Hail, International Crimes Tribunals Of Bangladesh, Hail To Them!

Some people deliberately and some unknowingly try to say very often so many years have passed away, the suspects themselves are probably sorry. But this is more wishful thinking on their part than actual reality.

by Anwar A. Khan-2 Mar 2019

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)-1 bench led by Justice Shahinur Islam announced the latest verdict of death punishment in the case over 1971 war crimes in Netrokona’s Purbadhala on 28 March last. The five fugitives accused in the case are Sheikh Md Abdul Majid aka Majid Maulana, 66, Md Abdul Khalek Talukdar, 67, Md Kabir Khan, 70, Abdus Salam Beg, 68 and Nuruddin, 70. They are accused of participating in seven incidents that involved of murder, rape, kidnapping, torture, looting and other atrocities during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971.

The ICT of Bangladesh was set up on 25 March 2010. Nine years have already gone away after its birth, but it has carried forward its obligations successfully regardless of, in defiance of many hindrances.

Hail, International Crimes Tribunals of Bangladesh, hail to them!

The war criminals slaughtered our freedom-loving innocent people in 1971 pronouncing the holy words, “Naraye takbir, Allahuakbar. Pakistan Zindabad. Pakistan is the holy place of Islam.” They did never allow those slain bodies for burial. Instead, they allowed those dead bodies for eating by the jackals, vultures, dogs and many other human flesh eaters. Hence, their temerity is irremissible.

People of Bangladesh and the government are driven by a single purpose i.e. to establish justice to the worst war criminals. It is not “avenge, revenge or cobra bite” as has been propagating by the mango-twigs of the war criminals of 1971. The war criminals have rightly been tracked to prosecute who have evaded justice for decades. It is a mission. It is not wise and humane to let such matters rest without a harsh challenge.

It has taken us about four decades to bring some of the king pin war criminals to justice. By this long time, many people died, and some of the best cases could not be brought to justice. It was a real tragedy in all respects. Between 2010 and now, many war criminals have been tried and convicted; some of them were hanged for their unspeakable barbarities.

Md. Mujibur Rahman (now Editor, The Weekly Postcard) and one of the first batch trained guerrilla freedom fighters from the renowned Dehradun Military Academy says, “If you allow people who have committed terrible crimes to live in your midst without taking legal action against them, you are basically saying it doesn’t matter.”

Some people deliberately and some unknowingly try to say very often so many years have passed away, the suspects themselves are probably sorry. But this is more wishful thinking on their part than actual reality. But the truth is that they have never expressed regret or remorse for the grave atrocities they committed to the freedom loving people of Bangladesh during our glorious Liberation War in 1971.

If we can’t bring these culprits to justice, we feel we are betraying with our fallen heroes and their families. We are leaving them in the pits. But it is prosecution that has the greatest impact in terms of helping a society face its past. The war criminals against which trials are continuing in connection with a massacre that wiped out three million of our population. And we should never say, you will remain off the hook. Hence, the hunt for the war criminals must go on.

These criminals as we find they had a lack of tolerance for people who did not fall in their support, not to speak of people of any religion. It is a million dollar question how one has to deal with the numerous obstacles obstructing justice and the frustrations of seeing so many war criminals of our 1971 history who committed terrible crimes and whom we were finally able to track down and expose, escape trial and punishment due to lack of political will or because of illness and/or death.

In a world in which most countries prefer to let elderly perpetrators die in peace and tranquility, knowing full well that all they have to do to avoid prosecutions is drag out the legal procedures until such time as the criminals become medically unfit or pass away.

Our response to such questions is to emphasise the tremendous suffering inflicted on the victims of mass murders by these criminals.

One of the most important cases is that of notorious Matiur Rahman Nizami, the supremo of Al-Badr force, a deadly killing outfit belonged to Jamaat-e-Islami, a criminal organisation. Under his leadership, so many concentration camps were set up in many parts of Bangladesh during our Independence War in 1971. Each and every camp was notorious for the cruelty of Nizami and his accomplices who routinely tortured the inmates and invented unique murder methods to increase the suffering of the victims.

The tribunal court awarded capital punishment to this infamous butcher. The country’s apex court has upheld his death punishment. Review petition was duly heard in the Supreme Court (SC) on May 3, 2016 and the final verdict has also been delivered to seal the fate of this dreaded war criminal to go to the hangman’s noose. And he was executed by rights.

It is, therefore, with great trepidation that the people of Bangladesh were waiting to hear the final judgment of SC. Valiant freedom fighter Syed Hafizul Hoque reminds us, “The obligation we owe the victims, the responsibility to make a serious effort to track down those who turned so many innocent men, women, and children into victims, simply because they were classified as enemies of Jamaat-e-Islam, other religion trade based political parties and their notorious Pakistan.”

The words and gratitude of freedom fighters underscore for us one of the main motivations to keep trying to bring the 1971 war criminals to justice. So when the going gets rough, and the frustrations mount, we should think back to the words of the aforesaid veteran freedom fighters and remember that one of the greatest good deeds a Bengali can do is to fulfill that obligation to as many of the victims as possible.

