OCCIDENTE INTENTA MANTENER LA HEGEMONÍA MUNDIAL

Estados Unidos, la “anglósfera”[1] y la Unión Europea, intentan demostrar que se mantienen unidos en un solo bloque hegemónico, ante los desafíos, económico de China y político-militar de Rusia, para lo cual instrumentaron una estrategia para dividir a ambas potencias nucleares.

Por un lado, el atentado de “falsa bandera” realizado por los servicios de inteligencia británicos (MI5) contra el ex espía ruso Skripal y su hija, ha servido como el pretexto para culpar a Rusia de realizar un “ataque químico” en suelo europeo (sin la realización de una investigación apropiada por parte de la Organización para la Prohibición de las Armas Químicas; OPCW por sus siglas en inglés, que por procedimiento debería incluir al Estado acusado, en este caso Rusia, pero no lo ha hecho así) y con objeto de presionar a todos los miembros de la OTAN para que expulsaran, aunque fuera a un diplomático ruso, por este motivo.

La realidad es que la política exterior de Estados Unidos, poniendo en entre dicho la globalización económica, presionando a los miembros de la OTAN para que dediquen más recursos financieros a la organización; retirándose del Acuerdo de París sobre Cambio Climático y del Transpacífico en materia comercial; estableciendo aranceles al acero y aluminio importado; y a productos chinos por hasta 60 mil millones de dólares; ha generado molestia, inquietud y hasta deseos de una mayor independencia dentro del bloque de países occidentales, tradicionalmente aliados de Washington.

De ahí que se requería algún evento mayor que pudiera generar el “pegamento” que requiere Occidente para seguir comprometido con el modelo económico prevaleciente (globalización neoliberal) y de seguridad (OTAN y Estados Unidos como “policía del mundo”).

De la misma forma, Gran Bretaña se está enfrentando a una salida de la Unión Europea más accidentada de lo que esperaba, y ello ha dado la posibilidad para que París y Berlín establezcan una ruta más apegada a sus intereses comerciales (incluidos en ellos, acercamientos con China, Rusia e Irán), y menos con la “anglósfera” y con las prioridades de Israel y Arabia Saudita en el Medio Oriente, países que tienen una influencia decisiva en el establecimiento político-militar de Washington, en lo que respecta a esa región.

Así que la “amenaza rusa” ha sido elevada a un punto menos que el rompimiento diplomático, con objeto de alinear nuevamente a todo “Occidente” en la confrontación de las dos amenazas que el establecimiento político-militar de Washington, dominado por los neoconservadores y el lobby pro Israel y pro Arabia (éste último jugando ahora como cabús del israelí), ha identificado a su hegemonía mundial y en el Medio Oriente: Rusia e Irán.

Obligados por presiones de Washington y Londres, la mayoría de los países de la OTAN y de la “anglósfera” están aplicando nuevas sanciones a Rusia con objeto de aislarla lo más que se pueda de la comunidad internacional, y de esa forma recuperar el terreno perdido en zonas en donde Moscú evitó que el Occidente mantuviera su estrategia de acorralamiento (Ucrania) y de balcanización (Siria).

Llama la atención que Estados Unidos no presione a Israel para que aplique sanciones a Rusia o expulse a sus diplomáticos, ni por la anexión de Crimea, ni por el caso Skripal, tomando en cuenta que siempre afirman que Tel Aviv es el mejor aliado de Washington en el mundo.

Más bien es el amo de Washington, pues si a Netanyahu y a su gobierno no les conviene enemistarse con Rusia, por la importante presencia de esta potencia en Siria y el peligro que para las fuerzas armadas israelíes implicaría mantener un contencioso con los rusos; entonces Israel queda “exentado” de la obligación del resto de vasallos estadounidenses de aplicar presión sobre Moscú.

El objetivo de Washington y Londres con esta estrategia contra Rusia es unificar a Europa y a otros aliados para mantener acorralados y lo más aislados posible a los rusos, para así disminuir su capacidad de intervención en Siria, en donde los neoconservadores y el lobby pro Israel intentan reiniciar las hostilidades contra Assad, pero ahora utilizando a las fuerzas armadas de Estados Unidos y de ser posible a las de Francia y Gran Bretaña, para trocar la derrota que sufrieron sus mercenarios y terroristas, al menos por un nuevo conflicto de larga duración, que evite la consolidación del gobierno de Assad.

