan officials offered no explanation for its seizure of the GM facility. Some analysts saw it as part of a pattern of confrontation between the Maduro government and manufacturers as the economic situation deteriorates. But the timing of the move also led to suspicions that Maduro may be looking to escalate tensions with the United States and blame his government’s struggles on a brewing confrontation with the Trump administration. Maduro claims his opponents are colluding with U.S. authorities to overthrow him.

“It fits a broader pattern, in the sense that the government's response to surges in opposition activity tends to be the deepening of the revolution,” said Phil Gunson, a Venezuela-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, using the government’s term for its socialist makeover of Venezuelan society. “There are those at the top, including Maduro himself, who appear genuinely to believe that this is a revolution and the ultimate goal is the replacement of the capitalist economy with one that is entirely state-run.”

[Venezuela protests: Photos from the ‘mother of all protests’]

On Wednesday, a Venezuelan court in the western state of Zulia ordered the American company’s assets frozen and its property seized, siding against GM in a suit filed by a former GM dealer in 2000, according to Venezuelan news accounts. Why the court issued the ruling 16 years later, at the peak of anti-Maduro protests, was unclear.

The automaker said the judicial order was “arbitrary” and “in total disregard of [GM’s] right to due process, causing irreparable damage to the company.”

Auto manufacturing has virtually come to a halt in Venezuela amid a broader economic collapse under Maduro. The economy contracted by an estimated 18 percent last year, as the country faced one of the world’s highest inflation rates and suffered widespread shortages of food and medicine.

Once one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations, the oil-rich country has witnessed a broad, painful withering of industrial activity.

Protests against Maduro continued Thursday. Police fired tear gas at demonstrators, but the crowds appeared to be smaller than during Wednesday’s marches.

[Venezuelans are storming markets and attacking trucks as supplies dwindle]

In its statement denouncing the takeover of its factory, GM said it has operated in Venezuela since 1948.

 The Detroit automaker said vehicles and other property were “illegally taken from its facilities” as well.

Production at the GM plant in the city of Valencia had virtually halted because of government import restrictions and shortages of raw materials. Union leaders at the plant said in February that GM had not assembled any new vehicles in Venezuela since 2015 and was limiting production to replacement parts.

Foreign firms that have pulled out of Venezuela or whose properties have been expropriated rarely receive compensation and have struggled to collect on international court judgments against the cash-squeezed government.

Last year, authorities seized a plant owned by U.S.-based multinational Kimberly-Clark, renaming it after a 16th-century indigenous leader who rebelled against Spanish colonial rule. But diapers, sanitary napkins and other health products manufactured at the plant remain scarce in Venezuela because of acute shortages of raw materials.

David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America, said that despite the timing of the GM takeover, he didn’t see the move as an attempt to “tweak the U.S.”

“It is part of a broader pattern in which big manufacturers reduce their activity to a trickle because they cannot get the dollars to import the inputs they need to produce,” he said. Then the government accuses them of reducing production as part of an ‘economic war.’ The standoff ends either with the company closing shop or the government seizing its assets.”

Mariana Zuñiga in Caracas contributed to this report.

“A World in Disarray”

What is this Washington establishment? There are several interpretations.

by Laksiri Fernando-Apr 19, 2017

( April 19, 2017, Sydney, Sri Lanka Guardian) I have borrowed the title from a new book by Richard Haass published this year with the subtitle “American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order.” It is undoubtedly a fitting description of the present uncertain and volatile situation, particularly in America, irrespective of the fact the book was completed before the end of the presidential elections. The value of the book enhances because of this fact. Its last chapter is titled “A Country in Disarray’ to mean the American situation, and its foreign policy. In Haass’ own words in the Forward, the presidential elections “…underscored this judgment by highlighting multiple divisions within American society that are both long-standing and deep.” Donald Trump’s U-turns and brinkmanship in foreign policy have further highlighted this reasoning in multiple ways in recent weeks.

British Elections   

Just few minutes before starting this article, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, announced her decision to call for a snap election on 8 June, which requires a two thirds majority in Parliament tomorrow, given the fixed parliamentary term laws. In her speech, she lamented about the divisions and lack of unity in Westminster, at a time most crucial for the country’s future. She further said,

“Divisions in Westminster will risk our ability to make a success of Brexit and cause damaging instability and uncertainty. We need an election and we need one now.”