The wheels of justice for the victims of the war criminals’ crimes move in a zigzag way and at a frustratingly slow pace, even at this late date in time, when every day that passes can spell the difference between a perpetrator being convicted and punished and cases being dropped for reasons of death while trials were going on and death penalties to some accused were commuted on physical or mental infirmities.

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In the meantime, all we can do is hope that the country’s highest court keeps the earlier verdict unaltered in cases of many war criminals now lying pending with them, and in that respect, every moment counts.

For us who saw the 1971 struggle of our proud history, the genocide of three million of our people is a living memory, not only because survivours of that tragedy, our parents, uncles and aunts, are still among us to testify and remind us of the horrors that they survived, but also because of our more recent history that some foreign and local mango-twigs of the war criminals are out to save them from the hangmen’s nooses, and that we remain the target of genocidal threats.

The arrest in Germany of three men aged 88, 92 and 94, who served as guards at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp during the World War II, has once again raised the issue of the ongoing prosecution of elderly Holocaust perpetrators, almost seven decades after the end of World War II. Why shall we then consider age, health ground and so on in case of the 1971 war criminals of Bangladesh?

The question of trying the war criminals of 1971 massacre is not new and has been an issue for many years, since elderly Nazis and collaborators have been brought to justice ever since the World War II ended. What is new, however, is the age of the men currently in detention, as well as other Nazi war criminals who have been investigated and/or prosecuted during the past decade or so, who have been considerably older than those brought to justice in previous decades.

Thus the moral, legal and philosophical arguments for continued prosecution of Bangladesh’s war criminals remain the same. The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the killers. If a person committed murder many years ago and has still not been held accountable, he or she is no less guilty today, just because many years have passed since the crime was committed. Old age should not afford protection to murderers. Reaching an advanced age does not turn a murderer into a righteous person. Every one of the 1971 victims deserves that an effort be made to find the persons who turned them - innocent men, women, and children - into victims.

The ongoing efforts to bring more war criminals to justice sends a powerful message, that if one commits such heinous crimes, even decades later the search to hold such persons accountable continues. In this regard, the fact that so many of those who perpetrated the colossal crimes in Bangladesh in 1971 were able to escape punishment only made it easier for subsequent tragedies to occur. It must be as clear as possible, that committing such crimes will almost certainly result in swift and severe punishment.

Trials of Bangladesh’s war criminals continue to prove helpful in the fight against genocide denial and the recent efforts, primarily to rewrite the narrative of our glorious Liberation War by some ‘nengty idurs’ (mice) to hide or minimise the role of local collaborators in genocidal crimes.

It is important to note that a single perpetrator has never expressed any regret or remorse. It is just the opposite, they are still proud to this day of the crimes they committed. Hence, time after time to remind the skeptics, that the criminals being brought to justice are the last people on earth who deserve any sympathy since they had no mercy on their innocent victims, some of whom were even older than they are today.

So when you see one of these deadly war criminals in print or electronic media, don't be taken in by their frail, sickly or saintly appearance. Think of them as they were in the prime of their youth and physical strength, when they devoted all their energy to helping run the largest mass murder factory in the history of mankind. The trial for the war criminals must carry on. And they must walk to the gallows.

-The End –

The writer is a senior citizen of Bangladesh, writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs

ISIS’s West African Offshoot Is Following al Qaeda’s Rules for Success

The amorphous Boko Haram splinter group is taking inspiration where it can get it and bringing disaster to the Lake Chad Basin in the process.

A discarded Islamic State flag lies torn on the ground in the village of Baghouz, Syria, on March 24. (Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images)

BY PHILIP OBAJI JR.

 | APRIL 2, 2019, 4:13 PM
As the Islamic State is squeezed out of its self-proclaimed caliphate in the Middle East, its offshoot in West Africa, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), appears to be growing even stronger.
In the last five months, the insurgent group has gained a grim kind of momentum, establishing itself in new towns in northeastern Nigeria and beyond. Along the way, its fighters have slain hundreds of people.

In November 2018, the group showed that it could outmaneuver the Nigerian military when it overran a base in Metele, Borno state, killing about 100 soldiers. On March 22, ISWAP demonstrated its ability to strike beyond Nigeria’s borders, killing 23 soldiers during a raid in Chad.

The attack came just as Kurdish and Shiite militia fighters were taking back the eastern Syrian town of Baghouz, which was widely interpreted as a signal that the Islamic State’s caliphate in the Middle East had finally been defeated after four years of combat.

With the Islamic State’s territory in Iraq and Syria, once the size of Britain, all but gone, it is time to look to its affiliates across the world as the next set of threats to address. Doing so won’t be easy.
Far from beaten, ISWAP is rising in West Africa. And it is clear that the splinter group, which broke away from Boko Haram in 2016, works very differently from the organization it swore allegiance to.
Instead of modeling itself on the Islamic State, ISWAP is gaining ground, and influence, around the Lake Chad Basin area—spreading out from Nigeria into Chad and Niger—using the same approach that has strengthened organizations aligned with the Islamic State’s rival, al Qaeda.

