Media Mourn End of CIA Killing Syrians and Strengthening Al Qaeda

BEN NORTON fair.org

JULY 27, 2017

The US government has finally announced an end to its years-long program to arm and train Syrian rebels. The initiative, one of the CIA’s largest covert operations, with billions of dollars of funding, fueled mass killing in Syria and significantly prolonged the country’s horrific war. Widely respected experts have also acknowledged that it greatly strengthened murderous extremist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda.

If one only read corporate media reporting, however, you would likely think that the termination of the CIA program was an abject tragedy. Spin doctors at major news outlets depicted the Trump administration’s decision as variously a spineless concession to the evil Russian puppet master and/or a wretched abandonment of a supposedly noble US commitment to “freedom and democracy.”

The Washington Post (7/19/17) took the lead with the article “Trump Ends Covert CIA Program to Arm Anti-Assad Rebels in Syria, a Move Sought by Moscow,” which framed the development almost entirely as a concession to the Kremlin. It cited Charles Lister, a hawkish analyst who has for years lobbied for US-led regime changein Syria. “We are falling into a Russian trap,” lamented Lister, who works for think tanks funded by the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, and never fails to toe the line.

Western corporate media compliantly echoed the Post‘s talking points: The Guardian (7/20/17) declared “Donald Trump Drops CIA Program in Syria ‘in Bid to Improve Russia Ties'”; USA Today(7/20/17) said, “Trump’s Cutoff of Aid to Syrian Rebels Marks Victory for Assad, Russia and Iran”; “Donald Trump Ends Covert CIA Aid to Syrian Rebels in ‘Win’ for Russia,” the Telegraph (7/20/17) added.

The Washington Post‘s resident unofficial CIA PR rep, David Ignatius (7/20/17), practically boasted that “CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.”

A top US general later made it clear that the halt of the CIA operation was not about Russia. But this mattered little to the Fourth Estate; the “Kremlin plot” seed had already been planted.

The idea that it might actually be good to end a program that even establishment think tanks conceded empowered Al Qaeda and other jihadist militant groups in Syria, regardless of what Russia desires, was never entertained.

Empowering Al Qaeda

For once, think tanks offered a rare voice of reason. Writing for the Century Foundation, centrist analyst Sam Heller noted the halting of the program was “a concession to reality,” given it had for years been “indirectly feeding the Nusra Front”—Syrian Al Qaeda.

“As for the ‘moderate rebel force'” the CIA program was supposed to create, Heller noted,

for the last several years much of America’s support has gone to “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) factions that have functioned as battlefield auxiliaries and weapons farms for larger Islamist and jihadist factions, including Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate.

In north Syria, in “the revolution’s center of gravity,” Heller continued, “CIA-backed northern rebels were mostly backfilling for either the Nusra Front or Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist movement-opposition faction and Nusra’s erstwhile ally.” Moreover, the genocidal “Islamic State burst out of the opposition’s chest.”

CNN (7/20/17) declared “the End of a Small CIA Program in Syria Is a Big Win for Russia,” which compounded the distortion by labeling the rebel support “small”; Timber Sycamore, the official name of the CIA operation for arming and training Syrian rebels, was one of the agency’s biggest. It spanned multiple countries, and involved billions of dollars, from the coffers of not just the US, but also of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Officially, the CIA operations began in 2013, but in reality they started in 2012 at the latest.

“The problem with the program,” Sam Heller emphasized in his report, “was not that it was under resourced or ‘insufficient in scale.'”

Scholars like Joshua Landis, a leading academic expert on Syria with moderate, middle-of-the-road politics, also welcomed the end to the CIA program, which he uncontroversially noted “benefited spread of radicals like Al Qaeda and ISIS.”

Landis pointed to a largely forgotten 2012 New York Times report (10/14/12) that revealed that “most of the arms shipped” to Syrian rebels by US allies were “going to hard-line Islamic jihadists.” “Washington knew this by mid-2012. Took five more years to shut down flow,” commented Landis, who directs the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

The professor cited another report that Syrian Al Qaeda had taken large chunks of the weapons sent to “moderate” rebel groups. Landis stressed, “US regime-change policy in the Middle East was a failure that fueled radicalism, prolonged civil wars, death and torture.”

Cheering for More War

It is extremely difficult to find a good policy pursued by Donald Trump. His administration is chock-full of Goldman Sachs plutocrats, and he is detaining and deporting huge numbers of immigrants, making life hell for Muslims (both here and abroad) and dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency at breakneck speed.

Yet in the atypical moments when the Trump administration takes a break from escalating war and instead tries to rein military operations in a bit, corporate media harshly condemn it—frequently with Cold War–esque fearmongering about the Russian bear.

In fact, it is only when Trump escalates military aggression abroad that he is lauded and lionized (FAIR.org, 4/7/17, 4/11/17)—even by a liberal so-called “Resistance” that has elevated US intelligence agencies with long histories of coups to the status of heroes.

On Twitter, Trump lashed out at “The Amazon Washington Post“—a reference to the Post‘s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of corporate online giant Amazon (which also happens to have a $600 million CIA contract). “The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad,” Trump wrote.

He was immediately swamped with accusations that he was coddling a bloodthirsty cartoon villain dictator on behalf of the Kremlin.