It should be noted that when the then PM, David Cameron, of the same (Conservative) party called for a referendum in June 2016, he didn’t anticipate the Brexit outcome. Similarly, there can be a risk that the coming election might turn into another ‘referendum’ against her type of Brexit, which is called a ‘hard or clean Brexit,’ although her popularity is well ahead of Jeremy Corbin and the Labour Party. There are others who anticipate her victory, anticipated as overwhelming, to lead a ‘soft-Brexit’ instead of the present hard approach. There are more confusions. Another consequence could be the strengthening of the separatist drive of Scottish nationalism, even risking the unity of the Kingdom.

At least there is one silver lining in the dark cloud. Given the coming elections in Britain, it is quite unlikely that America would go for a risky war with North Korea (or in the Middle East), without its close partner and ally (Britain), although it could count on Australia’s (though reluctant) support. Australian policy seems to be to support America in the Asia-Pacific region, but not to the extent of a direct war, with North Korea or any other. South Korea is also going for presidential elections in May. When the American Vice President, Michael Pence, was in Tokyo the day before, the main Japanese interests were mainly to talk trade and economic relations and not war. Therefore, America may have to retreat from war rhetoric in a decent manner in the near future.

The downside of all these would be the unpleasant predicament of the world to repeatedly listen to North Korea’s military rhetoric in the coming future. This may be tolerable, if Kim Jong-un would not try a missile or a nuclear misadventure or strike. The tensions at present at the border between the North and the South are dangerous, irrespective of the so-called demilitarized zone.

End of An Era?      

As Richard Haass has summarized:

“What we are witnessing is a widespread rejection of globalization and international involvement and, as a result, a questioning of long-standing postures and policies, from openness to trade and immigrants to a willingness to maintain alliances and overseas commitments.”

The above refers to more profound, general and other issues in the international scene. As I write this, I hear the Australian PM, Malcolm Turnbull’s voice, repeatedly broadcasted over the TV in his announcement of scrapping of the Visa 457 early this evening, restricting overseas skilled labour taking up of Australian jobs. As he says: “Australian jobs for Australians, our policy is Australia First.” This is the equivalent of Donald Trump’s intended order banning H-1B Visas in the USA. As Paulin Hansen of the One Nation party claims, Turnbull’s policy is ‘plagiarised’ from her policy! It appears even the Labor (this is how Australia spells it without an unnecessary ‘u’) under Bill Shorten is towing a similar line. In Australia, unlike in the UK, there is quite a close symmetry between political parties on these issues and policies.

There is no question that the fall of the Berlin Wall (a previous 11/9) in 1989 and the apparent end of the Cold War ignited a hope for a new ear. Even after the containment of Saddam Hussein initially in 1990, there was much hope that a New World Order would emerge. Because there was much cooperation in the world for peace and justice. Against Saddam, when he invaded Kuwait, there was unanimity in the Security Council. But that is not there now.

However, there was another international undercurrent becoming predominant. That was triumphalism (neo-conservatism) and the trends of extreme globalization and neo-liberalism misusing innovations in IT and related technologies. Here I am not necessarily reporting Haass’ views, but my own. This is what has now led to disarray, betraying the hopes for a New World Order. This is not to deny any progress during this period. But the progress has been contradictory or lopsided even jeopardizing even our common environment through climate change. Haass has highlighted the tragedy in Syria, and in his words, “hundreds of thousands of Syrians had lost their lives and more than half of the population had become internally displaced or refugees, in the process threatening to overwhelm not just Syria’s neighbours but Europe as well.” I would add, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan also to the equation. As part of this fiasco, the number of refugees and internally displaced people in the world have increased to around sixty million. The purpose here is not to document all the symptoms of the current disarray, but to make a sense out of the main direction.

Bizarre Developments

When Donald Trump came to power in America there was some hope, whatever his other weaknesses, that he would somewhat change some of the previous ‘globalist’ policies. The ‘Pivot to Asia’ was one. Trump did call China ‘a currency manipulator’ but it was understood in terms of protecting the American economy. He and Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, appeared the best of international pals. Not long before, he even criticised Obama’s Syrian policy as interference.