For one, it has avoided the Islamic State’s vulnerability to leadership changes by favoring the kind of amorphous structure that has helped other al Qaeda affiliates, such as the Nusra Front in Syria and Somalia’s al-Shabab, survive attacks on their top brass.

In addition, where the Islamic State focused on carving out claims to territory at the expense of the population who lives there, ISWAP has attempted to co-opt rather than coerce. In fact, rather than fighting to gain territory and attempting to hold on to it by governing with brutality as the Islamic State has done in Iraqi towns such as Fallujah and Mosul, ISWAP, like al Qaeda affiliates, has placed great emphasis on cultivating relationships with local communities and taking advantage of those strong ties to exert great influence on how they function.

The Nusra Front group, for example, has around 20,000 fighters and focuses on creating relationships with political and civil society groups in Syria. Al-Shabab, which has nearly 9,000 fighters, provides social services in an effort to generate support among Somalis, often going as far as constructing infrastructure and collecting money to be redistributed to the poor.

ISWAP has learned from al Qaeda affiliates that blending into local communities will make it a lot easier to win support and gain a foothold in the Lake Chad region. On the ground, ISWAP has moved to assure people that they will not be harmed in the territories it is seeking to control, provided locals do not cooperate with the Nigerian military.

Under these conditions, it becomes extremely difficult for the Nigerian military or coalition forces to target the group, because unless they can earn the genuine support of communities and motivate them to incriminate members of the terrorist organization, ISWAP’s members can largely pass undetected.

As part of ISWAP’s efforts to gain popularity and win the allegiance of future fighters, the group has even been offering loans to young entrepreneurs in the region. It has placed particular emphasis on butchers, traders, tailors, beauticians, and other vocational entrepreneurs. The group doesn’t necessarily expect all of its recipients to pay back the loans. Instead, it operates on an understanding that those who can’t repay their debt with money will settle their account by playing a vital role in facilitating the group’s growth by providing both loyalty and services.

ISWAP’s ability to attract a range of fighters from Nigerian communities has helped the group extend its reach in northeastern Nigeria, where many locals are in dire need of social assistance. People in the region are also concerned about protection from armed bandits, a service that ISWAP often provides. The more militants the group attracts, the more resources and popularity it is able to draw on when it targets new communities.

In the same way al Qaeda has muscled its way into in wars in Yemen and Syria, ISWAP has waded into the conflict in northeastern Nigeria between Fulani herdsmen, who are overwhelmingly Muslim, and predominantly Christian farmers. Although Fulani herdsmen involved in the fighting may see ISWAP’s support as an act of solidarity, for the group itself, the conflict is just another opportunity to targetChristians, who they view as a key obstacle to establishing an Islamic State in West Africa. ISWAP’s meddling in one of the most explosive conflicts anywhere on the continent could prove disastrous for Nigeria’s already fragile security environment. To effectively counter the group, outsiders must better understand it.

A year before ISWAP split from Boko Haram, the original militant group under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. However, Shekau proved to be a difficult collaborator, even for one of the most infamous terrorist organizations in the world. Ultimately, he fell out of the Islamic State’s favor over his failure to comply with its instructions, including requests that he stop using children as suicide bombers. Disgruntled, the Islamic State stripped Shekau of its endorsement and recognized a new leader: Abu Musab al-Barnawi. A faction remained loyal to Shekau and endured the withdrawal of the Islamic State’s favor, which was from then on only given to ISWAP under Barnawi.

When ISWAP officially cut ties with Shekau’s Boko Haram, Barnawi turned to familiar faces from his early days in Boko Haram for support. Many of those figures had powerful ties—either aspirational or actual—to al Qaeda.

From the start, Barnawi announced that he would bring significant changes. Unlike Shekau, who gained notoriety by targeting fellow Muslims who didn’t subscribe to Boko Haram’s vision for Nigeria’s future, he made it clear that he would refrain from violence against Muslims. In his inaugural address, he also outlined the need for local support, which would help ISWAP one day wage a war against Nigeria and, potentially, the West.

Although the Islamic State in West Africa has not confirmed as much, the Islamic State’s central leadership may have removed Barnawi from his post in March. Soldiers from the Multinational Joint Task Force—made up of troops from across the region drawn together to fight Boko Haram—uncovered and translated an unverified clip into English. A voice, allegedly from the Islamic State, is heard saying that Abu Musab al-Barnawi has been “deposed,” and that new leader, Abu Abdullahi Ibn Umar al-Barnawi, has been appointed in his place.

If ISWAP has learned its lessons from al Qaeda-affiliated groups, the changeover won’t cause the group any lasting problems. A key strength of the al Qaeda template is the ability to persist and adapt when there are changes at the very top. When a U.S. drone strike killedAnwar al-Awlaki, a key figure within al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen in 2011, the group had about 1,000 fighters. Far from diminishing the group’s reach, its numbers grew to around 4,000 after Awlaki’s death. In Somalia, al-Shabab’s troop numbers also expanded greatly after the death of the group’s leader, Ahmed Godane, in 2014.

