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jueves, 31 de marzo de 2016

MARCH 31, 2016
Counterpunch.org
Consumed by myriad manifestations of its existential crisis, as usual the West neglected or underestimated the biggest show in Chinese politics: the famous two sessions – of the People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress, the top legislative body – which ended up approving China’s 13th Five-Year Plan.
The key takeaway was Premier Li Keqiang stating Beijing boldly aims at an average growth from 2016 to 2020 above 6.5 per cent a year – based on «innovation». If successful, by 2020 no less than 60 per cent of China’s economic growth would come from improvements in technology and science.
President Xi Jinping was even bolder, promising to double China’s GDP by 2020 from 2010, along with the incomes of both urban and rural residents. That’s the practical meaning of the Chinese Dream, Xi’s immensely ambitious official policy, and the contemporary translation of a fairly comfortable life for all – what Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping promised almost half a century ago.
Economically, Beijing’s road map ahead includes liberalizing interest rates; keeping the yuan stable (as in no spectacular devaluations); and controlling abnormal flow of cross-border capital effectively. For this massive collective effort to bear fruit, Premier Li went straight to the point, hard work is essential. And that will translate into zero tolerance for messing it all up, and «room for correction» for those who made mistakes. Innovators will be handsomely rewarded.
Xi’s Chinese Dream is now hitting high-speed rail velocity. The 100thanniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in 2021, is practically tomorrow; thus the rush towards the avowed goal of building a modern socialist country. And yet doubling up GDP is a larger than life endeavor when you have a rapidly ageing population, massive property overhang (and that’s a euphemism) and rising debt.
Everything will have to be perfectly calibrated. For instance, China used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the US used in the entire 20th century; and a lot of it was just for nothing. As Jia Kang, a Political Consultative Committee member stressed, “the 6.5 per cent is an iron bottom that should never be broken… if growth slows to approach the bottom, there will be pro-growth policies.”

Enter Xiconomics
Even with the economy «slowing» to 6.5 percent a year, Chinese GDP is forecast to reach 25 trillion yuan ($3.8 trillion) more in 2020 than in 2014; to put it in perspective, this excess roughly matches Germany’s entire GDP.
Premier Li, in a very Chinese way, commented that in 2016, the Year of the Monkey, he’s bound to wield the mythical monkey’s gold-banded cudgel to smash all obstacles that may prevent Beijing from reaching its ambitious economic targets.
Enter, thus, Xiconomics. Xiconomics is the successor of Likonomics – which implies that Xi, and not Li, is the real driver of China’s economic reforms, although it is Li who holds a doctorate in economics from Peking University.
Everyone in China is talking about Xiconomics since the People’s Daily run a series extolling Xi Jinping’s economic thought. In practice, this amounts to Xi heading the Central Leading Group for Comprehensive Deepening Reform and the Central Leading Group of Finance and Economics Affairs. In China, these two bodies are usually presided by the Prime Minister.
The 13th Five-Year Plan is heavily imprinted by Xiconomics. It’s crucial to note that before the final version was drafted, Liu He, Xi’s top aide, had been on the phone a lot with US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew; they extensively discussed China’s exchange-rate policies.
One of the key aspects of Xiconomics is Beijing preferring mergers and acquisitions of state-owned enterprises instead of privatization. Economists interpret it as Xi bolstering state capitalism to tap plenty of overseas markets – many of them virgin – to make up for slowing domestic growth.
And that leads to the crucial importance of the New Silk Roads – or One Belt, One Road (OBOR), according to the official Chinese terminology. State-owned enterprises will play a key role in OBOR – which will be essentially creating Eurasia integration via an immense trans-Eurasian emporium.
OBOR happens to be the only global economic integration plan in play (there are no Plan Bs), implying almost $1 trillion in future investments already announced. Last June, China Development Bank announced it would invest an astonishing $890 billion in over 900 OBOR projects across 60 countries. And that will include a crucial, 2,000-mile long high-speed railway from Xinjiang to Tehran, an essential part of the growing energy/trade/commerce China-Iran strategic partnership.
Internally, Beijing’s top challenge arguably will be the pacification of Xinjiang – a key OBOR hub. There is an effort to encourage integrated residential blocks, as Premier Li stressed, targeting cities where Uyghurs and Han Chinese have been segregated since the 2009 riots, especially in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. Uyghur students will also be encouraged to study in Han Chinese schools. Whether this will work will largely depend on provincial cadres strictly following Beijing’s integrationist directives.
 All about Xi
Beijing is unabashedly ramping up its soft power in parallel to economic power; the launch of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – which will be key for many projects across OBOR – is mirrored by the establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea and turbocharged construction in parts of the disputed South China Sea.
Not accidentally, the CIA is sending its own signals, stressing the US would be uneasy at the prospect of China dominating Central and South Asian security in the long term.
Beijing is not exactly worried. The reform of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is also in progress – and should be completed by 2020. The reform, coordinated by the Central Military Commission, relies on better coordination between the four Armed Forces to «win wars», according to Xi himself.
Xi has already announced that before 2017 the PLA will be streamlined by no less than 300,000 jobs – but will still count on 2 million active troops. Another key objective is to develop China as a maritime power – totally capable of monitoring surface and aerial traffic across the South China Sea.
For instance, Beijing has deployed the powerful HQ-9 air and missile defense system to Yongxing in the Paracel archipelago – inhabited by about 1,000 Chinese since 1956 but still also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. The HQ-9 is able to transform enormous amounts of territory into virtual no-fly zones. Only the F-22 Raptor and the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber can operate in the vicinity of an HQ-9 in relative safety.
Behind these Chinese military reforms, the unstated goal is clear; the US military better not start entertaining funny ideas, not only in the South China Sea but also across the Western Pacific.
China’s anti-access/area denial strategy is a go. And Xi is right behind it – now widely regarded even at the provincial level as the nucleus (hexin) of all these reforms. Talk about a lightning-fast consolidation of power. And talk about a lot to talk about when China hosts the next G20 summit, in Hangzhou, in September. The 13th Five-Year-Plan has just been approved, but China is already thinking, and mentally living, in 2020.
This piece first appeared at Strategic-Culture.org
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).  His latest book is Empire of Chaos. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.