In a dramatic U-Turn, however, Trump has now become the most belligerent American President that we have seen in ‘relative peace’ times. Within a span of a week or so, he ordered 59 Tomahawk missiles strikes at al Shayrat air force base in Syria. Then came the dropping of the ‘mother of all bombs’ (GBU-43) at Nangarhar in Afghanistan near the Pakistani border. He also ordered the Carl Vinson (an Armada) to sail towards North Korea.

There are questions on how to explain this bizarre turn of events. As quoted by Rajeewa Jayaweera (“One Global Policeman is Not Enough,” The Island, 19 April) Kathleen Nicks has explained the situation based on Trump’s ‘unpredictability, instincts and indiscipline.’ Another explanation came through the ‘News Republic’ news service, referring to John McCain’s interview with Chuk Todd, when the former appeared on ‘Meet the Press.’ To introduce briefly, John McCain is a senior Senator and a senior Republican. The relevant interview portion goes as follows.

Todd: “I want to talk about the overall changes. You’ve said he’s growing in office. There are some that will say, ‘no the Washington establishment sucked him in.”

McCain: “I hope so [awkward laughter]. On national security, I do believe he has assembled a strong team and I think, very appropriately, he is listening to them.”

What is this Washington establishment? There are several interpretations. Greg Rushford once gave the following.

“The real Washington establishment, however, consists of the people under the radar who spend decades there. They hold various titles — federal bureaucrat, lobbyist, lawyer, journalist, consultant, think-tank fellow — but they are alike in being inextricably linked to the policymaking process. They’re the ones who make the trains run on time.”

In other words, they are about the ‘deep state.’ They not only ‘make the trains run on time,’ as Rushford has said, but also ‘make the bombs drop on other people’s countries! Even there is a book titled, “How Washington Actually Works for Dummies”!

What is to be Done?

It sounds like Lenin! But there is a chapter on that title in Richard Haass’ book. Haass has been a professional diplomat and was an advisor to President George W. Bush, to say the least. Whatever his past views, he has come to some senses on the present situation. I have listen to him speaking on the book, the other day, and he is advocating in my view ‘a middle-path’ in many of the matters. He even said we need ‘a bit of humility’ in world affairs. I would say ‘not a bit, but a lot’! He doesn’t prophesy ‘disarray’ as a future perspective, but offers a way out. He says,

“A big part of how the future unfolds will depend on whether the principal powers of this era can develop a common approach, or at least overlapping approaches, for what constitutes [international] legitimacy.”

For this to happen, he also says that ‘sovereignty between and among states needs to remain at the centre of the global order.’ He does not consider sovereignty to be obsolete. Most interesting might be to a Sri Lankan audience is his departure or dissent from what is known as R2P (Responsibility to Protect). The usual argument is that if the protection fails, the states lose their sovereignty in that sphere or to that extent. Haass has suggested something fundamentally different. His premise is to start with ‘sovereign obligation’ of states.

As there is a right to sovereignty in the state, there is also a concomitant obligation for the state. This obligation is for or towards the other states, the governments, the peoples and for the agreed international principles (or laws). This is to have a better international order, preventing disarray. To state it again, the notion is ‘sovereign obligation.’ He believes this is different to ‘sovereign responsibility.’ Under the notion of R2P, when the ‘responsibility’ is breached or ‘deem’ to be breached, the so-called international community gets a legitimacy to intervene or interfere. In contrast, ‘sovereign obligation’ is almost a voluntary/natural obligation. It should come within and not outside.

Since mid-1990s, I have been grappling with the concept of ‘international factor/dynamic’ in human rights as well as democratic development. My understanding has always been that the ‘international factor/dynamic or influence’ could be persuasive but not domineering or intervening. There are of course responsibilities on the part of the states and governments to promote and protect human rights of the citizens, but any deviation or violation should best be settled within the countries. Haass does not refer to human rights or democratic developments as such. His primary concern is international order or better international order/relations without disarray.

However, the two concerns are intrinsically linked, as many of the fissures or chaotic conditions are due to the internal violations and/or undue international interferences; in the latter case, going against the very same objectives that those interventions are supposed to achieve. If a set of ‘sovereign obligations’ can be accepted as a ‘common approach or at least overlapping approaches,’ then the present world might be a better place to live. That is the way to get rid of ‘disarray’ according to Richard Haass.