It is a dynamic that has allowed groups to persist even under other strains. In Algeria, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb continues to grow in strength despite navigating the demands of integrating new leaders from other groups and replacing those who have broken away. Jemaah Islamiyah, which operates in Southeast Asia, has consistently built new madrasas even though its aging leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, has been incarcerated since 2010. In north-central Nigeria, Ansaru, another Boko Haram splinter group, has re-emergedthree years after its leader, Khalid al-Barnawi, was arrested by Nigeria’s intelligence agency.

In contrast, after Iraqi and coalition forces killed most of the Islamic State’s founding members, the group was seriously degraded. Two figures in particular have left a void. The organization never recovered from the loss of its top strategist, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who led a number of the Islamic State’s foreign attacks on Paris, Brussels, and Istanbul, among others. Along the same lines, the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was reportedly incapacitated during a strike. In the absence of a central leadership, divisions among the terrorist group’s cells emerged, striking a devastating blow to the Islamic State.

In one of Africa’s most volatile regions, an offshoot of the Islamic State is very much alive and expanding. The loss of the Islamic State’s grip on a physical caliphate in Syria will give it an occasion to go looking for other fights to enter. The Islamic State West Africa Province, which has styled itself largely in opposition to its namesake, could provide it with a dangerous and effective template.

Thai army chief warns against protests after disputed election

Thailand's Royal Army Chief General Apirat Kongsompong speaks during an interview with members of foreign media at the Thai Army headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

Panu Wongcha-um-APRIL 2, 2019 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s army chief on Tuesday warned against protests after a disputed election, invoking the revered monarchy and castigating people he said “distort” democracy.

His words were the latest in a series of signals from the military and royalist establishment against opposition parties loyal to ousted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

The inconclusive results to the March 24 election, pitting the party of the junta leader against an opposition alliance, have seen both the pro-army Palang Pracharat party and the opposition claim victory. Final results may not be clear for weeks.

General Apirat Kongsompong said the military would remain neutral in the election, in which his predecessor as army chief, Prayuth Chan-ocha, is seeking to stay in power as an elected prime minister, five years after he seized power in a coup.

“General Prayuth has to be on his own path and the army has to step back,” Apirat said. “We cannot get involved in politics.”

At the same time, Apirat made clear the military would not allow a repeat of past mass street demonstrations in which both supporters and opponents of Thaksin paralysed Bangkok for months on end.

“I cannot let Thais settle their differences on the streets anymore,” Apirat told reporters, adding that both the eventual winners and losers in the election must settle their differences in parliament.

He also had harsh words for politicians he said “distort” democratic principles to make them incompatible with Thai culture that reveres the king above all else, a clear reference to Thaksin’s party and its allies.

“This is not right,” Apirat said of such politicians. “Thailand is a democracy with the king as the head of state.”

Thaksin-loyal parties have won every election since 2001, even after he was ousted in a 2006 coup.
Thaksin has remained an influential political figure despite having lived in self-imposed exile since he fled Thailand in 2008 to escape a corruption trial that he said was politically motivated.

Last week, six other parties joined with the pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai party in a “democratic front” alliance, which they claim will gain enough seats in parliament to try to form a government and block Prayuth from staying in power.

“People should accept winning and losing,” Apirat said. “Instead, they constructed a democratic side and a dictatorship side, which is not right. We are all Thais.”

The army chief also alluded to an election-eve statement from King Maha Vajiralongkorn, telling reporters on Tuesday “we must choose good people to govern so that bad people don’t have power”.

King Vajiralongkorn’s unexpected statement on March 23, which broke from his late father’s practised silence on politics, mentioned “good” and “bad” people but did not specify any one party or politician.

However, less than a week after the vote, the king issued an official command that stripped Thaksin of all royal honours and decorations he had been given.

The king’s command came on the heels of military moves to discredit Thaksin.

Last week the military said that Thaksin has acted “dishonourably” and stripped him from a pre-cadet school’s achievement award as well as deleting his name from the school’s hall of fame.

Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Nick Macfie

Julian Assange has 'repeatedly violated' asylum terms, Ecuador's president says

Lenín Moreno said ‘photos of my bedroom’ and his family were circulated online but did not directly accuse WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange greets supporters from a balcony of he Ecuadorian embassy in London on 19 May 2017. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

Dan Collyns in Lima @yachay_dc-Tue 2 Apr 2019

Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, has said the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had “repeatedly violated” the conditions of his asylum in the country’s London embassy, where he has lived for close to seven years.

Speaking to the Ecuadorean radio broadcasters association on Tuesday, Moreno said under the terms of his asylum “Assange cannot lie or, much less, hack into private accounts or private phones” and he could not “intervene in the politics of countries, or worse friendly countries”.

Moreno fulminated that “photos of my bedroom, what I eat and how my wife and daughters and friends dance” had been circulated on social media but stopped short of directly accusing WikiLeaks of circulating hacked photos of his family and wiretapping his phone calls and private conversations.