lunes, 28 de marzo de 2016

Silencio ante la recaptura de Palmira
Robert Fisk
La Jornada 28 de Marzo de 2016

La mayor derrota militar que el Isis ha sufrido en más de dos años –la recaptura de Palmira, la ciudad romana de la emperatriz Zenobia–, y guardamos silencio. Sí, amigos, los malos ganaron, ¿cierto? De otro modo estaríamos celebrando, ¿verdad?
Menos de una semana después de que las almas perdidas del califato islámico destruyeron la vida de más de 30 seres humanos inocentes en Bruselas, deberíamos estar aplaudiendo la más aplastante derrota militar que ha sufrido el Isis hasta ahora. Pero no. Mientras los oscuros maestros de la ejecución huían de Palmira este fin de semana, los señores Obama y Cameron estaban tan callados como las tumbas a las que el Isis ha despachado a tantas de sus víctimas. El que humilló nuestra bandera nacional en honor del rey de Arabia, cortador de cabezas (hablo del señor Cameron, desde luego), no dijo una palabra.
Como solía decir mi colega John Gordon, del Sunday Express, fallecido hace mucho tiempo: Como que te levanta un poco de la silla, ¿no? He aquí al ejército sirio, respaldado, claro, por los rusos de Vladimir Putin, echando de la ciudad a los payasos del Isis, y no nos atrevemos a decir una sola palabra que signifique bien hecho.
Cuando cayó Palmira, el año pasado, predijimos la caída de Bashar al Assad, pero pasamos por alto la gran pregunta del ejército sirio: ¿por qué, si los estadunidenses odiaban tanto al Isis, no bombardearon los convoyes suicidas que atacaban las líneas frontales del ejército sirio? ¿Por qué no atacaron al Isis?
Si los estadunidenses querían destruir al Isis, ¿por qué no bombardearon a sus combatientes cuando los vieron?, me preguntó un general del ejército sirio, luego de la derrota de sus soldados. Su hijo murió en la defensa de Homs. Sus hombres habían sido capturados y decapitados en las ruinas romanas. El oficial sirio a cargo de las ruinas (que tanto nos preocupaban, ¿recuerdan?) también fue decapitado. El Isis incluso volvió a ponerle los lentes a su cabeza cercenada, por diversión.
Putin notó esto y habló de ello, prediciendo con precisión la recaptura de Palmira. Sus aviones atacaron al Isis –lo que no hicieron los aviones estadunidenses– en preparación de la conquista del ejército sirio. No puedo menos de sonreír cuando leo que el comando estadunidense afirmó haber realizado dos ataques aéreos contra el Isis en los alrededores de Palmira en los días anteriores a la recaptura por el gobierno. Eso nos dice todo lo que necesitábamos saber de la guerra al terror de los estadunidenses. Querían destruir al Isis, pero no tanto.
Así que al final, fue el ejército sirio, junto con sus amigos del Hezbolá en Líbano, los iraníes y los rusos, el que echó de Palmira a los asesinos del Isis, y el que incluso –el cielo nos guarde de semejante victoria– podría invadir la capitalsiria del Isis, Raqqa.
He escrito muchas veces que el ejército sirio decidirá el futuro de Siria. Si recupera Raqqa –y Deir el-Zour, donde el frente Nusra destruyó la iglesia del genocidio armenio y arrojó a las calles los huesos de las víctimas cristianas de 1915–, les prometo que volveremos a guardar silencio.

© The Independent

domingo, 27 de marzo de 2016

In Donald Trump’s Worldview, America Comes First, and Everybody Else Pays
By DAVID E. SANGER and MAGGIE HABERMAN MARCH 26, 2016
Nytimes.com
Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, said that if elected, he might halt purchases of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies unless they commit ground troops to the fight against the Islamic State or “substantially reimburse” the United States for combating the militant group, which threatens their stability.
“If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection,” Mr. Trump said during a 100-minute interview on foreign policy, spread over two phone calls on Friday, “I don’t think it would be around.”
He also said he would be open to allowing Japan and South Korea to build their own nuclear arsenals rather than depend on the American nuclear umbrella for their protection against North Korea and China. If the United States “keeps on its path, its current path of weakness, they’re going to want to have that anyway, with or without me discussing it,” Mr. Trump said.
And he said he would be willing to withdraw United States forces from both Japan and South Korea if they did not substantially increase their contributions to the costs of housing and feeding those troops. “Not happily, but the answer is yes,” he said.
Mr. Trump also said he would seek to renegotiate many fundamental treaties with American allies, possibly including a 56-year-old security pact with Japan, which he described as one-sided.
In Mr. Trump’s worldview, the United States has become a diluted power, and the main mechanism by which he would re-establish its central role in the world is economic bargaining. He approached almost every current international conflict through the prism of a negotiation, even when he was imprecise about the strategic goals he sought. He again faulted the Obama administration’s handling of the negotiations with Iran last year — “It would have been so much better if they had walked away a few times,” he said — but offered only one new idea about how he would change its content: Ban Iran’s trade with North Korea.
Mr. Trump struck similar themes when he discussed the future of NATO, which he called “unfair, economically, to us,” and said he was open to an alternative organization focused on counterterrorism. He argued that the best way to halt China’s placement of military airfields and antiaircraft batteries on reclaimed islands in the South China Sea was to threaten its access to American markets.
“We have tremendous economic power over China,” he argued. “And that’s the power of trade.” He did not mention Beijing’s ability for economic retaliation.
Mr. Trump’s views, as he explained them, fit nowhere into the recent history of the Republican Party: He is not in the internationalist camp of President George Bush, nor does he favor President George W. Bush’s call to make it the United States’ mission to spread democracy around the world. He agreed with a suggestion that his ideas might be summed up as “America First.”
“Not isolationist, but I am America First,” he said. “I like the expression.” He said he was willing to reconsider traditional American alliances if partners were not willing to pay, in cash or troop commitments, for the presence of American forces around the world. “We will not be ripped off anymore,” he said.
In the past week, the bombings in Brussels and an accelerated war against the Islamic State have shifted the focus of the campaign trail conversation back to questions of how the candidates would defend the United States and what kind of diplomacy they would pursue around the world.
Mr. Trump explained his thoughts in concrete and easily digestible terms, but they appeared to reflect little consideration for potential consequences. Much the same way he treats political rivals and interviewers, he personalized how he would engage foreign nations, suggesting his approach would depend partly on “how friendly they’ve been toward us,” not just on national interests or alliances.
At no point did he express any belief that American forces deployed on military bases around the world were by themselves valuable to the United States, though Republican and Democratic administrations have for decades argued that they are essential to deterring military adventurism, protecting commerce and gathering intelligence.
Like Richard M. Nixon, Mr. Trump emphasized the importance of “unpredictability” for an American president, arguing that the country’s traditions of democracy and openness had made its actions too easy for adversaries and allies alike to foresee.
“I wouldn’t want them to know what my real thinking is,” he said of how far he was willing to take the confrontation over the islands in the South China Sea, which are remote and lightly inhabited but extend China’s control over a major maritime thoroughfare. But, he added, “I would use trade, absolutely, as a bargaining chip.”