Of Hawks and Tomahawks: A President who came in from the cold

2017-04-20

 “Sometimes, it is better to study a text for its meaning than for its truth”. Spinoza

Power dynamics and their self-revelatory nature were much in evidence in the decision taken by President Trump to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles on the Syrian rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlip province in NW Syria, giving him a rare popularity boost. These missiles cost US$ One million each. The payload for the missiles is manufactured by the American private sector, the delivery and guidance systems are provided by the US Navy. Every missile launched gives the manufacturer obscene profits. It is interesting that the launch was limited to 59 missiles, this being a prime number. There are international laws and conventions which guide the mechanics of a sovereign state taking offensive action against another. None of them was adhered to: the President’s macho decision to launch the missile attack on a sovereign state was an unilateral one.   

The UN, being an internationally consecrated body to safeguard and validate these laws and conventions, was ignored. The UN was founded in the aftermath of WW II. A similar international body preceded it, founded after WW I, called the League of Nations. It failed, because the then powerful nations - Japan, Italy - unilaterally declared war on Manchuria, which was part of China and Abyssinia (current Ethiopia) respectively. The League was unable to take effective action, either to prevent this aggression or penalise the aggressors. The result was that the credibility of the League was questioned. When issues of greater moment later arose, the League was toothless and collapsed. It could not prevent WWII, which started with an unilateral attack on Poland by Germany. 34 million, including 20 million Russians died in WWII. One of the greatest crimes inflicted on humanity was to have allowed the League to collapse.  

President Trump, the hawk armed with a Tomahawk has two areas of concern for his governance, one, his domestic agenda and managing the sub-set, the political turmoil in the White House and, second, of the turbulent international situation. His domestic agenda was xenophobic, a full throated “America first” policy and conducted with upholding a withdrawal of all progressive measures taken to support the weak and vulnerable - women, 
blacks, Latinos. 

ABOLISHING OBAMACARE

The primary aim of the domestic agenda was the abolition of Obamacare. Within 50 days of his taking oaths, Congress indicated that it was not in favour of this naive and unpopular proposal. Trump, who never held elective office, was learning that business was not the same as politics. He suffered the indignity of withdrawing the proposal, and that too in his honeymoon period! A successful abolition would have provided leverage to get his other proposals accepted and also provide him with enforced budgetary savings which would have enabled him to finance other parts of his domestic agenda. These openings are now staunched. The failure to carry through abolition, has placed Trump’s balance legislation proposals in limbo. 

WALL ALONG SOUTHERN US AND MEXICO BORDER

The second component of his domestic agenda, was to build a wall along the Rio Grande, separating the Southern US from Mexico. This is a 2,000 mile stretch, its construction is currently estimated to cost about US$ 12 billion. Trump had no idea how this was going to be financed, expecting Mexicans to do it, which the Mexicans scoffed at. This was Trump’s bluster, passing off as policy. 

TAX REFORM

The third proposal was tax reform. This is a highly regressive proposal, the rich having to pay less taxes and the middle classes more, the main revenue coming from a Border Import Tax, which the WTO will not agree with. It is unlikely that it will be passed. The fourth proposal is for a US$ One Trillion budget, to be spent over ten years on infrastructure- roads, bridges, airports. While this investment is highly necessary, Trump has no idea of how it will be financed. When pull comes to push, Trump was all bluff and bluster. The fifth proposal was to impose a ban on travellers from selected Muslim majority countries from coming to the US. This was imposed as an Executive Order but the Courts rejected it. 

TWO FACTIONS OF WHITE HOUSE

A critical sub-feature in implementing Trump’s agenda is Trump’s inability to have a working White House. The White House has two factions, bitterly railing against each other. One is Steve Bannon, the ideologue keeper of the conscience of the conservative Republicans. He is the chief strategist of the White House, unsparing in his criticism of those, he felt had reneged on the Republican agenda, the main culprit being Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Trump. A White House divided against itself cannot stand. Although differences between the two have been papered over, it is obvious that eventually the son-in-law will gain the upper hand. Colleagues who cause schisms on ideological grounds are unforgiving. Bannon will continue to be humoured but retained, on the earthy management principle laid down by President Lyndon Johnson for retaining Edgar Hoover - the dangerous head of the FBI - “it is better to keep him in the tent pissing out, rather than having him outside, pissing in”.  