These histrionic lamentations for a catastrophic CIA operation that fueled Al Qaeda may perhaps come as no surprise, nevertheless, when one considers bloviating New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (4/12/17), just several few weeks before, outlandishly proposed that the US should stop fighting ISIS and instead “dramatically increase our military aid to anti-Assad rebels,” despite the leading role of Al Qaeda in the opposition, in order to weaken the Syrian government and its allies Iran, Russia and Hezbollah (FAIR.org, 4/13/17).

US government documents and emails from former secretary of state Hillary Clinton have acknowledged that US proxies Saudi Arabia and Qatar did just that, supporting ISIS in its early days, to little public protest from Washington.

Meanwhile, mere days after the US announced it was halting its CIA program, the rebranded Syrian Al Qaeda–led rebel coalition Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham—some of whose members were previously “moderate” groups vetted and armed with anti-tank missiles by the CIA—solidified its control over Idlib, the last remaining rebel-held province in Syria.

Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for AlterNet's Grayzone Project and a contributor to FAIR. His website is BenNorton.com.

Una vez más: ignominia y sumisión del gobierno mexicano

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas

La Jornada 29 de Julio de 2017

¿Enojo, irritación, encabronamiento?¿Vergüenza, lástima?, son sentimientos que se agolpan frente a la pusilánime e ignominiosa actitud del gobierno mexicano, que se rebaja para acatar la instrucción del gobierno de Estados Unidos, de su presidente, al entrometerse en la política interna de Venezuela y declarar, oficialmente, que aplicará a 13 funcionarios o ex funcionarios venezolanos las mismas sanciones que decretara el gobierno de Trump, sin siquiera presentar argumentos propios para sustentar estas medidas, en un claro sometimiento intervencionista y servil.

Esta incondicional sumisión a la prepotencia trumpiana contradice todo lo que en el pasado se llamó la política exterior mexicana, reconocida por la defensa, rescate y ejercicio de la soberanía nacional, el respeto a la autodeterminación y a la no intervención, la preservación de la paz y la búsqueda del diálogo y la negociación en los conflictos internacionales, abandonada paso a paso por los entreguistas gobiernos neoliberales, nunca por cierto, tan absolutamente ignorada como por la administración actual.

Puede haber, y es totalmente válido, simpatía o antipatía hacia el actual gobierno venezolano, pero resulta inadmisible que en función de una antipatía impuesta desde el exterior, oportunista y convenenciera en el caso de los funcionarios mexicanos, el gobierno de nuestro país se preste a conducta tan abyecta. Pudo haberse intentado buscar el diálogo entre las partes confrontadas, respetando siempre su respectiva autonomía y el marco que establecen tanto las leyes nacionales, como los acuerdos internacionales aplicables en el caso, rotos éstos por la indebida intromisión de la autoridad mexicana.

Quienes en México buscamos la vigencia plena de un Estado de derecho, la observancia de los compromisos internacionales, el respeto a los derechos consagrados en la Carta constitutiva de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas y los correspondientes al ámbito continental, exigimos al gobierno mexicano que se disculpe ante el pueblo y gobierno venezolanos, así como ante las comunidades latinoamericana e internacional por esta lamentable violación a nuestras propias leyes y a los principios de una sana convivencia internacional.

Esperar dignidad donde sólo hay entreguismo y abyección, resulta una aspiración perdida. Pero en la lucha estamos y en ella seguimos.

Ciudad de México, 28 de julio de 2017

VASALLOS DE ESTADOS UNIDOS; LA PEOR CANCILLERÍA MEXICANA DE LA HISTORIA

Increíble el cinismo de Peña y Videgaray, sumándose a las sanciones del gobierno de Estados Unidos contra el de Venezuela, y pretendiendo dar lecciones de democracia, respeto a los derechos humanos y combate a la corrupción.

México y Colombia fueron burdamente exhibidos por Mike Pompeo, el director de la CIA, como sus instrumentos para derrocar al gobierno de Maduro.

¿Qué dijo Pompeo? “…recién estuve en Ciudad de México y Bogotá ….tratando de hacerles entender las cosas que ellos podrían hacer para obtener un mejor resultado para su región y la nuestra (sic)”.

Según Relaciones Exteriores, de esas declaraciones no se desprende ningún intento intervencionista por parte de nuestro país.

¿Con quién se entrevistó Pompeo? Pues con los servicios de “inteligencia” de sus vasallos México y Colombia, y lo que hacen esos servicios está normalmente fuera de la ley y de la mirada y supervisión de la opinión pública.

El gobierno de Estados Unidos, junto con los oligarcas venezolanos saben que cuando se realice la consulta sobre la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, se demostrará que el gobierno venezolano tiene respaldo popular y con ello va a poder afianzar el proyecto bolivariano, al que tanto temen las clases altas de dicho país y el 1% que maneja la economía mundial, y que desea poner de rodillas de nuevo a Venezuela, para tener a su disposición sus enormes reservas petroleras, tal como ya las tiene en México, Colombia, Brasil y Argentina.

El gobierno “de México”, no llega ni a eso, es una subdirección del Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos, encargada de este territorio, al que se le dan órdenes que debe ejecutar, nada más.