Asked when he thought American power had been at its peak, Mr. Trump reached back 116 years to the turn of the 20th century, the era of another unconventional Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, who ended up leaving the party. His favorite figures in American history, he said, include two generals, Douglas MacArthur and George S. Patton — though he said that, unlike MacArthur, he would not advocate using nuclear weapons except as a last resort. (He suggested MacArthur had pressed during the Korean War to use them against China as a means “to negotiate,” adding, “He played the nuclear card, but he didn’t use it.”)
Mr. Trump denied that he had had trouble finding top members of the foreign policy establishment to advise him. “Many of them are tied up with contracts working for various networks,” he said, like Fox or CNN.
He named three advisers in addition to five he announced earlier in the week: retired Maj. Gen. Gary L. Harrell, Maj. Gen. Bert K. Mizusawa and retired Rear Adm. Charles R. Kubic. They reflected a continuing bias toward former military officers, rather than diplomats or academics with foreign policy experience. General Harrell, a Special Forces veteran, was a commander in the failed “Black Hawk Down” mission in Somalia in 1993. Admiral Kubic, now president of an engineering firm, has been a sharp critic of President Obama’s handling of the attack on Libya that helped oust Col. Muammar el-QaddafiAsked about the briefings he receives and books he has read on foreign policy, Mr. Trump said his main information source was newspapers, “including yours.”
Until recently, his foreign policy pronouncements have largely come through slogans: “Take the oil,” “Build a wall” and ban Muslim immigrantsand visitors, at least temporarily. But as he pulls closer to the nomination, he has been called on to elaborate.
Pressed about his call to “take the oil” controlled by the Islamic State in the Middle East, Mr. Trump acknowledged that this would require deploying ground troops, something he does not favor. “We should’ve taken it, and we would’ve had it,” he said, referring to the years in which the United States occupied Iraq. “Now we have to destroy the oil.”
He did not rule out spying on American allies, including leaders like Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, whose cellphone was apparently a target of the National Security Agency. Mr. Obama said the agency would no longer target her phone but made no such commitments about the rest of Germany, or Europe.
“I’m not sure that I would want to be talking about that,” Mr. Trump said. “You understand what I mean by that.”
Mr. Trump was not impressed with Ms. Merkel’s handling of the migrant crisis, however: “Germany is being destroyed by Merkel’s naïveté, or worse,” he said. He suggested that Germany and the Gulf nations should pay for the “safe zones” he wants to set up in Syria for refugees, and for protecting them once built.
Throughout the two conversations, Mr. Trump painted a bleak picture of the United States as a diminished force in the world, an opinion he has held since the late 1980s, when he placed ads in The New York Times and other newspapers calling for Japan and Saudi Arabia to spend more money on their own defense.
Mr. Trump’s new threat to cut off oil purchases from the Saudis was part of a broader complaint about the United States’ Arab allies, which many in the Obama administration share: that they often look to the United States to police the Middle East, without putting their own troops at risk. “We defend everybody,” he said. “When in doubt, come to the United States. We’ll defend you. In some cases free of charge.”
But his rationale for abandoning the region was that “the reason we’re in the Middle East is for oil, and all of a sudden we’re finding out that there’s less reason to be there now.” He made no mention of the risks of withdrawal — that it would encourage Iran to dominate the Gulf, that the presence of American troops is part of Israel’s defense, and that American air and naval bases in the region are key collection points for intelligence and bases for drones and Special Operations forces.
Mr. Trump seemed less comfortable on some topics than others. He called the United States “obsolete” in terms of cyberweaponry, although the nation’s capabilities are generally considered on the cutting edge.
In the morning interview, asked if he would seek a two-state or a one-state solution in a peace accord between the Israelis and the Palestinians, he said: “I’m not saying anything. What I’m going to do is, you know, I specifically don’t want to address the issue because I would love to see if a deal could be made.”
But in the evening, saying he had been rushed earlier, he went back to a position outlined Monday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel group. “Basically, I support a two-state solution on Israel,” he said. “But the Palestinian Authority has to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”
In discussing nuclear weapons — which he said he had learned about from an uncle, John G. Trump, who was on the M.I.T. faculty — he seemed fixated on the large stockpiles amassed in the Cold War. While he referred briefly to North Korean and Pakistani arsenals, he said nothing about a danger that is a cause of great consternation among global leaders: small nuclear weapons that could be fashioned by terrorists.
In criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, he expressed particular outrage at how the roughly $150 billion released to Iran (by his estimate; the number is in dispute) was being spent. “Did you notice they’re buying from everybody but the United States?” he said.
Told that sanctions under United States law still bar most American companies from doing business with Iran, he said: “So, how stupid is that? We give them the money and we now say, ‘Go buy Airbus instead of Boeing,’ right?”