Y para Israel y Arabia Saudita es imperativo aislar y de ser posible llevar a Occidente a confrontar a Irán, para evitar que se solidifique como una potencia regional; para lo cual la terminación del acuerdo nuclear firmado con los países miembros del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU (más Alemania) resulta imprescindible.

Toda esta estrategia de confrontación con Rusia e Irán, no puede cimentarse en tanto se mantenga el riesgo de guerra con Corea del Norte. De ahí que se esté buscando, casi desesperadamente, un acuerdo, aunque sea parcial con Kim Jung Un, para disminuir las presiones en la península coreana.

Y en ese sentido era imperativo obligar a Beijing para que presionara en el mismo sentido a Pyongyang, por lo que muy al estilo de Trump coqueteó de nuevo con Taiwán e impuso aranceles a productos chinos; y más adelante, de lograr el acuerdo que requiere de Corea del Norte, retirará una parte de dichas tarifas, con objeto de mantener a China en el terreno de las negociaciones y ocupada con estos temas; en vez de que se coordine con Rusia para rechazar en conjunto las presiones de Occidente. Además de qué al mismo tiempo, distrae a Beijing de su objetivo de impulsar la “Nueva Ruta de la Seda”.

Si Washington logra disminuir las presiones en la península coreana, entonces podrá poner su mayor atención y recursos en el tema que más interesa a los neoconservadores y al lobby pro Israel; es decir, revertir su derrota en Siria e iniciar un conflicto mayor con Irán; al tiempo que se mantiene a Moscú copado y presionado con multitud de sanciones y conflictos de todo tipo (hay que esperar posibles atentados o el inicio de algún conflicto regional que afecte a los rusos, durante la Copa Mundial de Futbol; pues así lo ha hecho Occidente en 2008 durante los Olímpicos de Beijing, y en 2014 durante los Juegos Olímpicos de Invierno en Sochi).

Tomemos en cuenta que en Europa, Moscú ya había logrado avances con varios países, por ejemplo con Hungría para la construcción de una central nuclear; con Alemania, para la construcción del gasoducto Nord Stream 2; en los casos de Austria y Eslovaquia, de plano se negaron a expulsar a diplomáticos rusos, a pesar de la presión de Londres; y en el caso de Grecia, pidió una investigación exhaustiva del hecho, antes de aplicar alguna sanción.

De ahí que para Washington y Londres es de la mayor importancia alargar e incluso escalar el conflicto con Moscú, con objeto de mantener la “unidad” de Occidente contra la “amenaza rusa”, en tanto se logra desmantelar el acuerdo nuclear con Irán; se consigue algún modus vivendi con el régimen de Kim Jung Un; y se configura una nueva “alianza” anti iraní y anti siria, que pueda revertir la victoria rusa e iraní en esa región, permitiéndole nuevamente a Tel Aviv y Riad alzarse como las potencias rectoras del Medio Oriente.

Por ello mismo, el establecimiento político-militar en Washington no va a quitar el dedo del renglón en lo que respecta a la inventada “intervención rusa” en las elecciones de Estados Unidos (tanto en las de 2016 como en las de 2018); ni dejar de presionar a Trump para que no ceda en ningún tipo de política o decisión, en favor de Moscú.

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[1] Gran Bretaña, Canadá, Australia y Nueva Zelanda.

Where Have You Gone, George McGovern?

by Maj. Danny Sjursen Posted on March 29, 2018

This article o https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2018/03/28/where-have-you-gone-george-mcgovern-2/riginally appeared at TruthDig.

He knew war well—well enough to know he hated it.

George McGovern was a senator from South Dakota, and he was a Democrat true liberals could admire. Though remembered as a staunch liberal and foreign policy dove, McGovern was no stranger to combat. He flew 35 missions as a B-24 pilot in Italy during World War II. He even earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for executing a heroic emergency crash landing after his bomber was damaged by German anti-aircraft fire.