The Ecuadorean government, however, has said it believes the whistleblowing organization shared the photos, which date back several years to when Moreno and his family lived in Geneva.

Moreno’s outburst was yet another sign of the Ecuadorean president’s waning tolerance for Assange’s prolonged occupancy of the country’s London embassy since mid-2012.

“We should ensure Mr Assange’s life is not at risk but he’s violated the agreement we have with him so many times,” Moreno said of the WiklLeaks founder.

The Ecuadorean government directly referred to WikiLeaks in a formal complaint to the special rapporteur for the right to privacy, Joseph Cannataci, at the UN’s human rights council on Monday. It accused the organization of using social media to spread hacked private photos and personal information from Moreno’s personal computers, tablets and other devices.

WikiLeaks tweeted on Tuesday that Moreno had said he would take a decision about Assange’s fate “in the short term” after it had reported on an “offshore corruption scandal wracking his government”.

Known in Ecuador as the Ina Papers, the scandal alleges Moreno corruptly benefitted from an offshore account in Panama. Moreno denies any wrongdoing.

In March, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights rejected a lawsuit filed by Assange which argued that stringent house rules applied since October 2018 in the embassy violated “his fundamental rights and freedoms”. The legal move was also rejected by an Ecuadorean judge last year.

Ecuador’s foreign minister, José Valencia, told the Guardian Assange’s conditions were in line with international law and a failure to follow them would breach the terms of his asylum.

Moreno has also accused his predecessor turned arch enemy Rafael Correa of spying on him. In September 2017, months after taking office, he accused the former Ecuadorean president of planting a hidden camera in the wall of his presidential office. Correa denies any wrongdoing.

Nearly everything Trump just said about Puerto Rico is wrong

President Trump and members of his Cabinet have delivered mixed messages on Puerto Rico’s recovery since it was struck by Hurricane Maria in the fall of 2017. (Blair Guild/The Washington Post)

By Philip Bump-April 2 at 9:02 AM

President Trump’s antipathy toward the ongoing relief effort in Puerto Rico burst into full view on Tuesday morning.

Multiple news reports over the past few months have suggested that the president opposes spending more money on the island, including stories late last month that he’d specifically derided the amount being spent on recovery in a visit to Capitol Hill. Trump has long been criticized for his slow response to the damage caused by Hurricane Maria in the summer of 2017, and he has consistently tried to deflect blame for the storm’s aftermath, which left nearly 3,000 people dead.

On Monday, the Senate failed to pass legislation providing funding to bolster the food-stamp program on the island along with relief for floods in the Midwest. Last month, funding for food stamps ran out in Puerto Rico after Congress failed to reauthorize spending, a necessary step because Puerto Rico is a territory and not a state. Senate Democrats support a measure providing more support to Puerto Rico than Republicans — especially Trump — are willing to provide.

[Massive disaster relief bill stalls in Senate over Puerto Rico dispute]

That failed vote triggered a pair of tweets from Trump that are sweeping in their misrepresentations of reality.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Puerto Rico got 91 Billion Dollars for the hurricane, more money than has ever been gotten for a hurricane before, & all their local politicians do is complain & ask for more money. The pols are grossly incompetent, spend the money foolishly or corruptly, & only take from USA....

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7:33 AM - Apr 2, 2019

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Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

....The best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump. So many wonderful people, but with such bad Island leadership and with so much money wasted. Cannot continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments, and so little appreciation!

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7:45 AM - Apr 2, 2019

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It’s probably simplest to walk through Trump’s claims as he presents them.

“Puerto Rico got 91 Billion Dollars for the hurricane”: Puerto Rico has not received $91 billion for hurricane recovery. So far, about $11 billion has been sent to the island. The $91 billion figure that Trump likes to use is a combination of $41 billion that’s been set aside for recovery combined with $50 billion expected to be spent over the life of the recovery effort in accordance with legislation passed in 1988. The full scope of the recovery could take several decades.

In the town of Yabucoa, residents say the Trump administration let them down and their struggle continues. (Whitney Leaming, Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)

“more money than has ever been gotten for a hurricane before”: 2005′s Hurricane Katrina, for which recovery efforts continue, cost more than $120 billion.

On Monday evening, Trump compared the spending in Puerto Rico unfavorably to Texas and Florida, which were also hit by hurricanes in 2017. But, of course, the type and extent of the damage in each place was very different. Hurricane Harvey did enormous damage in Texas and on the Gulf Coast, but the damage was less extensive and severe than in Puerto Rico. The higher cost in Puerto Rico is mostly a function of the damage that was done.

“& all their local politicians do is complain & ask for more money.”: Trump’s obviously being hyperbolic to some extent here, but it’s also worth remembering that there’s an existing crisis on the island as a result of food-stamp payments being curtailed. In this moment, there’s an outcry for a specific form of relief that seems warranted.

“The pols are grossly incompetent, spend the money foolishly or corruptly”: This appears to be a central critique of Trump’s. He’s repeatedly complained that the funding going to the island was being wasted or spent to pay down that debt, without evidence. (He apparently became incensed by an article in the Wall Street Journal.)