But Mr. Trump, who has been pushed to demonstrate a basic command of international affairs, insisted that voters should not doubt his foreign policy fluency. “I do know my subject,” he said.

sábado, 26 de marzo de 2016

Reclaiming Conservative Foreign Policy
Trump seems unwilling to embrace Neoconservative hawkishness. Will Republicans return to noninterventionism?
Theamericanconservative.com
The rise of Donald Trump has led to predictions that the neoconservative dominance of Republican foreign policy is about to end, whether or not Trump wins. The Donald has challenged the perpetual military interventionism aspect of neocon-think without doing any damage to his campaign and, in the process, he has certainly noticed who the most strident voices being raised against him are.
Admittedly the prospect of a world blissfully free of neocons is appealing, but some observers have noted how the neoconservatives are chameleon like, blending in with whoever is controlling the levers of power and capable of moving from their original home in the Democratic Party over to the GOP—and then back again to the Democrats whenever it seems tactically advisable. Their eradication is far from a sure thing and one expects to see the neocon stalwarts Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan at the top of any Hillary Clinton administration.
The effort to disparage Trump is to a considerable extent neocon driven, featuring the usual publications, as well as frequent television and radio appearances driven by Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol’s talking points. Recently the Washington Post, as part of its own unrelenting campaign to destroy the Trump candidacy, has been featuring numerous articles attacking the candidate from every conceivable perspective. An op-ed queried seven “Republicans” regarding their own views of the Trump phenomenon plus their advice regarding what might be done to stop him. Former Congressman Eric Cantor stated flatly that “I don’t believe Donald Trump is a conservative” while Kristol called for mounting “an independent Republican candidacy in the general election.” Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute said Trump “is no conservative and will do lasting damage to the conservative movement,” a sentiment topped by Ari Fleischer’s assertion that “Trump is not really a Republican.”
This playing of word games is an effort to excommunicate individuals who do not fit into an acceptable template drawn by those who comprise the nation’s political elite. Congressman Ron Paul suffered from such attacks labeling him a libertarian when he ran for president. Pat Buchanan had preceded him, described by the neoconservative crowd as an anti-Semite and fascist. In reality, both were attacked for not being internationally interventionist enough to be considered true conservatives, which actually tells one more about the critics than it does about the victims of the denigration.
In its current incarnation, the Republican Party leadership, in going along with the charade, is essentially yielding to the neoconservative view that willingness to assert American leadership through overseas wars was and still is a sine qua non when it comes to being considered a conservative.
All of which makes one wonder about the abuse of the word “conservative.” Perhaps it is the neocons that should actually have the word stripped from their self-designation. The Republican Party has long been regarded as the home of “conservatism,” but that value has most often been linked to what have been regarded as family and traditional values, limited government, and, most particularly, an antipathy towards foreign wars. The GOP in Congress resisted President Woodrow Wilson’s and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to get America involved in both the First and Second World Wars, and also refused to join the League of Nations after the first war had ended. If anything, nonintervention was solidly in the GOP DNA.
But traditional reluctance to go to war on the part of Republicans was challenged when John F. Kennedy discovered a fictional “missile gap,” forcing the GOP for electoral reasons to become part of the developing national security consensus. It subsequently became the party of robust defense when Ronald Reagan sought to distinguish himself from the lackluster Jimmy Carter. Reagan’s term of office coincided with the appearance of the so-called “neoconservatives,” most notably at the Pentagon (a development that was, not coincidentally, combined with the final purges of the so-called Arabists at the State Department).  
While it has often been noted that a group of like-minded individuals gradually commandeered the foreign and defense policy of the Republican Party starting in the 1970s, it is less frequently observed that the hijacking of the tag “conservatism” was itself also part of the process as a way to make the transition more palatable to the public and the GOP rank-and-file.
Many neoconservatives began as Communists. One of the founders of the movement, Irving Kristol, was a radical student at City College of New York in the 1930s. Kristol has been described as an anti-Soviet Trotskyite in his leanings prior to experiencing a political conversion in middle age. That meant advocacy of worldwide revolution, which for Kristol and his later associate Norman Podhoretz later morphed into endorsement of global pax Americana by force majeure.
Kristol famously quipped that he and his colleagues were liberals who were mugged by reality. The joke is amusing, but not completely convincing, since it begs the question of whose reality and to what end. Kristol himself describedneoconservatives as “…unlike old conservatives because they are utilitarians, not moralists…”
Though Irving Kristol did not study under leading “neoconservative” theorist Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago, his belief in his own peer group of dedicated “intellectuals” as the leadership elements that would direct a broader movement was at its heart Straussian. Kristol summed up the Straussian view that
There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.
In his own words, Kristol stated his belief that a robust U.S. military would be the catalyst for positive developments globally and most particularly for Israel. In 1973, Kristol attacked Democratic Presidential nominee George McGovern, stating that
Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30 percent. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel… Jews don’t like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States… American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.
Complicating the definition of neo-conservatism is the fact that there are several currents that have more-or-less come together to form the current incarnation. The historic roots of the movement derived from Kristol and Podhoretz are radical leftist, but there is another source of neoconservatives gathered around the formersenator from Washington, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who was liberal on social policies but a hard liner vis-à-vis defense and most particularly the Soviet Union. He was the source of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which tied relaxing trade policies with Moscow to the willingness of the Soviet government to allow Jews to emigrate. Prominent Scoop Jackson Democrats who became Republicans during the Reagan administration include Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith, and Ben Wattenberg. Wolfowitz had also been a student of Strauss at Chicago.
A third element that has joined the historic and Jacksonian traditions are the second generation neocons, to include Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Michael Rubin, Charles Krauthammer, Laurie Mylroie, Jennifer Rubin, Dennis Ross, the Kagans, the Makovskys, and Elliot Abrams. It is this generation who staffs the Washington foundations and think tanks that have been associated with neoconservative policies, including AEI, the Hudson Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Emergency Committee for Israel and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. They also are prominent in the Rupert Murdoch media empire and in publications to include theWeekly Standard, Commentary, National Review and the Washington Post. Many are fixtures on Sunday morning talk television. They are also heavily overrepresented in groups like the John Hay Initiative that have succeeded in shaping the foreign policy positions being taken by nearly all of the GOP presidential aspirants.
There is, of course, considerable mixing and cross fertilization among the neoconservative groups, meaning that they sometimes differ on issues that they consider secondary to their main foreign policy agenda. They are reticent or even silent on many social conservative issues, even accommodating a progressive viewpoint on abortion and gay marriage, education, and health care reform. They support open borders or are at least ambivalent about immigration, favor free trade, promote diversity and multiculturalism. Their failure to address these issues in a serious way reveals above all that they are not genuine conservatives and are more like a one-trick pony that only performs foreign policy.
So what do all neocons actually believe? The unifying principle of neoconservatism is the conviction that the United States has a moral duty to serve as the world’s policeman, preempting the development of challenges from rogue states, which has sometimes caustically been described as “invade the world.” In practical terms, this pursuit of de facto global hegemony means that military force is by default the first option in bilateral relations with foreign states. It also becomes necessary to manufacture an enemy or enemies that theoretically pose a significant threat. This role is currently being played by Russia, China, perennial favorite Iran, and the somewhat more amorphous “Islamo-fascism.”
The fearmongering is necessary for two reasons. First it justifies inflated military budgets that in turn keep the defense contractor money flowing to neoconservative organizations. Second, a robust military, per Irving Kristol’s thinking, guarantees that the United States will always be ready, willing, and available to protect Israel, an imperative derived from the perception that both the U.S. and Israel are morally exceptional states. All neoconservatives support military buildups and interventions, plus they all are zealous in their uncritical support of Israel, to such an extent that the two issues define them.
Confronting the neocons requires first of all exposing the fact that they are not actually conservatives by any reasonable definition. Peter Beinart agrees that the “incoherent definition” needs to be retired and wants to replace it with “imperialist.” Call them what you will, but exposing their exploitation of the conservative label that enables their parasitical relationship with the GOP is perhaps the simplest way to create some separation from their peculiar brand of internationalism. Whether that will make them disappear or not is perhaps debatable, but, at a minimum, it would prevent them from defining what an acceptable Republican party foreign policy might or should be. Donald Trump has for all his faults opened the door just a crack in bringing about that kind of change, including in his rant a direct criticism of the neocons. In that respect, one should most certainly wish him success.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