Still, George McGovern was a humble man who carried the burden, and honor, of his military service with grace. Though proud of his service, he was never constrained by it. When he saw a foolish war, an immoral war—like Vietnam—he stood ready to dissent. He was an unapologetic liberal and unwavering in his antiwar stance. These days, his kind is an endangered species on Capitol Hill and in the Democratic National Committee. McGovern died in 2012. His party, and the United States, are lesser for his absence.

Today’s Democrats are mostly avid hawks, probably to the right of Richard Nixon on foreign policy. They dutifully voted for Bush’s Iraq war. Then, they won back the White House and promptly expanded an unwinnable Afghan war. Soon, they again lost the presidency—to a reality TV star—and raised hardly a peep as Donald Trump expanded America’s aimless wars into the realm of the absurd.

I’ve long known this, but most liberals—deeply ensconced (or distracted) by hyper-identity politics—hardly notice. Still, every once in a while something reminds me of how lost the Democrats truly are.

I nearly spit up my food the other day. Watching on C-SPAN as Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., gleefully attended a panel at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, I couldn’t help but wonder what has happened to the Democratic Party. The worst part is I like her, mostly. Look, I agree with Sen. Klobuchar on most domestic issues: health care, taxes and more. But she—a supposed liberal—and her mainstream Democratic colleagues are complicit in the perpetuation of America’s warfare state and neo-imperial interventionism. Sen. Klobuchar and other Democrats’ reflexive support for Israel is but a symptom of a larger disease in the party—tacit militarism.

AIPAC is a lobbying clique almost as savvy and definitely as effective as the NRA. Its meetings—well attended by mainstream Democrats and Republicans alike—serve as little more than an opportunity for Washington pols to kiss Benjamin Netanyahu’s ring and swear fealty to Israel. Most of the time, participants don’t dare utter the word “Palestinian.” That’d be untoward—Palestinians are the unacknowledged elephants in the room.

The far right-wing Israeli government of Netanyahu, who is little more than a co-conspirator and enabler for America’s failed project in the Middle East, should be the last group “liberals” pander to. That said, the state of Israel is a fact. Its people—just like the Palestinians—deserve security and liberty. Love it or hate it, Israel will continue to exist. The question is: Can Israel remain both exclusively Jewish and democratic? I’m less certain about that. For 50 years now, the Israeli military has divided, occupied and enabled the illegal settlement of sovereign Palestinian territory, keeping Arabs in limbo without citizenship or meaningful civil rights.

This is, so far as international law is concerned, a war crime. As such, unflinching American support for Israeli policy irreversibly damages the U.S. military’s reputation on the “Arab street.” I’ve seen it firsthand. In Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds and thousands of miles away from Jerusalem, captured prisoners and hospitable families alike constantly pointed to unfettered US support for Israel and the plight of Palestinians when answering that naive and ubiquitous American question: “Why do they hate us?”

Heck, even Gen. David “Generational War” Petraeus, once found himself in some hot water when—in a rare moment of candor—he admitted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of US favoritism for Israel.” Translation: US policy toward Israel (and, no doubt, the foolhardy 2003 invasion of Iraq) make American soldiers less safe.

So does the basic post-9/11 American policy of sovereignty violation and expansive military intervention whenever and wherever Washington feels like it—so long as it’s in the name of fighting (you guessed it) “terrorism.” So, which “liberals” are raising hell and ringing the alarm bells for their constituents about Israeli occupation and America’s strategic overreach? Sen. Klobuchar? Hardly. She, and all but four Democrats, voted for the latest bloated Pentagon budget with few questions asked. Almost as many Republicans voted against the bill. So, which is the antiwar party these days? It’s hard to know.

Besides, the Dems mustered fewer than 30 votes in support of the Rand Paul amendment and his modest call to repeal and replace America’s outdated, vague Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). All Sen. Paul, a libertarian Republican, wanted to do was force a vote—in six months—to revisit the AUMF. This wasn’t radical stuff by any means. The failure of Paul’s amendment, when paired with the absolute dearth of Democratic dissent on contemporary foreign policy, proves one thing conclusively: There is no longer an antiwar constituency in a major American political party. The two-party system has failed what’s left of the antiwar movement.