The second main area for Trump’s concerns are foreign policy. The US has a particular responsibility since her war budget is more than the total of the war budgets of the next eight nations, which include Britain, France, China and Russia. Trump’s domestic agenda achievements are minimal in the eighty days of his administration. There were mutterings of impeachment, of Trump overstaying his welcome. He faced a grave possibility of being sent out into the cold. A US President is unhampered by any restrictions on actions on foreign issues. The chemical attack by Syria on Khansheikhoun was a god-sent. Trump - toxic masculinity personified - sent in his 59 Tomahawks, first taking the precaution of informing Russia, and when the Chinese President was being entertained by him.  

President Trump came in from the cold.  

The writer is a former member of the Ceylon Civil Service.   

Democracy Dies in Trump’s Darkness

BY NED PRICE-APRIL 20, 2017

With intentionally little fanfare late Friday afternoon, the Trump White House announced it would end the Obama administration’s practice of releasing White House visitor logs, outlandishly declaring the practice a “grave” national security threat. As with many developments during this administration’s frenetic first 100 days, it was all too easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees, and the swift outrage over this seemingly narrow decision soon subsided in deference to the next headline. To be understood properly, however, last week’s reversal should be seen as but one element in Donald Trump’s broader campaign against transparency.

On the domestic front, the administration has mistakenly adopted the view that transparency — whether in the form of visitor logs or the president’s tax returns — is an unnecessary virtue. When it comes to foreign policy, the Trump White House would have the American people believe transparency and national security are incompatible. As a former CIA analyst and, more recently, as the spokesperson for the National Security Council, I know the latter to be false. In fact, the opposite is the case: transparency can be a powerful strategic tool in U.S. foreign policy.

The new team has escalated America’s involvement in conflicts around the world, in several cases putting brave men and women in uniform in harm’s way with no public debate, and with little public notice. For example, Trump has gone to great lengths to tout his decision to fire 59 cruise missiles into Syria, but his administration has not addressed what is in many ways a more consequential decision: the deployment of hundreds more U.S. service members — including, for the first time, conventional forces — into Syria to fight the Islamic State.

In Yemen, the administration has failed to explain the rationale for a series of aggressive manned and unmanned missions, one of which cost the life of a Navy SEAL in a ground raid several days into Trump’s presidency. When it comes to Somalia, a spokesperson for U.S. Africa Command last week confirmed reports that the administration would be sending “dozens” more troops to the war-torn country, familiar to most Americans because of the Black Hawk Down tragedy. When pressed on the rationale, the spokesperson said that the deployment would be “to better fight al-Shabab,” an Islamist group that has become less focused on anti-Western attacks as it has lost ground to regional forces. The subtext of the spokesperson’s statement was brusquely simple: take our word for it.

And when it comes to North Korea, the most dangerous threat that the United States faces, the administration has adopted a bizarre approach premised at least in part on going out of its way to pronounce that the administration will not comment on developments — as both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have said in recent days. The desire — quixotic as it may be — to take the spotlight off of the nuclear-armed hermit kingdom is understandable, but the failure to communicate strategy can have disastrous implications. The administration recognized this when it reportedly worked overtime to quash news reports, which spread quickly in the information vacuum, that a preemptive strike against Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal was under consideration ahead of a potential nuclear test — an allegation that, true or not, could have spurred North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to be especially reckless.

It goes without saying that the Obama administration took a different approach toward transparency.

It goes without saying that the Obama administration took a different approach toward transparency. In some cases, it was the principle of the matter. The decision to send Americans into harm’s way, the most solemn responsibility of any commander-in-chief, was one that merited explanation, primarily for the benefit of the American people. In these instances, it was not low-level spokespeople who announced such deployments; in most cases it was the president himself, speaking directly to the American people, the way it ought to be.