miércoles, 23 de marzo de 2016

Pobreza e indigencia bajaron en AL, excepto en México: Cepal
El problema es más estructural que coyuntural, indicó Alicia Bárcena
Erosión salarial, alta tasa de natalidad en la población marginada e insuficientes programas sociales, entre las causas
Roberto González Amador
Periódico La Jornada
Miércoles 23 de marzo de 2016, p. 22
Debido a la caída en el ingreso de los hogares, la pobreza e indigencia aumentaron en México en el último lustro, periodo en el cual ambas condiciones disminuyeron para el promedio de países de América Latina, reveló este martes un reporte de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal).
Entre 2010 y 2014 hubo reducción de la pobreza y la indigencia, tanto en lo que se refiere al promedio regional como a la mayoría de países, lo que se debió principalmente al aumento del ingreso de los hogares, planteó el informe Panorama Social de América Latina 2015, presentado ayer por Alicia Bárcena, secretaria ejecutiva del organismo regional de Naciones Unidas.
De 2010 a 2014 la pobreza disminuyó de 31.1 a 28.2 por ciento de los habitantes de la región. Sin embargo, la Cepal anticipa que en 2015 habría aumentado hasta afectar a 29.2 por ciento de los latinoamericanos.
Los indicadores de indigencia, en cambio, se mantuvieron con pocas variaciones: 12.1 de cada 100 latinoamericanos eran indigentes en 2010, proporción que disminuyó a 11.8 de cada 100 en 2014 y que, de acuerdo con previsiones del organismo, habría subido a 12.4 de cada 100 el año pasado.
El número de personas pobres creció en 2014, hasta llegar a 168 millones, de las cuales 70 millones se encontraban en situación de indigencia. De confirmarse las previsiones respecto del año pasado, 175 millones de personas se encontrarían en situación de pobreza por ingresos, de las cuales 75 millones estarían en indigencia, añadió el reporte.
El número de pobres de la región se incrementó en alrededor de 2 millones de personas. Esta variación fue resultado, por una parte, de un aumento de aproximadamente 7 millones de personas pobres registrado o proyectado principalmente en Guatemala, México y Venezuela, y, por otra, de una disminución de 5 millones observada sobre todo en Brasil, Colombia y Ecuador, expuso el reporte.
En un grupo de 11 países para los que la Cepal tiene datos actualizados, la pobreza e indigencia disminuyó en nueve de ellos y sólo aumento en Costa Rica, de manera marginal, y en México, de acuerdo con la secretaria general de la Cepal.
Países como Uruguay, Perú, Chile, Brasil y Bolivia experimentaron reducciones de la pobreza del orden de 14.9, 9.8, 9.1, 7.9 y 6.3 por ciento, respectivamente, de su población entre 2010 y 2014, de acuerdo con el informe.
En México, en cambio, se dio el mayor aumento de la pobreza durante ese periodo de cinco años, con alza de 2.9 por ciento, seguido por Honduras, con 2.3, y Costa Rica, con 0.1 por ciento, indicó el documento de la Cepal.
El problema de la pobreza en México es más estructural que coyuntural, comentó Bárcena. El crecimiento en el número de personas que viven en esa condición es parte de un proceso, dijo, de erosión salarial, alta tasa de natalidad entre la población marginada y que las transferencias de recursos del Estado a los más pobres por conducto de los programas sociales no compensan la baja del ingreso, agregó.
De acuerdo con cálculos del organismo presentados en el informe, 33 de cada 100 hogares en México viven en pobreza de ingresos y 12 de cada 100 en la indigencia. Datos oficiales del gobierno mexicano, citados también en el reporte, sitúan en condición de pobreza a 53.2 por ciento del total de los habitantes.
En los países que la hubo, la reducción de la pobreza en el periodo de referencia estuvo asociada fundamentalmente al aumento de los ingresos de los hogares, explicó. Esto ocurrió en un contexto de mejoría de los indicadores del mercado de trabajo, como la disminución de la tasa de desocupación, aumento de los ingresos laborales, en especial del salario mínimo en varios países, incremento moderado de la formalización del trabajo y de la tasa de participación laboral de las mujeres, y de expansión del gasto público social y de las políticas de lucha contra la pobreza, entre ellas los programas de transferencias monetarias, agregó.