This was Trump’s position from the outset. When the storm first hit, he tweeted that recovery would be hindered because Puerto Rico “was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt” and that the billions of dollars “owed to Wall Street and the banks ... must be dealt with.” 

Trump always saw Puerto Rico’s government as questionable and wasteful and then apparently seized on that idea to rationalize his arguments that the island was receiving too much money.

“& only take from USA....”: This is Trump’s most revealing comment. Puerto Rico is “taking from the United States,” of which, of course, it’s a part. But Trump tips his hand here that he sees this island in the Atlantic Ocean as something separate and less American than the continental United States.

“The best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump.”: In a Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll conductedlast year, more than half of Puerto Ricans said Trump had done a poor job in responding to the hurricane. Four in five said his job performance was at best “fair.”

Trump’s unstated argument here is probably akin to his argument about why black Americans should be pleased with his presidency: low unemployment rates.

“So many wonderful people, but with such bad Island leadership and with so much money wasted.”: In our poll, the local government on Puerto Rico received better marks than Trump, with a quarter of island residents saying the local response was “good” or better and only a third saying it was “poor.”

There’s no demonstrated evidence that any significant portion of funding has been wasted.

“Cannot continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments”: Here, again, Trump draws a contrast between the states and Puerto Rico. The latter is “hurting” the former by having been hit by a hurricane and therefore needing help from its government. It’s safe to assume that Trump wouldn’t make a similar claim about how the recovery spending sent to Texas after Hurricane Harvey was hurting, say, Pennsylvania.

It’s important to note that the expense of these natural disasters is linked to the warming climate. Climate change models suggest more wildfires, like those that ravaged California in 2017, and more powerful hurricanes with heavier precipitation, like Harvey. Trump is willfully ignoring a growing crisis that is poised to make disaster spending a more acute problem for the government.

“and so little appreciation!”: What Trump hears from Puerto Rican leaders is not praise for the job he’s doing, but increasingly insistent requests for needed aid. He tunes into cable news and sees criticism, not kudos. He sees coverage of Puerto Rico and hears about nearly 3,000 deaths, a figure he refuses to accept because it serves as a grim measurement of his handling of the crisis. Puerto Rico is a headache for Trump, and it’s hard not to assume that part of his opposition to additional funding for the island stems from the fact that he’s frustrated by it.

The aftermath of Hurricane Maria is precisely the sort of event that tests presidential leadership. 

Trump’s misleading or false tweets on Tuesday morning give a sense of how he feels he’s faring in that test.

U.S. and Turkey Escalate Feud Over Russian Missile System

Erdogan may be using the S-400 dispute with Washington to deflect attention from problems at home.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump speak at a meeting during the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 21, 2017. (Brendan Smialowski /AFP/Getty Images)

BY LARA SELIGMAN, ROBBIE GRAMER

 | APRIL 2, 2019, 5:03 PM

The United States and Turkey appear to be on a diplomatic collision course yet again over Ankara’s plan to buy a sophisticated Russian air defense system that U.S. and European officials see as a threat to the F-35 fighter jet.

After months of hedging, the U.S. government this week took the first concrete step to block the delivery of the stealthy fighter jets to Turkey, unless Ankara backs away from the deal with Russia, ratcheting up tensions between the two countries.

The U.S. decision to halt delivery of jets and other related equipment to Turkey—which the U.S. Defense Department confirmed Monday after Reuters first reported the news—follows repeated warnings over the issue and an American offer to sell Turkey an alternative to the S-400, the Patriot missile system, at an acceptable price.

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has given no indication that he will back down from the S-400 purchase and even suggested Turkey would soon seek Russia’s more advanced S-500 system.

“It’s done,” Erdogan told local television channels in March. “There can never be a turning back.”
Experts said Erdogan has backed himself into a geopolitical corner over the S-400 decision. He is seething over U.S. support for Kurdish groups in the fight against Syria and Washington’s refusal to extradite his longtime rival and the man he blames for Turkey’s 2016 coup attempt, Fethullah Gulen.

While Turkey’s relationship with the United States and NATO remains a linchpin of its defense posture, Erdogan wants to maintain a strong relationship with Moscow given its military footprint in Syria.

“He truly believes the U.S. is harboring the man behind the abortive coup, and he also believes Washington’s support of Kurdish fighters in Syria will damage Turkey’s internal security,” said Loren Thompson, an analyst with the Lexington Institute.

“In other words, Erdogan is punishing the U.S. for doing things he views as detrimental to Turkey’s interests.”

Experts also said Erdogan has staked his political reputation on the decision, seeing the S-400 deal as a way to stoke anti-Western sentiment. Ahead of hotly contested local elections that took place on Sunday, Erdogan saw it as a way to shore up domestic political support and stand up to U.S. President Donald Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Turkey and other parts of Europe.

“The Turkish president seems to be beyond the point of no return. He is likely to exploit this bilateral crisis to fuel anti-American and anti-Western sentiment in Turkey,” said Aykan Erdemir, a former member of the Turkish parliament and current senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.