Con qué cara Peña y Videgaray acusan de antidemocrático a Maduro, después de los fraudes electorales permanentes que suceden en este país (los últimos en Coahuila y el Estado de México; ya para no ir a los del 2012, 2006 y 1988 en las elecciones presidenciales); con qué cara hablan de derechos humanos, cuando en México no se respetan los de nadie (208,000 asesinatos en los últimos 10 años, sin resolver; 28,000 desaparecidos; el país más peligroso para los periodistas, después de Siria y Afganistán; uno de los cinco más peligrosos en el mundo, para los defensores de los derechos humanos); y qué se puede hablar de corrupción, cuando se hacen pactos en los oscurito para que el amigo de Peña, el impresentable ex gobernador de Veracruz, Javier Duarte, pueda seguir disfrutando de sus millones mal habidos; y su esposa, beneficiaria de esa corrupción, siga libre y sin ninguna orden de aprehensión en su contra.

Pero eso no le importa a Washington, en donde saben que México y Colombia son mucho peores que Venezuela en todos los ámbitos. Lo que les interesa es tirar a Maduro y al “chavismo” pues representan un ejemplo de independencia respecto al dominio estadounidense, y eso no lo pueden tolerar, por lo que están dispuestos a todo; incluida una intervención armada (en la que seguramente participarían como “perritos falderos”, México, Colombia, Brasil y Argentina) para lograr su objetivo.

La política exterior “mexicana” ha caído al pozo más profundo de su historia. Se ha convertido en un apéndice de la de Estados Unidos. La soberanía de este país ya no existe más; ha sido intercambiada por los millones mal habidos de corruptos gobernantes y plutócratas. Pero a estos vende patrias, que no saben lo que es eso, el patriotismo, ni la dignidad, lo único que les interesa es quedar bien con sus amos de Washington y Nueva York. Y olvídense de que en la renegociación del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte se defiendan los intereses de México. Lo único que defenderán serán sus propios intereses y los de las empresas trasnacionales. Vergonzoso.

How CIA and Allies Trapped Obama in the Syrian Arms Debacle

And why it ultimately benefitted terrorists like Al Qaeda.

By GARETH PORTER • July 27, 2017 theamericanconservative,com

Last week a Trump administration official decided to inform the news media that the CIA program to arm and train anti-Assad Syrian forces had been terminated. It was welcome news amid a deepening U.S. military commitment reflecting the intention to remain in the country for years to come. As my recent article in TAC documented, the net result of the program since late 2011 has been to provide arms to al Qaeda terrorists and their jihadist and other extremist allies, which had rapidly come to dominate the military effort against the Assad regime.

The Trump administration’s decision to acknowledge explicitly its decision to end the program invites a more systematic analysis of why and how such a program, which was so clearly undermining fundamental a U.S. national-security interest, could have gotten started and continue for so long. The preliminary version of the program that began in late 2011 is easier to explain than its more direct form two years later, which had continued (at least formally) until now.

One of the keys to understanding its origins is that the program was launched not because of a threat to U.S. security, but because of a perceived opportunity. That is always a danger sign, prompting powerful national-security bureaucrats to begin thinking about a “win” for the United States. (Think Vietnam and Iraq.)  

The opportunity in this case was the rise of opposition protests against the Assad regime in spring 2011 and the belief among national security officials that Assad could not survive. The national-security team saw a shortcut to the goal. Former Obama administration official Derek Chollet recalled in his book The Long Game that Obama’s advisers were all talking about a “managed transition” and urging Obama to publicly demand that Assad step down, according to Chollet. What that meant to Obama’s advisers was bringing pressure from outside, including providing arms to the opposition.

That was wishful thinking not only in regard to the willingness of an Alawite-dominated regime to hand over power to its sectarian foes, but in regard to the assumed Iranian willingness to go along with toppling the regime. Not one of Obama’s advisers had sufficient understanding of regional dynamics to warn the President that Iran would not allow of Syrian ally to be overthrown by an opposition supported by Sunni states and the United States.

But the decisive factor in pushing the administration toward action was the pressure from U.S. Sunni allies in the region—Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar—which began in autumn 2011 to press Obama to help build and equip an opposition army. Turkey was the leader in this regard, calling for Washington to agree to provide heavy weaponry—including anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles—to the rebel troops that didn’t even exist yet, and even offering to invade Syria to overthrow the regime if the U.S. would guarantee air cover.  

In the ideology of the national security elite—especially its Democratic wing—regional alliances are essential building blocks of what is styled as the U.S.-sponsored global “rules-based order.” In practice, however, they have served as instruments for the advancement of the power and prestige of the national security bureaucracies themselves. The payoffs of U.S. alliances in the Middle East have centered on the military bases in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar that allow the Pentagon and the military brass to plan and execute military operations that guarantee extraordinary levels of military spending. But enormous Saudi arms purchases and the financing of any covert operations the CIA doesn’t wish to acknowledge to Congress have long been prime benefits for those powerful organizations and their senior officials.

Then CIA Director David Petraeus was particularly interested in ginning up a covert operation to arm and train the Syrian opposition. With the security bureaucracies supporting the allies’ desire to unseat Assad, Hillary Clinton, whose sympathies and political strategy always lay with the war, eagerly took the lead to take the lead in the administration on arming the rebels and calling for a “no fly zone,” which the Turks badly wanted.  

Despite this set of interrelated factors pulling the administration toward a policy of regime change, Obama said no to heavy weapons, a no-fly zone, and an official U.S. role in arms supply. What he did agree to, however, was a covert CIA operation designed by Petraeus to load weapons from Libyan government stocks in Benghazi on ships and arrange for them to be shipped to the war zone. It was Obama’s way of placating all of the actors pushing for an aggressive policy of regime change in Syria without being publicly committed to regime change.  