El crecimiento del ingreso dio origen a dos tercios o más de la caída de la pobreza en Paraguay, Bolivia, Panamá, Perú y Colombia. Mientras tanto, en Venezuela, Honduras y México, el decrecimiento de los ingresos se constituyó en el principal factor de aumento de la pobreza.

martes, 22 de marzo de 2016

ATAQUES TERRORISTAS EN BRUSELAS

Esta mañana se registraron tres explosiones (dos en el aeropuerto de Bruselas y una en la estación del Metro Maalbeek) en la capital de Bélgica, dejando hasta el momento 34 muertos y 170 heridos.
Todo parece indicar que estos atentados estaban preparados con antelación, pues suceden en el inicio de la Semana Santa cuando los aeropuertos registran mayor movimiento y las capitales europeas, como Bruselas, reciben visitantes de diversas partes del mundo, aprovechando los días de asueto de la Semana Mayor.
Sin embargo, es factible que dichos atentados se hayan realizado con mayor anticipación, a raíz del arresto el viernes pasado en Bruselas de Salah Abdeslam, acusado de haber participado en los atentados de Paris, el 13 de noviembre del año pasado; por lo cual la autoría recaería en el Estado Islámico, nuevamente.
Según las agencias de seguridad e inteligencia del mundo occidental, era factible que se registraran nuevos atentados terroristas en Europa o Estados Unidos, como represalia por las acciones militares llevadas a cabo por los países occidentales contra el Estado Islámico (aunque la realidad es que han sido el ejército sirio, los rusos, iraquíes y kurdos quienes han hecho retroceder a los radicales islámicos en Siria e Irak) y  con objeto de generar un mayor apoyo de los grupos radicales al Estado Islámico, que ahora está buscando establecer su principal base de operaciones en Libia.
Estos atentados también dan nuevo oxígeno a la estrategia de los neoconservadores, el complejo militar-industrial de Estados Unidos, Arabia Saudita, Turquía, las petromonarquías del Golfo, Israel, Egipto y Jordania, de evitar que el mundo occidental se retire, así sea parcialmente, del escenario de conflicto del Medio Oriente, en donde el principal objetivo de estos actores es derrocar a Bashar el Assad (que ahora ha encontrado un espacio de maniobra con el cese al fuego parcial y las conversaciones de paz en Ginebra), acorralar de nuevo a Irán y al Hezbollah.
Así, los grupos radicales islámicos (Estado Islámico, Al Qaeda y sus derivaciones como Al Nusra; Al Shram, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, etc.) no sólo representan una vertiente político, ideológica y religiosa extrema de la rama sunnita del Islam, sino también juegan un papel estratégico en las luchas de poder entre diversos países que se disputan el liderazgo de ciertas regiones geopolíticas (Cercano Oriente y Norte de Africa; Africa Occidental; Africa subsahariana), y que utilizan al terrorismo como justificación o vehículo de sus propios intereses y ambiciones.
De ahí que plantear la lucha o “guerra” contra el terrorismo como el enfrentamiento entre países y gobiernos “buenos” y grupos extremistas “malos”, es un maniqueísmo que no sirve más que para propósitos propagandísticos, pero que no se ajusta a la realidad, en donde países, gobiernos e incluso determinados grupos de poder dentro de esos países, usan al terrorismo como herramienta para hacer avanzar sus intereses y objetivos políticos y económicos de dominación.