In other areas, strategy was as dominant a rationale. Obama and his team went to great lengths to explain the objectives and tactics in the fight against al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their ilk. In doing so, the administration clearly laid out for allies and potential partners what this campaign would entail, to galvanize action on their own soil, or to request support for U.S.-led efforts — which, in the case of the counter-Islamic State coalition, enabled the Obama administration to forge a 68-member partnership. But the administration also took pains to speak to people — not just governments — and in doing so, made the case time and again that the U.S. war against terrorists was not a fight against any religion, country, or ethnic group. This message was a critical element of the battle for hearts and minds — a mission that in some ways was more effective than the action on the battlefield.

To be sure, transparency is not a fair-weather sport, and the Obama administration did not shirk from this responsibility even in times of setback or tragedy. By releasing data on noncombatants assessed to have been killed in overseas counterterrorism operations, for example, we sought to counteract terrorist propaganda and correct misinformation that had turned public opinion in some countries against the United States, which had made counterterrorism efforts even more difficult. And, in the aftermath of the Edward Snowden disclosures, we found that declassified information — facts about what we did and didn’t do in the context of electronic surveillance, which we also provided to the American people — was the most effective tool in speaking to incensed foreign counterparts. Sunlight, we found, was a disinfectant as well as a salve for frayed relations.

Granted, the Trump administration is in its early days, and it’s far from clear that it has a foreign policy vision or doctrine to speak to at this stage. But as the new team determines precisely what it means by “America first,” there is good reason to hope the White House reverses course and finds the strategic value in transparency with the American people and the world. Far from impairing national security, failing to do so would remove a key weapon from the arsenal.

Photo credit: DREW ANGERER/Getty Images

Vietnam: Hostage crisis deepens as villagers threaten to burn victims

A street is seen blocked at the gate of Dong Tam during a land dispute protest outside Hanoi, Vietnam, on April 18, 2017. Source: Reuters/Stringer

20th April 2017

A GROUP of Vietnamese farmers said on Thursday they had sealed off their village and would resist any rescue attempts by the authorities of the more than a dozen hostages they have been holding for six days.

According to AFP (via South China Morning Post), the 20 remaining hostages, consisting of policemen and local officials, have been held since Saturday in a Dong Tam, a suburban district of Hanoi, after authorities clashed with villagers. The villagers had claimed their land had been illegally seized for sale by a military-owned telecoms firm which did not provide adequate compensation.

Initially, 38 people were taken hostage, but 15 have since been released after police also released four detained protestors. Three others escaped.

The standoff has since escalated with locals reportedly sealing off the village with barricades made from logs, sandbags and bricks, and banning outsiders from entering.

SEE ALSO: Vietnam: Police arrest activist for sharing ‘anti-government propaganda’

Threats have also been made to set fire to the house where the hostages are being kept if authorities make any attempt to move in.

The villagers have taken “preventative” measures, according to one female farmer, after they noticed signs police may be planning a rescue attempt.

“We poured oil around the community house where the men are being kept. We will make our move if the police attack us,” she told AFP.

She said the hostages were being treated well, being fed three meals a day.

The hostage situation is a rare sign of defiance in the authoritarian communist nation where any sign of dissent against the authorities is usually met with an abrupt and often forceful response from police.

SEE ALSO: Defiant Vietnamese farmers sentenced to 5 years

There are, however, examples of similar acts of rebellion in recent years.

In 2012, a fish farmer was jailed for five years after he used homemade weapons in an attempt to evade eviction from a piece of land he had spent 18 years and all of his savings cultivating into an aquaculture farm.

The case of Doan Van Vuon and his family became a symbol of resistance against unwarranted land seizures in the country. Media coverage of similar defiant acts has since been limited with online references to them often being quickly removed.

Lawyer Le Luan, who went to the village to act as a mediator, said the locals “only want to have dialogues with authorities”.

“It’s hard to tell how the authorities want to solve this case,” he said.

Stroke and dementia risk linked to low-sugar drinks, study finds

Drinking a can of diet soft drink a day associated with almost three times higher risk, say researchers – but critics warn against causal connection

Sales of diet versions of soft drinks have boomed in recent years, with full-sugar drinks now retaining just 38% of the market. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

Denis Campbell-Thursday 20 April 2017

Consuming a can a day of low- or no-sugar soft drink is associated with a much higher risk of having a stroke or developing dementia, researchers claim.

Their findings have prompted renewed questions about whether drinks flavoured with artificial sweeteners can increase the risk of serious illness, as heavily sugared drinks have already been shown to do.