That program, which began in October 2011, was halted abruptly by the attack on the embassy annex in September 2012. But by that time the Obama administration already knew that the weapons were falling into the hands of al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise al Nusra Front, as administration official revealed to the New York Times. Meanwhile the Saudis, Turks and Qataris were pushing arms to groups with military arrangements with al Qaeda’s al Nusra Front at a feverish pace, and the Saudis had begun making deals in Eastern Europe for the heavy weapons, clearly intending to equip a large conventional army.

The danger signals of a policy gone horribly wrong could hardly have been clearer. But at that moment in the summer and fall of 2012, Clinton and Petraeus began a new push for the CIA taking on the role of arming its own hand-picked “moderate” groups. Clinton argued in a White House meeting that the United States needed to have “skin in the game” in order to persuade its Sunni allies to steer weapons away from the terrorists.  

But Obama fended off that proposal, citing the blowback from the U.S. Afghanistan adventure.  While the debate continued in late 2012 and early 2013, the CIA did a series of studies—evidently ordered by the White House—of past efforts to build up insurgent armies from scratch. The conclusions were not encouraging, as someone defending Obama’s position in the debate leaked to the Times.  

But then in early December 2012, Obama made a fatal political error: He introduced a “red line”—the use of a chemical weapon in Syria. Sure enough, within weeks the first rebel allegation of a regime sarin attack was made in Homs. And although the Obama administration quickly investigated and found that it involved tear gas, it was soon followed by a series of new claims of regime chemical attacks in March and April 2013, in which the evidence was very murky at best.

Of course Obama’s national security team, in concert with the Sunni allies, pounced on the opportunity to push even harder for a new U.S. program of direct military aid to the “moderates.” Obama sought to avoid being sucked deeper into the Syria conflict; the administration even got the intelligence community to issue an unusually inconclusive intelligence finding on the alleged chemical weapons attacks in late April.

But for a second time, Obama also agreed to a CIA program of helping to arm the anti-Assad forces; it was a way of placating his own national security apparatus and U.S. allies while avoiding an open commitment to the war. And when nothing happened in the secret program for weeks, Obama’s national security team used an alleged crisis in the war to tighten the pressure on him to move more decisively. Secretary of State John Kerry and unhappy CIA officials arranged for a rebel commander to call into a White House meeting with the claim that Syrian and Hezbollah forces were threatening to bring about the collapse of the entire anti-Assad war.  

Kerry warned that Obama would be blamed by U.S. allies for the outcome andproposed missile strikes on Assad’s forces. Within days, the White House ordered a new intelligence assessment that expressed “high confidence” that the Syrian regime had used sarin repeatedly and immediately made its conclusion public. And simultaneously the White House announced publicly for the first time that the U.S. would provide direct assistance to the opposition and leaked it to the Times that it would involve military assistance.

So at the very moment when Washington should have been exerting pressure on its allies to stop pouring arms into an anti-Assad war that was systematically building up al Qaeda’s power and influence in the country, the Obama administration was caving into those allies. The reason was simple: Powerful national security bureaucracies were threatening to blame Obama for the failure of their heroic effort to save the anti-Assad war.

The lesson of the entire affair is clear: A malignant alliance between powerful national security bureaucracies and the Middle Eastern allies with whom they enjoy mutually profitable relations are pressuring the White House to approve actions that threaten the real interests of the American people—including strengthening terrorists. The only way to reverse that situation is to direct public attention to that malignant alliance of interests, which has thus far gotten a free ride.

El TLCAN: 23 años de saldos negativos al país

Julio 9, 2017 contralínea.com

MARTIN ESPARZA

Reincidiendo en los mismos errores del pasado, los funcionarios mexicanos que se disponen a renegociar el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN) –a exigencia del republicano Donald Trump–, insisten en dar la espalda a las voces de los campesinos, trabajadores y otros sectores de la economía que han sido seriamente golpeados luego de que el gobierno neoliberal de Carlos Salinas de Gortari decidiera entregar no únicamente la soberanía económica y la seguridad alimentaria del país a las trasnacionales, sino además anular el crecimiento del mercado interno, los salarios y las conquistas sociales de millones de mexicanos.

Hoy como ayer, no se toma en cuenta a la sociedad ni se hace un balance objetivo para enterar a la nación del porqué no se cumplieron las expectativas. Los tecnócratas insisten en mantener un acuerdo comercial preparándose para ceder en lo que  sea necesario con tal de no cancelarlo. La opinión de los directamente afectados no cuenta, pese a que la razón les asiste. Como ayer, los actores de los sectores productivos relacionados en el tema no estarán presentes en la mesa de las negociaciones.

El gobierno rehuye hablar de cara a los mexicanos pues a la distancia, y en cualquier punto de comparación, nuestra economía es deficitaria en el plano comercial; y de los planteamientos originales del tratado, como la búsqueda de una convergencia laboral con los socios comerciales, Estados Unidos y Canadá,  para mejorar los ingresos y el nivel de vida de los agricultores y trabajadores del país, sólo quedan los buenos propósitos.