lunes, 21 de marzo de 2016

TRUMP, DOBLADO POR EL LOBBY PRO ISRAEL Y LOS NEOCONSERVADORES

Los supermillonarios judíos (Adelson, Singer, Braman, Saban, etc.), acostumbrados desde hace décadas a comprar candidatos presidenciales y al Congreso, para defender sus intereses y al Estado de Israel; así como el establecimiento político-militar de Washington, en donde el peso específico del ala neoconservadora del Partido Republicano (Kristol, Kagan, Abrams, etc.) domina el escenario; y el poderoso lobby pro Israel, liderado por el American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), han vivido los últimos nueve meses en franca desesperación, al ver que la pre-candidatura presidencial de Donald Trump ha crecido exponencialmente, sin que ellos puedan controlarla, descarrilarla o detenerla.
Por ello en los últimos dos meses se han dado a la tarea de conformar grupos abiertos (super PACs) y cerrados, con objeto de ver la forma de obligar a Trump a aceptar las prioridades de política que les interesa a estos grupos: intervencionismo militar continuo en el mundo, para asegurar la hegemonía estadounidense; apertura económica total,  que favorece a las finanzas y a los grandes corporativos de Estados Unidos; sumisión absoluta a las directrices del gobierno de Netanyahu en lo relativo a la política de Estados Unidos hacia el Medio Oriente, en materia de terrorismo y de seguridad internacional.
Algunas posiciones de Trump en materia internacional los ha llevado incluso a afirmar que preferirían apoyar a Hillary Clinton en la elección presidencial (el caso de los neoconservadores dirigidos por Kristol y Abrams), tales como su postura “neutral” en el conflicto israelí-palestino; el cierre de bases militares en diversas partes del mundo o al menos la necesidad de que los aliados de Estados Unidos asuman un costo mayor en su manutención; y su no oposición a que Rusia juegue un papel relevante en el conflicto en Siria y en la lucha contra el Estado Islámico.
Pues bien, la estrategia de presión contra Trump (enorme cantidad de anuncios en que se le critica su misoginia, xenofobia e incitación a la violencia a sus seguidores); así como varias reuniones privadas con miembros del establecimiento republicano, han llevado a Trump a reconsiderar su posición en distintos temas, específicamente en el caso del apoyo estadounidense a Israel.
Si bien Trump no ha dejado de afirmar que apoyaría a Israel en todo momento cuando llegue a la presidencia, y se califica como un amigo de Israel y de los judíos (su hija mayor está casada con un judío y ella misma se convirtió al judaísmo), las élites pro Israel de Estados Unidos (las más poderosas en términos de poder económico y de control sobre los medios de comunicación), lo consideran un riesgo, porque no lo pueden controlar a través del dinero, ya que él está financiando su campaña; y al parecer tampoco mediante chantajes de otro tipo (como controlaron a Bill Clinton con el asunto de Mónica Lewinsky).
Por ello han lanzado una campaña mediática muy bien financiada contra Trump; y también política, a través de diversos grupos dentro del Partido Republicano (este 21 de Marzo se reunió con varias personalidades del partido y en otra reunión, con el Consejo Editorial del Washington Post), para obligar a Trump a comprometerse con las prioridades que les importa más.
Así, Trump ya dio nombres de las personas que lo están asesorando en materia de política exterior y de defensa, y que es un pequeño compendio de ex colaboradores de George W. Bush y de los neoconservadores[1], casi tan nocivo como los que acaba de nombrar Ted Cruz para asesorarlo en su campaña (ver en este mismo blog artículo de Jason Ditz; “Cruz Hires Neocon Loons”).
Así también, Trump (como lo hicieron Hillary Clinton, John Kasich y Ted Cruz; siendo la excepción, paradójicamente el único candidato judío, Bernie Sanders) fue a rendirse a los pies del lobby pro Israel en la reunión anual de AIPAC en Washington, en donde cayó en todos los lugares comunes de servilismo de los candidatos presidenciales (y congresionales) a Israel, olvidándose por completo de su “neutralidad” en el conflicto con los palestinos; extendiéndose en su ataque al acuerdo con Irán (además reiterando la mentira de que se le regaló a ese país la suma de 150 mil millones de dólares, cuando en realidad ese dinero era iraní, y estaba congelado por las sanciones impuestas por el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, o sea que tan sólo se le regresó a su legítimo dueño; seguramente Trump se lo hubiera quedado); prometiendo (como lo hicieron Kasich y Cruz) de que se moverá la embajada de Estados Unidos de Tel Aviv a Jerusalén; culpando de todo a los palestinos, a los que señaló reiteradamente de ser los causantes del terrorismo (junto con Irán) y de no haber aceptado las “muy generosas” ofertas de los gobiernos israelíes, etc.
Así, Trump cumplió con la obligación de todo candidato presidencial (y al Congreso) de rendir pleitesía y sumisión a los dueños de Estados Unidos, o sea el lobby pro Israel, sus multimillonarios, los neoconservadores y el complejo militar-industrial y de seguridad.
Se veía realmente cuesta arriba que Trump pudiera enfrentarse al verdadero poder dentro de ese país, no sólo por los enormes recursos que tienen en cuestión financiera, de medios de comunicación y de control sobre buena parte del establecimiento político-militar de Estados Unidos, sino porque ya en estos días le enviaron “mensajes” a Trump de que pueden incluso poner en riesgo su vida y la de su familia, como sucedió cuando un “espontáneo” intentó llegar a Trump en un mitin en Ohio; y en las oficinas de Eric Trump, hijo varón mayor de Trump que juega un papel principal en su campaña, llegó una carta con polvo blanco (que resultó inofensivo, pero bien pudo ser ántrax) con amenazas contra él y su familia.
Todo parece indicar que Trump está comenzando a darse cuenta de que el apoyo popular no será suficiente para derrotar a los grupos de poder político y económico que manejan a la gran potencia, y si quiere llegar a la presidencia tendrá que aceptar doblarse ante ellos y aceptar que no intentará cambiar la estructura fundamental de las relaciones económicas y políticas de Estados Unidos, y a cambio sus negocios privados podrán expandirse; a él le permitirán llegar a la Casa Blanca y llevar a cabo una que otra de sus promesas (como construir el muro y deportar a una parte de los 11.5 millones de indocumentados), y por supuesto dejar en paz a su familia.