“Drinking at least one artificially sweetened beverage daily was associated with almost three times the risk of developing stroke or dementia compared to those who drank artificially sweetened beverages less than once a week,” according to the American researchers who carried out a study published in Stroke, the journal of the American Heart Association.

“After adjustments for age, sex, education (for analysis of dementia), calorific intake, diet quality, physical activity and smoking, higher recent and higher cumulative intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks were associated with an increased risk of ischaemic stroke, all-cause dementia and Alzheimer’s disease dementia,” the co-authors write.

Those consuming at least a can of so-called diet drinks every day were 2.96 times more likely to suffer an ischaemic stroke and 2.89 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who drank them less than once a week, they found.

Ischaemic strokes occur when blood cannot get to the brain because of a blockage, often one caused by a blood clot forming in either an artery leading to the brain or inside a vein in the brain itself. They comprise the large majority of the 152,0000 strokes a year which occur.

Surprisingly, though, the research also contradicted previous studies by finding that sugared drinks did not raise the risk of either serious outcome. It is based on data for more than 4,300 participants in the Framingham Heart Study, a long-term medical research project in the United States.

“To our knowledge, our study is the first to report an association between daily intake of artificially sweetened soft drink and increased risk of both all-cause dementia and dementia because of Alzheimer’s disease,” the co-authors added.

However, they admitted that they cannot prove a causal link between intake of diet drinks and development of either medical condition because their study was merely observational and based on details people provided in questionnaires logging their food and drink habits.

Matthew Pase, a senior fellow in the department of neurology at Boston University’s school of medicine who was one of the co-authors, said that despite no evidence of a causal link, the apparent connection between sweetened drinks and the two conditions “does identify an intriguing trend that will need to be explored in other studies”.

This is not the first time that sweetened drinks have been implicated in the development of serious ill-health. The paper quotes the Northern Manhattan study as having found that “daily consumption of artificially sweetened soft drink was associated with a higher risk of combined vascular events but not stroke”. It also cites the conclusion of the Nurses Health study and Health Professionals follow-up study that “greater consumption of sugar and artificially sweetened soft drinks was each independently associated with a higher risk of incident stroke over 28 years of follow-up for women and 22 years of follow-up for men”.

Sales of diet versions of soft drinks have boomed in recent years as sales of fully sugared ones have declined sharply.

Defra’s Family Food Survey, published last month, found that sales of regular soft drinks fell by 34.6% between 2010 and 2014, while low-calorie drinks purchases increased by 35.8%. Now just 38% of all soft drinks consumed are fully sugared, it said.

However, experts and health charities warned against reading too much into the new findings reported in Stroke.

“This research does not show that artificially sweetened drinks cause dementia. But it does highlight a worrying association that requires further investigation,” said Dr James Pickett, head of research at Alzheimer’s Society.

Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at Glasgow University, said: “This is an interesting paper, but I would strongly caution against the conclusion that artificially sweetened drinks may increase the risk of stroke and Alzheimer’s. There is little other strong evidence to support a link between artificially sweetened drinks and adverse health outcomes.”

The results could have been skewed by people who had already become ill switching to low- or no-sugar drinks, Sattar added.

Dr Mary Hannon-Fletcher, head of health sciences at Ulster University, said: “These data are sound as far as they go. However it is important to note ‘the associations between recent and higher cumulative intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks and dementia were no longer significant after additional adjustment for vascular risk factors and diabetes mellitus’ – as the editor also pointed out. So are the conclusions sound? Perhaps not.”

Gavin Partington, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, said: “Despite their claims, the authors of this observational study admit they found no cause and effect and provide no science-based evidence whatsoever to support their theories.

“In fact, based on the evidence, Public Health England is actively encouraging food and drink companies to use low-calorie sweeteners as an alternative to sugar and help people manage their weight.”

However, Tam Fry, a spokesman for the National Obesity Forum, warned consumers not to see low- or no-sugar drinks as healthy. “Don’t be fooled by the use of the word diet. Diet drinks were dreamed up as a description by an industry wanting to lull you into believing that it was a healthy thirst-quencher. Whether you’re thin or fat and thirsty, and not near a good old-fashioned tap, buy yourself bottled water,” Fry said.