En poco más de dos décadas de la entrada  en vigor del acuerdo comercial el agro está en quiebra y no queda huella alguna de las instituciones que en décadas pasadas apoyaban a los productores de granos, café, cítricos y otros productos, con créditos, capacitación y entrega de fertilizantes y semillas mejoradas. Las trasnacionales como Bayer, Monsanto y Cargill desplazaron las funciones de entidades como Fertimex, la Productora Nacional de Semillas (Pronase) y Conasupo.

El campo dejó de ser un productor de granos básicos para convertirse en un expulsor de mano de obra; organizaciones agrarias, incluida la oficial CNC, admiten que uno de los efectos más negativos de la puesta en marcha del TLCAN, fue la pérdida de más de 2 millones de empleos en el agro. Cifra acrecentada al paso de los años hasta calcularse en 5 millones de agricultores que debieron emigrar a Estados Unidos o dedicarse a otra actividad para no morir de hambre.

Pero además de la pérdida de fuentes de empleo en el agro, el tratado condujo a México a aniquilar su soberanía alimentaria. Tan sólo en 2015 y 2016 el país importó de Estados Unidos 17 mil 700 millones de dólares en productos agroalimentarios. Cabe citar que el 47 por ciento de los alimentos que consumimos no es producido por nuestros agricultores, como el caso del 80 por ciento del arroz, el 40 por ciento del trigo y el 50 por ciento de la soya.

De hecho, para cubrir nuestro consumo interno de maíz importamos anualmente de Estados Unidos unas 12 millones de toneladas del grano. Está demostrado que el acuerdo encareció los productos de la canasta básica. El Consejo Nacional de Evaluación de la Política de Desarrollo Social (Coneval) informa en este sentido que de los 55.3 millones de mexicanos en pobreza, 28 millones presentan carencia alimentaria.

Referente al capítulo laboral contemplado en el tratado y cuyas metas estimaban la creación de miles de empleos dignos y bien pagados para los obreros mexicanos, la realidad le ubica como uno más de los acumulados fracasos. Un estudio comparativo de los salarios pagados en Estados Unidos con relación a otros países, elaborado en 2014 por la Oficina de Estadística Laboral norteamericana, señalaba que el salario mínimo federal de nuestro principal socio comercial para sus obreros era de 7.25 dólares la hora; es decir, que en una jornada de ocho horas, un trabajador estadounidense ganaba hace dos años unos 58 dólares, cantidad que a la cotización actual promedio de 19 pesos por un dólar arrojaría unos mil 102 pesos.

De acuerdo al estudio, nuestro otro socio, Canadá, pagaba en 2014 salarios promedio de 9.95 dólares canadienses por hora, lo que multiplicado por un día laborable de ocho horas da un total de 79.6 dólares, que a cotización actual de 14.06 pesos por dólar canadiense, nos remite a la cifra de mil 119 pesos.

Esta lectura indica que los dos socios de México tienen sueldos muy similares para sus trabajadores, mientras que en nuestro país el salario mínimo diario, impuesto por el gobierno para 2017, es de 80 pesos. De ése tamaño es el abismo de los ingresos entre los socios del TLCAN. Y esto sin considerar la legalización de las outsourcings, los contratos de prueba y la pérdida de otros derechos inscritos en la Reforma Laboral.

Además, a las armadoras automotrices americanas, a las que se adjudica la creación de miles de empleos permanentes en nuestro territorio, como resultante del TLC apenas pagan sueldos de 2.04 dólares la hora a sus trabajadores; es decir 38.76 pesos, que multiplicados por ocho horas, nos arrojan 310 pesos por jornada. Cifra muy lejana a la devengada por sus obreros en sus plantas ubicadas dentro de sus fronteras. Aunque tal política salarial impera de igual forma para las armadoras norteamericanas como las de otros países que encuentran muy atractiva la fuerza de trabajo de los obreros mexicanos por barata y exenta de otras prestaciones gracias a los sindicatos corporativos y charros como los de la CTM.

Según Donald Trump, la aplicación del TLCAN ha sido perjudicial para su economía, pues de acuerdo con sus cálculos, su déficit comercial asciende a los 60 mil millones de dólares, ocasionando el cierre de empresas y la pérdida de empleos en su país. Una de sus propuestas es la de imponer un arancel del 20 por ciento a todas las importaciones de productos mexicanos, con lo que de paso pretende construir su muro fronterizo.

Pero de este lado de la frontera, y por dónde se le vea, el perdedor evidente del desventajoso tratado es México; sus niveles de pobreza y la ralentización de su desarrollo económico son las pruebas fehacientes de que nuestra industria quedó reducida a una simple maquiladora de las trasnacionales norteamericanas. Sus armadoras, por citar un caso, exigen que el 62.5 por ciento de los insumos sean producidos por los tres países socios, pero en los hechos la mayor parte de los mismos provienen de los Estados Unidos. Es así que el valor agregado de las exportaciones mexicanas es de sólo 32 centavos por cada dólar.

Si los funcionarios mexicanos persisten en acudir a las renegociaciones del TLCAN sin valorar el diagnóstico de 23 años de fracasos y no mirar de frente a la avasallante pobreza que enfrentan millones de campesinos y trabajadores, estarán entregando como ayer, oro por cuentas de vidrio. Los sectores sociales deben exigir que su voz sea escuchada porque el país ya ha pagado un muy alto costo por un acuerdo que ha beneficiado únicamente a las trasnacionales.