Huddled Masses at the Rio Del Norte (View From Colossos)
 03/21/2016
The Huffington Post

Michael Brenner
Senior Fellow, the Center for Transatlantic Relations; Professor of International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh
·         Americans have gotten themselves worked into a lather about immigration. Cynical politicians have stirred emotions with telling effect. Perspective and proportion are the casualties.
Let’s face the uncomfortable truth: immigration is a problem(s) for which there is really no satisfactory solution. That is not a recommendation or excuse for inaction. But simply to underscore the inescapable fact that whatever combination of policies we come up with will leave most Americans discontented on some reasonable grounds or other. This is what happens when you leave pathological situations to fester for decades — doing things on a disjointed basis (not very competently). Some of those things actually aggravate the condition — a form of iatrogenic medicine, as did the self-contradictory Obama Executive initiatives over the past seven years.
One could draw a rough analogy with American actions and inactions in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine and now Yemen. Actually, it’s probably easier to imagine some moves over there (e.g. confronting the Saudis, the Israelis, the Turks) than it is to imagine serious, if partial solutions to the immigration situation.
·         Still, a few points seem fundamental. One, you have to be able to control your borders — perhaps not hermetically but for the most part. That is not now the case. I personally don’t know enough about the particulars to say if a physical barrier (of whatever height) would be part of the answer. From what I hear around Texas, most of the illegals don’t wade across the Rio Grande and then trek through the desert — they come through or around major border check points.
·         Two, the organization and management of the relevant border agencies leave a lot to be desired. Undisciplined, poorly trained and undermanned — they perform haphazardly. Intersecting jurisdictions is part of the problem. Amateurism at the managerial level and petty corruption add to it. Think of airport security: 85% of illicit, banned materials get through when tests are done. That’s what the border is like. Or think of the VA. What to do? Let’s begin with what not to do: the US government should not hire consultants to find an answer. That’s a loser’s game. Instead, the White House must take a grip by appointing some tough-minded, experienced people of integrity with a clear mandate to clean things up. More money and hiring would also help. Above all, there has to be rigorous implementation of the measures put in place with accountability enforced up and down the line. That currently is not happening.
·         Three, processing, screening and short-term detention have to be regularized and speeded-up. See above. Reliance on private, profit-making companies is a national disgrace. We cannot tolerate human trafficking, abuse, and profiteering. It’s the government’s job and the government’s responsibility. The same holds for those illegals detained after being resident in the US.
·         Four, something like the “dream act” makes sense. Perfect justice? No. But it’s a hell of a lot better than random raids or mass deportations. The legitimate question can be raised: didn’t we try that in 1986 when a ‘grand bargain’ paired legalization with stricter border controls? Yes - but we didn’t enforce the second part. To avoid a repeat of that fiasco, we should issue dated IDs to everyone already in the country and disqualify everyone who arrives after that date. The “get home free card” would have an expiration date. Again, is there a palatable alternative?
·         Political asylum is a complicating issue. Not only does the United States have a principled commitment to those fleeing persecution but international law obliges a receiving state to provide refuge. Americans, in a turbulent world, have avoided the full impact of mass flight by virtue of geography - this despite the discomforting truth that the millions under threat in the greater Middle East owe their plight in good part to misguided interventions by the U.S. To date, the Obama administration has washed its hands of the problem, admittedly only a handful of Syrian or Iraqi refugees while placing obstacles in the way of endangered former American employees across the region. Accepting a 100,000 or so of those trapped in Turkey and Europe would bolster our image. That seems unlikely in the present atmosphere.
·         The generic problem raises ticklish questions for the controlling our southern border. Foremost, how do you distinguish political refugees from economic refugees? Most are suffering both conditions. Then, how exactly do you define political persecution? Is vulnerability to violence sufficient or must the person involved be targeted specifically as an individual or group member? Reasonably clear answers must be given — in order to act justly and humanely. Doing so becomes a national imperative when large numbers of people from havoc in Central America come knocking at the door or slip through the side door.
·         Five, separating parents from children is unacceptable. Not easy to avoid and some legislative action may be needed. However, any option — however imperfect — is better than creating de facto orphans.
·         Six, there have to be frank talks with Mexican authorities in regard to most aspects of whatever package of actions under consideration. Admittedly, Mexico is a mess. Yet, we’re quite happy with the country being run by bands of crooked, inept politicos so long as they serve American commercial and political interests. That calculus has to change.
·         Seventh, the economic consequences of NAFTA have fed outward migration. Millions of farmers have been dispossessed by the forced opening of Mexico’s agricultural markets to American agro-business. Many thousands of small businesses have been bankrupted by the unrestricted take-over of retail commerce by giant American chains. Large numbers of the impoverished head north. Conditions have been aggravated by the Wall Street financial collapse and the ensuing stagnation which have depressed economies worldwide.
·         Eight, as to Central America, we continue to follow the 100+ year old policy of backing the oligarchs against popular reformers — e.g. Obama/Clinton’s sub rosa encouragement for the coup in Honduras that has turned the place into the homicide/drug capital of the Western Hemisphere. This is ridiculous; Che is long dead.
·         The awkward truth is that Mexico, and some Central American countries, are not entirely sovereign. Americans directly run significant sections of their national police and anti-drug operations. We also have agents on the ground; Army Special Ops roam the jungles in Honduras. Moreover, we intervene in their national politics by providing money on a selective basis and timing various policy initiatives to improve the odds on our favorites’ winning. We also look the other way when a close election is rigged as occurred in Honduras in 2009 — and probably in Mexico in 2006 when Felipe Calderon was challenged by Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Moreover, we let it be known that there will be severe negative economic consequences if the present clique is kicked out of office by reformist politicians. We’ve done the same in recent years in Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panama and Venezuela. We succeeded in three of those places. In addition, we helped get a Washington/Wall Street friendly oligarch elected President of Argentina who first act was to forfeit a long-contested $4 billion claim by American hedge funds. Now, we are itching to accomplish the same in Brazil via orchestrated demonstrations that aim to remove the democratically elected President, Dilma Rousseff, as has been occurring with Washington’s encouragement in Caracas. It is the poorer elements of Latin American societies who will suffer. Every politically literate person in Latin America is apprised of this reality.

·         Stability and economic well-being are preconditions to weaken the “push” side of the immigration phenomenon, and to make more palatable steps designed to constrain the “pull” effect. At present, our regional policies work in the opposite direction.