By no means is Amy Klobuchar alone in her forever-war complicity. Long before she graced the halls of the Senate, her prominent precursors—Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer (to name just a few)—rubber-stamped a war of aggression in Iraq and mostly acquiesced as one president after another (including Barack Obama) gradually expanded America’s post-9/11 wars. When will it end? No one knows, really, but so far, the US military has deployed advisers or commandos to 70 percent of the world’s countriesand is actively bombing at least seven. That’s the problem with waging clandestine wars with professional soldiers while asking nothing of an apathetic public: These conflicts tend to grow and grow, until, one day—which passed long ago—hardly anyone realizes we’re now at war with most everyone.

So where are the doves now? On the fringe, that’s where. Screaming from the distant corners of the libertarian right and extreme left. No one cares, no one is listening, and they can hardly get a hearing on either MSNBC or Fox. It’s the one thing both networks agree on: endless, unquestioned war. Hooray for 21st century bipartisanship.

Still, Americans deserve more from the Democrats, once (however briefly) the party of McGovern. These days, the Dems hate Trump more than they like anything. To be a principled national party, they’ve got to be more than just anti-Trump. They need to provide a substantive alternative and present a better foreign policy offer. How about a do-less strategy: For starters, some modesty and prudent caution would go a long way.

George McGovern—a true patriot, a man who knew war but loved peace—wouldn’t recognize the likes of Klobuchar, Clinton, Schumer and company. He’d be rightfully embarrassed by their supplication to the national warfare state.

In 1972, McGovern’s presidential campaign (as, to some extent, Bernie’s did) reached out to impassioned youth in the “New Left,” and formed a rainbow coalition with African-Americans and other minority groups. His Democrats were no longer the party of Cold War consensus, no longer the party of LBJ and Vietnam. No, McGovern’s signature issue was peace, and opposition to that disastrous war.

His campaign distributed pins and T-shirts bearing white doves. Could you even imagine a mainstream Democrat getting within 1,000 meters of such a symbol today? Of course not.

Today’s Dems are too frightened, fearful of being labeled “soft” (note the sexual innuendo) on “terror,” and have thus ceded foreign policy preeminence to the unhinged, uber-hawk Republicans. We live, today, with the results of that cowardly concession.

The thing about McGovern is that he lost the 1972 election, by a landslide. And maybe that’s the point. Today’s Democrats would rather win than be right. Somewhere along the way, they lost their souls. Worse still, they aren’t any good at winning, either.

Sure, they and everybody else “support the troops.” Essentially, that means the Dems will at least fight for veterans’ health care and immigration rights when vets return from battle. That’s admirable enough. What they won’t countenance, or even consider, is a more comprehensive, and ethical, solution: to end these aimless wars and stop making new veterans that need “saving.”

Major Danny Sjursen, an Antiwar.com regular, is a U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. He lives with his wife and four sons in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet and check out his new podcast “Fortress on a Hill,” co-hosted with fellow vet Chris ‘Henri’ Henrikson.

[Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]

Sino-US trade war may be protracted battle of attrition

By Liu Zhiqin Source:Global Times Published: 2018/3/27

The story of the farmer and the viper is well-known. The freezing viper betrayed the kind farmer by biting him. Now the world is witnessing a modern version of this story. 

Recently, the US government set forth a "precision strike" against China, imposing tariffs on Chinese products. After announcing exemptions for its traditional allies, the punitive policies stayed in force for China. 

It's the classic story of the "farmer and the viper."

China has been treating the US fairly during the past 40 years of reform and opening-up. When US was hit by the financial crisis, China agreed when Hillary Clinton, the then US Secretary of State, proposed that China and the US should work hand-in-hand to overcome difficulties. China kept its word. 

When the US was in deep trouble, China did not stand by, undercut or take advantage of the situation. Instead, China did its best to alleviate the shock and pressure of the financial crisis for the US by such measures as the stabilization of the yuan's exchange rate. China also acted as a responsible major power, contributing to the US and world economic recoveries by industrial structure adjustment and upgrading. 

However, the mind-blowing fact is that the US government, which got a break from the economic downturn, repaid kindness with enmity. The behavior on the US side has stunned the Chinese people and the world. What is wrong with the US? Is the US trying to make China regret its kindness to the US? 