Martín Esparza Flores*/Parte I: Trabajadores y campesinos sin beneficios

*Secretario general del Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas

El Frente Amplio “Democrático” ¿Cómo enfrentar los retos de su conformación?

Se acercan las fechas de las definiciones para los diferentes grupos que se disputan el poder y las candidaturas dentro del PAN y PRD, pues en septiembre de este año inicia el proceso electoral del 2018 y para ese mes deberán tener plasmada su propuesta de coalición ante el Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE).

La propuesta de los presidentes de ambos partidos para conformar una alianza o coalición para enfrentar en las elecciones federales del 2018 al PRI y a Morena, no plantea las principales preguntas que un frente así debería proyectar hacia la ciudadanía, por ejemplo:

¿Será sólo un frente electoral, es decir con candidatos comunes -a nivel federal y estatal- y después cada partido seguirá sus propios objetivos? ¿O será un frente con objetivos a mediano y largo plazos para seguir una agenda común legislativa y de gobierno? Y de ser así, se deberán definir la repartición de cargos en los gobiernos estatales y eventualmente en el federal (de triunfar), entre los partidos que formen el frente.

Aún no se sabe si en el frente estarán PAN y PRD solamente, o si se sumarán otros partidos, como PVEM, PANAL, PES y especialmente el Movimiento Ciudadano.

Mientras más grande sea la composición del frente, más difíciles las negociaciones para conformar una plataforma común y para integrar listas de candidatos que satisfagan a todos.

Como se sabe, la “joya de la corona” es la candidatura presidencial, y ahí ya están apuntados en cada partido varios precandidatos, más los independientes que bien podrían intentar encabezar este frente, como supuesta opción para evitar divisiones entre perredistas y panistas.

Así, en el PAN están en precampaña el propio presidente del partido Ricardo Anaya, más la esposa del expresidente Calderón, Margarita Zavala; el ex gobernador de Puebla, Rafael Moreno Valle; el ex gobernador de Guanajuato, Juan Carlos Romero Hicks; el ex gobernador de Baja California, Ernesto Ruffo; el actual gobernador de Guanajuato, Miguel Márquez; y el ex canciller y ex secretario de Economía, Luis Ernesto Derbez.

Por el PRD, sin estar formalmente adherido al partido, encabeza la lista el jefe de gobierno de la ciudad de México, Miguel Angel Mancera; y también han manifestado su interés en la candidatura presidencial, los gobernadores de Michoacán, Silvano Aureoles; y de Morelos, Graco Ramirez.

Por los externos que podrían intentar encabezar el frente, están el gobernador de Nuevo León, Jaime Rodríguez Calderón; el senador “chapulín” (ha estado en casi todos los partidos) Armando Ríos Piter; el ex presidente de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la ciudad de México, Emilio Alvarez Icaza; el comunicador, Pedro Ferriz de Con; el ex secretario de Salud, Juan Ramón de la Fuente; y el actual alcalde de Guadalajara, que forma parte del Movimiento Ciudadano, Enrique Alfaro.

Es cierto que muchos de estos precandidatos se apuntan en la lista sólo para negociar después su declinación, a cambio de que se les prometa algún puesto en el siguiente gobierno (si el frente llegara a triunfar) u otro puesto de elección popular (por lo general a través de las candidaturas plurinominales).

Sin embargo, aún está por verse cómo procesarán los dirigentes de los partidos que conformen el frente los egos, ambiciones y hasta chantajes de todos estos precandidatos, para evitar que ataquen el proceso o lo boicoteen, si no consiguen, aunque sea medianamente, sus objetivos.

¿Se realizará una primaria, que sería costosísima para los partidos? ¿Las cúpulas de los partidos definirían por “consenso” al candidato presidencial, arriesgándose a provocar la ira y las acusaciones de "antidemocracia" de todos los que quedaran desplazados? ¿Se irán por la encuesta; en cuyo caso, qué encuestadora o encuestadoras tendrán la confianza y credibilidad de todos los precandidatos? Y una vez definida la candidatura presidencial, habrá que hacerlo con otras candidaturas importantes, como la de jefe de gobierno en la ciudad de México y las gubernaturas; además de diputaciones federales y senadurías. ¿Se irán otra vez por encuestas o decidirán a los candidatos tomando en cuenta la fuerza de cada partido en las diferentes entidades y ciudades?

La última encuesta de Consulta Mitofsky (10 de julio) sobre preferencias electorales para la elección presidencial del 2018 señala que una alianza PAN-PRD, sin mencionar candidato, aglutina una preferencia de 25.3% (18.6% del PAN y 6,7% del PRD). El Movimiento Ciudadano sólo tiene una preferencia de 1.3%, así que sumándola al 25.3% de PAN-PRD, el posible frente alcanzaría 26.6%.

Por su parte Morena y PT, que se supone irán juntos suman 18.7% (17.7% de Morena y 1% del PT); y por su parte el PRI, suponiendo que mantenga su alianza con el PVEM, PANAL y PES suma el 19% (PRI 16.6%; PVEM 1.1%; Panal 0.7% y PES 0.6%).

Sin embargo, no declara preferencia el 32.1% de los encuestados, por lo que si bien por ahora un frente entre PAN-PRD-MC parecería hacer sentido en términos electorales, aún queda un amplio sector del electorado sin definirse, que bien puede cambiar las tendencias actuales, a medida que el proceso electoral se ponga formalmente en marcha y ya existan candidatos a los diferentes puestos de elección popular.