At the Pentagon on Tuesday, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan struck a more conciliatory tone, saying he did not expect the Turkish F-35s to be delivered to Ankara. He added that he was “very confident” in the U.S. proposal to sell Turkey the Patriot missile system as a capable, though likely more expensive, alternative to the S-400.

“I really think we’ll resolve this situation with our strategic partners,” Shanahan said.

A senior State Department official, speaking by phone to reporters on Tuesday, called the S-400 decision a “deeply problematic issue” but said the U.S.-Turkey relationship didn’t completely hinge on a single arms sale. “Turkey has been and remains an important NATO ally, an important partner to the United States,” the official said.

Tensions between the two NATO allies have mounted for years over U.S. support for the Syrian Kurds, Turkey’s cozy relationship with Russia, and its democratic backsliding and detention of U.S. citizens.

U.S. officials have warned that Washington could shut Turkey out of the F-35 program entirely and slap sanctions on Ankara—an unusual measure for Washington to take against a NATO ally.
“Should Turkey procure the S-400, their continued participation in the F-35 program is at risk,” said acting chief Pentagon spokesman Charles Summers.

U.S. officials say the integration of the S-400 with the F-35 and NATO air defenses could compromise closely guarded military secrets. The risk is that Moscow could gain valuable intelligence on the F-35’s technical systems.

“For Russia, if [the] F-35 is the poison, the S-400 is the antidote,” said Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish research program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Co-locating these systems with the F-35 could expose the poison to the antidote, so to speak.”

The United States made the decision as the training of Turkish pilots at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona was set to wrap up, and deliveries of jets and other sensitive equipment to Turkey to support the stand-up of its F-35 fleet were planned to begin this spring. Ankara will begin receiving the S-400 in May.

The U.S. military has already begun looking for alternative suppliers to replace the Turkish companies that make certain key F-35 parts—such as landing gear components, engine blade rotors, and cockpit displays—and a new F-35 partner to host the jet’s main European engine depot, which was to be built in Turkey, officials said.

The news comes days after Turkish voters delivered a stinging political rebuke to Erdogan in local elections that saw his party lose control of major cities including the capital, Ankara, and possibly Istanbul, Erdogan’s home city.

“Erdogan’s goal seems to be creating external enemies whom he can blame for the country’s misfortunes,” including Turkey’s faltering economy, said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group, an aerospace and defense consulting firm.

Erdogan also sees the S-400 system—which is incompatible with NATO systems—as critical for his own survival following the botched coup attempt against him in 2016, which included elements of the Turkish military. “Having witnessed how putschist pilots dominated the Turkish airspace during the 2016 failed coup attempt, Erdogan wants the S-400s first and foremost for his own security,” Erdemir said.

Moreover, Turkey remains reliant on Russia for support in Syria, where Ankara fears of a stronger Kurdish foothold in the region as the fight against the Islamic State winds down. “All of these factors have put Erdogan into such a corner that at this stage he is unable to walk away from it,” Cagaptay said.

Some wonder if Erdogan sees the F-35 as truly necessary for Turkey’s defense. While the stealthy fighter jet is very capable against Russia’s air defenses, it may be overkill for Ankara’s primary security threats: Syria and Iran. The latter, for example, flies 1970s vintage aircraft, said Byron Callan, an analyst with Capital Alpha Partners.

In particular, the S-400 may give Turkey a defense against Saudi ballistic missiles, said Callan, noting that Saudi Arabia is 745 miles away—too far for the F-35 to reach without refueling.

“F-35 just isn’t that useful for Turkey unless Russia is deemed the primary threat,” Callan said.
Callan raised one more theory: Given its faltering economy, Turkey can’t afford to operate the F-35 anyway and sees the S-400 deal as a way out.

And procuring the S-400 also pushes Turkey away from exclusive reliance on the United States for critical weapon systems, Callan added.

The F-35 decision could overshadow a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Washington this week, where U.S. allies are trying to push forward a message of unity and cohesion—even as Trump has spent the past two years deriding the alliance and questioning its utility. The meeting coincides with NATO’s 70th anniversary.

“It is not simply the United States that has objected to Turkey’s purchase of this system. It is something other NATO allies have expressed concern about,” said Amanda Sloat, a former U.S. diplomat and expert on trans-Atlantic relations at the Brookings Institution.

 

Lara Seligman is a staff writer at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @laraseligman

The world could learn from Jacinda Ardern’s leadership on gun control

media during her post cabinet press conference at Parliament in Wellington on March 25, 2019. Ardern on March 25 ordered an independent judicial inquiry into the Christchurch mosque attacks, asking whether police and intelligence services could have prevented the March 15 attack. Source: Marty MELVILLE / AFP

March 31 at 11:26 PM 

NEW ZEALAND’s response to the Christchurch mass-shooting shows that a country can find unity, rather than division, on gun reform.

Strong and definitive leadership, a balanced approach to reforming gun laws, and establishing a consensus that includes elements of the gun-owning community are key themes of the debate that other countries would do well to replicate.