Many American politicians have always believed that the development of China takes advantage of the US. But the reality is China is the one who jumped in and pulled the US out of deep water. Without China, the US would probably still be in trouble.

China does not expect repayment for its good deeds, but it does not want to be bullied or blamed, nor does it want to fall into traps or be ripped off. The bad action by the US has turned out to be a huge irony. The modern civilization and values boasted of by US politicians is a code of conduct similar to the viper. 

US politicians were talking like a viper, accusing China of "economic aggression." In world history, China has been the last country to conduct "economic aggression." China doesn't have the money, the influence or the ambition. Now it is time to go over history to unveil the true purpose of economic hegemony that the US is putting into practice. 

The US has sacked the world with two crises in the past 10 years. One was the financial crisis in 2008, the other will be the trade crisis that has just been initiated. 

The US and world economies dodged a bullet thanks to a rescue by China. But whether the world can get through the coming trade crisis requires global joint efforts. China has done all it can to minimize the losses of this trade crisis. 

The US-China trade dispute is not about trade itself. US President Donald Trump intends to kill two birds with one stone. He hopes to enter the Chinese technology sector while closing the US technology market to China. 

Piracy and intellectual property rights (IPR) are often used by Trump to point a finger at China, and they have become ongoing pretexts. But they do not tell the full story. 

When it was founded, the US was an agricultural country with virtually no technology. What made the US we see today is having used and transformed British industrial designs and technologies that were ahead of the world. Moreover, the US should thank the scientific minds of Europe and Japan brought by immigration inflows after World War II, which helped secure the US' leading advantage in IPR. 

The US has to abandon the bad habit of "technology bias," thinking that only the US can invent global technology. This bias has greatly hindered the balance of global technology development and contributed to the polarization of rich and poor.

China, on the other hand, will continue to build science and technology, benefiting the world.

A US-China trade war is on the verge of erupting. It is easier to start a war than end one. The conflict will become a protracted war of attrition that benefits nobody. China should make other countries see the truth and protect themselves from the betrayal of the US.

Chinese people will adhere to the spirit of reform and opening-up and focus on their own development without being disturbed by the US.

Trump can keep putting on his show, but it will not stop the pace of China. Hopefully, the tragedy of the farmer and viper will not repeat between countries.

The author is a senior fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn

Neocons Are Back With a Big War Budget and Big War Plans

by Ron Paul Posted on March 27, 2018

https://original.antiwar.com/paul/2018/03/26/neocons-are-back-with-a-big-war-budget-and-big-war-plans/

On Friday, President Trump signed the omnibus spending bill for 2018. The $1.3 trillion bill was so monstrous that it would have made the biggest spender in the Obama Administration blush. The image of leading Congressional Democrats Pelosi and Schumer grinning and gloating over getting everything they wanted – and then some – will likely come back to haunt Republicans at the midterm elections. If so, they will deserve it.

Even President Trump admitted the bill was horrible. As he said in the signing ceremony, “there are a lot of things that we shouldn’t have had in this bill, but we were, in a sense, forced – if we want to build our military…”

This is why I often say: forget about needing a third political party – we need a second political party! Trump is admitting that to fuel the warfare state and enrich the military-industrial complex, it was necessary to dump endless tax dollars into the welfare state.

But no one “forced” President Trump to sign the bill. His party controls both houses of Congress. He knows that no one in Washington cares about deficits so he was more than willing to spread some Fed-created money at home to get his massive war spending boost.

And about the militarism funded by the bill? Defense Secretary James Mattis said at the same press conference that, “As the President noted, today we received the largest military budget in history, reversing many years of decline and unpredictable funding.”

He’s right and wrong at the same time. Yes it is another big increase in military spending. In fact the US continues to spend more than at least the next seven or so largest countries combined. But his statement is misleading. Where are these several years of decline? Did we somehow miss a massive reduction in military spending under President Obama? Did the last Administration close the thousands of military bases in more than 150 countries while we weren’t looking?

Of course not.