De ahí que los retos para conformar el mencionado frente son mayúsculos, puesto que conformar una plataforma que unifique a todos implicará un nivel de generalidad, que bien puede evitar rispideces entre los miembros del frente, pero decir nada o prácticamente nada a la ciudadanía; bajar a detalles más finos, puede llevar a los miembros del frente a arriesgarse a  criticar la política económica actual y las reformas estructurales que ellos han apoyado tan resueltamente y hacerlos caer en evidentes contradicciones.

El asunto de las candidaturas, especialmente la presidencial, no va a dejar satisfechos a todos, y ello puede generar rupturas y divisiones que comiencen a afectar las preferencias del electorado hacia un frente que en principio pretende nacer sólo como una alianza electoral para intentar derrotar al PRI y a Morena. Sin duda, un objetivo muy pobre ante la magnitud de los problemas que tiene el país.

Trump Ends Syrian Regime Change Campaign

Neocons and liberals howl

by Justin Raimondo Posted on July 21, 2017

Antiwar.com

The headline in the Washington Post said it all: “Trump ends covert CIA program to arm anti-Assad rebels in Syria, a move sought by Moscow.” The madness that has infected what passes for journalism today could not be more starkly dramatized: everything is seen through the distorting lens of Russophobia. It doesn’t matter that that the program had failed to achieve its ostensible goal, and that the US-vetted rebels had for the most part defected to al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and ISIS. Atrocities committed by the “moderate” rebels go unmentioned. That real experts on the region like Joshua Landishailed the move as a step toward a peaceful settlement is ignored. The only thing that matters is that, as one unnamed “current official” cited in the article puts it, “Putin won in Syria.”

From this perspective, the Syrian people are merely pawns in a geopolitical game between Washington and Moscow. Elsewhere in the piece, the authors – Washington Post reporters Greg Jaffe and Adam Entous – bemoan the fact that the US has somehow “lost” Syria. Under the cover of citing anonymous former White House officials, they write:

“Even those who were skeptical about the program’s long-term value, viewed it as a key bargaining chip that could be used to wring concessions from Moscow in negotiations over Syria’s future.

“’People began thinking about ending the program, but it was not something you’d do for free,’ said a former White House official. ‘To give [the program] away without getting anything in return would be foolish.’”

The Syrian people are mere “bargaining chips” as far as the movers and shakers of the American empire are concerned: they have no reality outside the cold calculations of power politics, the maneuvers of our know-it-all political class, who think they are qualified to run the world.

This is the same mentality that led us into the disastrous invasion of Iraq, and the equally tragic and bloody intervention in Libya, both of which resulted in chaos and the triumph of terrorism. In both cases we destroyed a secular authoritarian regime and paved the way for the growth of radical Islamist factions, enabling the spread of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and similar terrorist formations. And for what?

When the history of this era is written, the motivations of US policymakers under both President Obama and President George W. Bush will be called into question: why did they destroy the Middle East? Was it simply an error of judgment, or was something more sinister involved? Did they deliberately upend these societies, actively aiding Islamist barbarians, much as the late Roman emperors invited the Teutonic barbarians into the empire as mercenaries – who eventually turned on them and sacked Rome?

The rebel forces, both those “vetted” by the CIA and freelancers like al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, and ISIS, all have a program in common: the establishment of an Islamic state in the whole of Syria, which will be ruled according to the medieval strictures of Sharia law. Christians, Alawites, Kurds, and other minorities will be either subjugated, or driven out: genocide is a likely outcome of a rebel victory. Under these circumstances, any support to these elements is criminal – so why did we undertake this project to begin with?

The reason is simple: our Sunni Arab “allies,” Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, have enormous influence in US ruling circles, and they utilized it to forge a bipartisan pro-Islamist coalition consisting of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and the liberal imperialists over at the Center for a New American Century, and the John McCain-Lindsey Graham wing of the GOP. Obama reluctantly went along with what was an aid-to-terrorists program, while putting some limits on it and ultimately balking at full-scale US intervention in Syria when the public rose up against it.

The framing of this issue in terms of whether it helps Russia signals a strategic shift for the War Party: during the Bush years, the alleged enemy was al-Qaeda and associated terrorist groups, but under the Obama administration we saw the beginning of a new turn, away from fighting radical Islamism and toward a policy of accommodating and even allying with it, starting with the so-called Arab Spring. With the Obama foreign policy in the region largely farmed out to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, this culminated in the Libyan intervention and the arming of Islamist groups in Syria. Simultaneously, Mrs. Clinton started denouncing Putin as the modern-day equivalent of Hitler, and the foreign policy mandarins in Washington began to characterize “Putinism,” rather than radical Islamism, as the principal enemy of the United States.

Sen. McCain, one of the loudest advocates of arming the Islamist rebels and overthrowing Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, was quite explicit recently about this radical reorientation of the War Party’s strategic vision: Russia, he declared in a visit to Australia, is the "premier and most important threat, more so than ISIS.” Clinton supporter and leading neoconservative Max Boot, a former CIA analyst, said the same thing during his recent lambasting by Tucker Carlson: asked why Russia is supposed to be a threat, he answered because “they have nuclear weapons.” Well, so do many countries, including China, Pakistan, Israel, and France. Why single out Russia for special opprobrium?