What remains to be seen, however, is how social media companies can better ensure that their networks are not used to inspire, coordinate, or disseminate extremist behaviour.

Just six days after the worst terrorist atrocity in Kiwi history, New Zealand decided that there was no need for a peaceful public to be armed with MSSAs (military-style semi-automatics).

These are now banned, demonstrating how a well-armed society with a strong gun culture can nevertheless act responsibly in the face of a divisive act.

The accused attacker used firearms to inflame debate and divide countries struggling with gun control. In New Zealand, it had the opposite effect, inspiring a conclusion on gun control laws.

SEE ALSO: Why the next terror manifesto could be even harder to track

They need to be stronger.

This conclusion came not only due to disgust with the atrocity, but also thanks to a set of progressive decisions and principles established by New Zealand’s governance bodies. The world, and particularly the US, would do well to understand how New Zealand brought about such unanimous reform.

The effect of PM Jacinda Ardern’s remarkable leadership cannot be understated. Ardern transformed a crisis into action. Without delay, she took the time needed to genuinely face Christchurch’s Muslim community.

Her demeanour reminded the world that this tragedy was a national one, and reaffirmed that the victims were a part of Kiwi society – fellow citizens to be fought for. In doing so, she set a strong moral basis for the work to come.

Furthermore, by refusing to acknowledge the terrorist, Ardern removed a poisonous element from the subsequent discourse. No time was lost pondering the unremarkable backstory of the accused, and a message was sent that such acts will only earn you a nameless existence in a nameless cell. Even the media would do well to follow Ardern’s example.

The Prime Minister’s strong values allowed for decisive action. New Zealand, along with the US, is one of the few high-income countries in the world to have a permissive atmosphere for civilian gun ownership.

Guns are common in Kiwi civilian life due to hunting and agrarian pastimes. In New Zealand, responsible gun use is perfectly legitimate.

By only targeting MSSAs, Ardern’s government chose a balanced approach to gun reform that could succeed. Her efforts would have been wasted with a knee-jerk and over-reaching approach. This would have threatened the country’s gun-owners and moved them to act against it. Instead, no one questioned a reform targeting only the class of weapon used in the attack.

While New Zealand still lacks a registry for its civilian firearms, it nevertheless established a precedent of meaningful, consensus-based reform. This can form a basis for further legislative efforts to promote a responsible gun culture.

Finally, the success of these reforms was due to the ability of Kiwi gun owners to accept them. Gun control advocates ought to remember that reform can only succeed when it is agreed upon by the owners themselves.

SEE ALSO: Will the New Zealand gun law changes prevent future mass shootings?

It must also be remembered that most gun owners are practitioners and supporters of responsible ownership. Limiting reform efforts to MSSAs was palatable to many gun owners, especially in the aftermath of such egregious misuse.

Yet there was and will always be gun owners who will resist even the most modest controls. For this, the vehicle for success was civil society groups that represent gun owners or an aspect of ownership.

The stance taken by Federated Farmers, for instance, was exemplary. It speaks volumes that an organisation representing a prominent gun-owning group chose to support reform, even knowing it would be unpopular among certain members.

Furthermore, the Police Association – that has long advocated for increased gun control measures – supported reform efforts by deflating the claim that widespread civilian gun ownership makes society safer.

Underlying the atrocity is a bigger issue than gun control. What was uniquely unsettling about this shooting was the role online sub-cultures and social media had in propagating it.

New Zealand is right to criminally punish those who spread the footage of the attack, though the reality is that Facebook currently offers an ungovernable broadcasting platform to terrorists and other subversive actors seeking to disseminate propaganda. Other websites, such as ‘the Chans’, accommodate online communities that celebrate extremism and foment these attacks.

Social media and online forum providers are thus critical stakeholders in the repetition and continuity of mass shootings, and therefore must be commissioned to monitor and limit the channels through which terrorist veneration and incitement of violence take place.

Only leadership, as shown in New Zealand, can form the broad base of consensus required to respond to attacks like this. The prime minister’s actions in the wake of this traumatic event have brought together a nation faced with an act designed to tear its people apart. Leaders the world over must follow suit.

By combining decisive action on gun control with strategies for limiting hate speech on online media, governments can put themselves in a position to limit violent terrorism in their societies. Christchurch shows us that they must.

By Michael Picard, Research Director for GunPolicy.org of the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health. This piece was first published at Policy Forum, Asia and the Pacific’s platform for public policy analysis and opinion. 

MPs vote again on Brexit options

Gary Gibbon- 1 Apr 2019Political Editor

MPs have another chance to change the direction of Brexit tonight. They will vote in an hour’s time on four alternative options to Theresa May’s deal.

All the motions in tonight’s second round of indicative votes would soften Brexit – and range from stopping it altogether to staying in both the customs union and single market.

The Labour party says it will support that last option, but Brexit-supporting Conservatives say it would be a betrayal of the referendum result and their own manifesto.

A deeply divided cabinet has been instructed not to vote.