On militarism, the Obama Administration was just an extension of the Bush Administration, which was an extension of the militarism of the Clinton Administration. And so on. The military-industrial complex continues to generate record profits from fictitious enemies. The mainstream media continues to play the game, amplifying the war propaganda produced by the think tanks, which are funded by the big defense contractors.

This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is conspiracy fact. Enemies must be created to keep Washington rich, even as the rest of the country suffers from the destruction of the dollar. That is why the neocons continue to do very well in this Administration.

While Trump and Mattis were celebrating big military spending increases, the president announced that John Bolton, one of the chief architects of the Iraq war debacle, would become his national security advisor. As former CIA analyst Paul Pillar has written, this is a man who, while at the State Department, demanded that intelligence analysts reach predetermined conclusions about Iraq and WMDs. He cooked the books for war.

Bolton is on the record calling for war with Iran, North Korea, even Cuba! His return to a senior position in government is a return to the unconstitutional, immoral, and failed policies of preemptive war.

Make no mistake: the neocons are back and looking for another war. They’ve got the president’s ear. Iran? North Korea? Russia? China? Who’s next for the warmongers?

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

MEXICANS FEAR ABUSES AS NEW LAW EMPOWERS MILITARY — BUT U.S. SECURITY AID KEEPS COMING

José Olivares

March 24 2018

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/24/mexico-military-funding-trump-congress/

LAST DECEMBER, THE Mexican government enacted a new law that empowered its military to act domestically against “internal security threats,” cementing the role of the country’s armed forces in combatting crime and giving them expanded surveillance authorities. The law also allows the Mexican president to deploy troops for immediate action against those threats.

As the law, formally called the Internal Security Law, was being debated, Claudia Medina Tamariz spoke out about the way the country’s military has treated the citizens it is supposedly fighting to protect.

In 2012, she was arrested by Mexican marines on false charges of cartel ties and subjected to horrendous torture. Marine troops tied her to a chair, shoved a rag in her mouth, and electrocuted her with two cables attached to her big toes. They splashed her with buckets of water, forced hot sauce into her nostrils, wrapped her in an elastic band, and proceeded to kick and beat her. She was also blindfolded and sexually assaulted. As the troops tortured her, they also threatened to do the same to her children.

The charges against Medina were eventually dropped, but the trauma lingered.

“When I got back home, I arrived with a lot of fear,” she told The Intercept. “I couldn’t sleep at night, thinking [the marines] would do something to me. My children would be laying down, sleeping, and I would be at the window to make sure no one would come in.”

She has spent years fighting to clear her name and obtain justice. Recounting her torture, Medina said she is horrified by the idea that the Mexican government is giving more power to forces known to carry out abuses.

“It’s sad to see that our senators, our representatives, everyone in Mexico sees this, and yet they are continuing to hand Mexico over to sick people,” Medina said.

The U.S. government is also well aware of these abuses. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has remained quiet on the Internal Security Law and has continued with plans to support Mexico’s security forces. Despite President Donald Trump’s anti-Mexico vitriol and his public feud with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto over a wall for the border between the two countries, funding is still flowing from the American government. What’s more, the Trump administration has cut funding from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which supported efforts to strengthen Mexico’s criminal justice system, while U.S. military funds have increased.

“Now, with Trump, what we’re seeing is an intention to return to a focus on militarized help,” said Ximena Suárez-Enríquez of the Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA, which tracks U.S. policy in the region.

The opioid epidemic ravaging the U.S. is partly the reason for Congress’s insistence on giving security assistance to Mexico. But according to Mexican government data, the amount of heroin seized by the military has declined dramatically in recent years. In standing staunchly behind Mexico’s war on drugs, Congress and the Trump administration are funding a force that has routinely been implicated in violence against its own people.

IN 2006, THEN-PRESIDENT Felipe Calderón deployed troops in his home state of Michoacán, marking the first move in the Mexican drug war. Ever since, Mexico’s military has been tasked with what would have traditionally been police work: finding and capturing cartel members and seizing drugs. Along with the military’s increased role in quelling cartel violence have come reports of torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial assassinations, the majority of which have not been investigated or prosecuted.