I answered that question here, at least in part, and won’t reiterate what I wrote back then. Suffice to say that what the War Party requires is a credible enemy, one with some size, a history of conflict with the US, and preferably a nuclear capability. Russia qualifies on all three counts, and Putin in particular has aroused the ire of the political class by criticizing Washington’s pretensions of global hegemony. And of course there’s the sheer political opportunism of the Democrats: rather than admit that Mrs. Clinton lost fair and square, because she was a terrible candidate, they’re claiming Putin “stole” the election on Trump’s behalf. Add to this the influence – and wealth – of exiled Russian oligarchs, and the stage is set for an anti-Russian crusade, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 1950s.

Despite the relentless propaganda campaign waged in the media, the Trump administration has – finally! – been able to keep at least one of the promises made during the campaign: that “regime change” was no longer going to be an American goal in Syria. And with the ceasefire in southern Syria, and probably more to come along those lines, it looks like we are cooperating with Russia in an effort to bring peace to the region – this despite the hate campaign being waged against both Trump and the Russians here at home.

Progress is slow, inconsistent, and subject to sudden setbacks – but it’s happening all the same. And that is good news indeed.

Netanyahu Pushes Trump Toward Wider Wars

July 18, 2017 consortiumnews.com

By Robert Parry

A weakened, even desperate President Donald Trump must decide whether to stand up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or to repudiate the Syrian partial ceasefire, which Trump hammered out with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 7.

Whether intentionally or not, this crossroads is where the months of Russia-gate hysteria have led the United States, making Trump even more vulnerable to Israeli and neoconservative pressure and making any cooperation with Russia more dangerous for him politically.

After meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Sunday, Netanyahu declared that Israel was totally opposed to the Trump-Putin cease-fire deal in southern Syria because it perpetuates Iranian presence in Syria in support of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Netanyahu’s position increases pressure on Trump to escalate U.S. military involvement in Syria and possibly move toward war against Iran and even Russia. The American neocons, who generally move in sync with Netanyahu’s wishes, already have as their list of current goals “regime changes” in Damascus, Tehran and Moscow – regardless of the dangers to the Middle East and indeed the world.

At the G-20 summit on July 7, Trump met for several hours with Putin coming away with an agreed-upon cease-fire for southwestern Syria, an accord that has proven more successful than previous efforts to reduce the violence that has torn the country apart since 2011.

But that limited peace could mean failure for the proxy war that Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other regional players helped launch six years ago with the goal of removing Assad from power and shattering the so-called “Shiite crescent” from Tehran through Damascus to Beirut. Instead, that “crescent” appears more firmly in place, with Assad’s military bolstered by Shiite militia forces from Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

In other words, the “regime change” gambit against Assad’s government would have backfired, with Iranian and Hezbollah forces arrayed along Israel’s border with Syria. And instead of accepting that reversal and seeking some modus vivendi with Iran, Netanyahu and his Sunni-Arab allies (most notably the Saudi monarchy) have decided to go in the other direction (a wider war) and to bring President Trump along with them.

Neophyte Trump

Trump – a relative neophyte in global intrigue – has been slow to comprehend how his outreach to Netanyahu and Saudi King Salman runs counter to his collaboration with Putin on efforts to defeat the Sunni jihadist groups, including Al Qaeda and Islamic State, which have served as the point of the spear in the war to overthrow Assad.

Al Qaeda and Islamic State have received direct and indirect support from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Turkey, Israel and even the Obama administration, albeit sometimes unwittingly. To block Assad’s overthrow – and the likely victory by these terror groups – Russia, Iran and Hezbollah came to Assad’s defense, helping to turn the tide of the war since 2015.

In his nearly half year in office, Trump has maintained an open hostility toward Iran – sharing a position held by Washington’s neocons as well as Netanyahu and Salman – but the U.S. President also has advocated cooperation with Russia to crush Islamic State and Al Qaeda inside Syria.

Collaboration with Russia – and indirectly with Iran and the Syrian military – makes sense for most U.S. interests, i.e., stabilizing Syria, reversing the refugee flow that has destabilized Europe, and denying Al Qaeda and Islamic State a base for launching terror strikes against Western targets.

But the same collaboration would be a bitter defeat for Netanyahu and Salman who have invested heavily in this and other “regime change” projects that require major U.S. investments in terms of diplomacy, money and military manpower.

So, in last weekend’s trip to Paris, Netanyahu chose to raise the stakes on Trump at a time when Democrats and the U.S. mainstream media are pounding him daily with the Russia-gate scandal, even raising the possibility that his son, Donald Trump Jr., might be prosecuted and imprisoned for having a meeting in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer.

If Trump wants the Russia-gate pain to lessen, he will be tempted to give Netanyahu what he wants and count on the savvy Israeli leader to intervene with the influential neocons of Official Washington to pull back on the scandal-mongering.

The problem, however, would be that Netanyahu really wants the U.S. military to complete the “regime change” project in Syria – much as it did in Iraq and Libya – meaning more American dead, more American treasure expended and a likely wider war, extending to Iran and possibly nuclear-armed Russia.

That might fulfill the neocon current menu of “regime change” schemes but it runs the risk of unleashing a nuclear conflagration on the world. In that way, liberals and even some progressives – who have embraced Russia-gate as a way to remove the hated Donald Trump from office – may end up contributing to the end of human civilization as well.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).