In December, Peña Nieto approved the controversial Internal Security Law, which gives the president the power to issue a “declaration of internal security protection” and immediately deploy troops to intervene in any situation that may “threaten” the country’s internal security. Effectively, the law formalizes the military’s already outsized role in local policing.

The law “goes toward a hybrid concept that blends the question of national security and public security, to generate an intermediary concept that confuses the two, which should be clearly separated,” said Santiago Aguirre, sub-director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, also known as Centro Prodh.

The legislation went into effect immediately, although Mexico’s Supreme Court is currently hearing a challenge to its constitutionality, and Peña Nieto says he will not issue a declaration regarding the law until the court rules.

“We can safely say this is the legislation that has been opposed by the largest number of public and private institutions in Mexico in recent history,” said José Antonio Guevara, executive director of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights.

Supporters of the law — mostly legislators from the center-right Institutional Revolutionary Party — say the armed forces are necessary to continue fighting against organized crime in Mexico. Since the military has already been on the streets for over 11 years in a state of legal ambiguity, they say, this law provides a legal framework to regulate and formalize the military’s role.

They also point to rampant corruption within many police forces around the country. In Veracruz, for example, police working for the state’s former governor have carried out brutal paramilitary disappearances and executions; in 2016, they allegedly threw bodies from helicopters, leaving some stuck in the treetops.

But the military’s role in public security has not reduced the volume of blood running through Mexico’s streets. The number of deaths has only gone up since the military was first deployed. According to a government database, 11,806 homicides were reported in 2006. Eleven years later, more than 25,000 homicides were reported, making 2017 the deadliest year in recent Mexican history.

The database does not specify how many of those homicides were related to the drug war or other crimes, such as rampant so-called femicide. But a report by the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics — or CIDE, its Spanish-language acronym — a renowned public research institution, explains that having the military in the streets has heightened violence in two ways. First, by fragmenting criminal groups, leading to bloody fights and turf wars between fissured cartels; and second, by triggering the groups to retaliate, often costing innocent bystanders their lives.

“The data shows us that the military, taking care of public security matters for 12 years, has produced what is probably the gravest human rights crisis Mexico has had since the time of the revolution,” Alejandro Madrazo, a researcher from CIDE, told The Intercept, referring to the decade of armed struggle in Mexico between 1910 and 1920.

The armed forces themselves have been implicated in the violence and human rights abuses, with several cases that have caught international attention.

On January 30, in Culiacán, Sinaloa, marine forces burst into a party, seeking members of criminal organizations. “I’m going to fuck up anyone who has a cellphone in their hand,” one marine can be heard saying on a video that was clandestinely recorded.

According to official sources, there was a shootout and four armed men were killed. However, an investigation by RioDoce, a local news organization, suggested that the military had actually committed extrajudicial executions of the four men while they were cuffed and kneeling on the floor.

This recent instance has similarities with another high-profile case from 2014, in which bullets rang out on the outskirts of Tlatlaya, in Mexico state. According to the official story put forth by the Mexican attorney general, military forces came under attack by alleged kidnappers, and the ensuing shootout left 22 dead. But subsequent investigations revealed inconsistencies and suggested that between 12 to 15 of the dead were executed as they surrendered.

WOLA released a report in November 2017 that found that between 2012 and 2016, the attorney general’s office launched 505 investigations into human rights violations committed by soldiers. But in the same time frame, there were only 16 convictions of soldiers.

“We have seen how in cases documented by the National Commission of Human Rights, soldiers, with investigations, have altered the crime scene, have planted weapons,” said WOLA’s Suárez-Enríquez. “With the new law, there is no guarantee that the situation will change. There is no guarantee there will be an improvement in investigations.”

Mexico will hold elections in July – an event that has historically led to social movements in response to claims of election fraud. Although the Internal Security Law includes an article specifying that social or political protests will never be considered a threat and cannot be subject to a presidential declaration, critics like Madrazo, of CIDE, say the law’s language is still worryingly vague.

“The law says there are two situations in which it can be activated, not just against ‘threats’ to internal security, but [also] ‘risks’ to internal security. And ‘risks’ is even more lax and open,” Madrazo said. “Political-electoral protests were not excluded from being considered ‘risks.’ So the military can act against a political-electoral protest if they consider it to be a ‘risk’ and not a ‘threat.’

WHILE THE U.N. and a host of international human rights organizationshave protested Mexico’s militarization, the U.S. government continues its generous funding of Mexican armed forces.

In 2008, the State Department established the Mérida Initiative, a partnership with the Mexican government to disrupt organized crime. Congress appropriated $2.5 billion through the initiative to support, train, and provide equipment to Mexican law enforcement and has already provided $1.8 billion of the allocated funds. Although funding levels have declined slightly in recent years, from $169 million in 2016, under former President Barack Obama, to this year’s White House request for $78.9 million, the U.S. still supports an array of programs.

“They have been rapidly expanding to also include other contexts,” Iñigo Guevara, Latin American security analyst and director of Jane’s Aerospace, told The Intercept. Guevara said U.S.-Mexico military cooperation also includes disaster response, intelligence and information exchange, and more traditional types of military training.

When reached for comment, a State Department spokesperson said the department does not publicly share which Mexican military units have received support through Mérida.

“U.S. assistance to Mexican security forces is contingent upon rigorous vetting for gross violations of human rights in accordance with the Leahy amendment,” the spokesperson added. The Leahy laws prohibit assistance to units with human rights violations.

The Defense Department also collaborates and trains Mexican armed forces, and according to the Congressional Research Service, such cooperation has been increasing. Recent data shows an overall shift in funds going toward Mexico from the State Department to the Defense Department, a change that makes security assistance more difficult to track.

At the same time, the Trump administration has cut back on State Department funds to Latin America through USAID, which, according to WOLA’s Suárez-Enríquez, were being used to strengthen Mexico’s judicial system and to help protect journalists and human rights defenders. She sees the USAID cuts and Defense Department increases as a step backward.

The Pentagon reports to Congress the money it plans to spend on counternarcotics in Mexico: an estimated $54.8 million in fiscal year 2016, $58.1 million in 2017, and $63.3 million in 2018, according to the Congressional Research Service. It is unclear how much more money may flow to Mexico from other DOD accounts.

Training from Northern Command, the DOD arm that focuses on Mexico, includes courses on surveillance, interdiction, and logistics.

“USNORTHCOM has provided training to Mexican service members in a wide variety of technical and professional courses,” a Northcom spokesperson wrote in an email. “All recipients of USNORTHCOM assistance undergo a rigorous process for human rights vetting.”

The U.S. has also moved forward with weapons sales to Mexico, approving earlier this year the possible sale of $98.4 million in missiles to the Mexican navy.

Congress appears to want to send even more assistance to Mexico than the executive branch. For 2018, the House of Representatives authorized $129 million, and the Senate $139 million, for Mérida Initiative funds. Both Congress and the White House have tied the U.S. opioid crisis to the flow of drugs from organized criminal groups.

But despite this support, according to publicly available documents from the Mexican government analyzed by The Intercept, there has been a decreasing rate of narcotic seizures by Mexican armed forces. In 2015, there were 425 kilograms of heroin seized by the army and navy. In 2017, however, the army seized just 218 kilograms, and the navy reported having seized none.

The Mexican Naval Secretariat and the Secretariat of National Defense did not respond to requests for comment.

U.S. military support to Mexico worries those who oppose the Internal Security Law. In its November report, WOLA wrote that U.S. security assistance “supports a concerning and open-ended role of the Mexican armed forces in combatting drug trafficking and organized crime in the country and provides backing to a military that has a record of committing widespread human rights violations with impunity.”

“It’s a bad idea,” Suárez-Enríquez said. “It’s worrying because there are adverse effects for communities living nearby.”

For Medina, the woman who was tortured in 2012, it is essential that Mexicans question the actions of the military, even though the risk is great. She had to flee Veracruz with her children. Even with the support of prominent human rights groups, her reputation was tarnished after being labeled a cartel member, and her husband remains behind bars.

“There was a lot of fear, because speaking out is confronting the government — because it’s against elements of the marines, of the federal government,” Medina said. “It’s confronting a big monster. But thanks to God, I spoke up.”

The “big monster” is not just the Mexican authorities relishing their impunity. It is also the entire structure that funds and enables further abuse, including the U.S. government.

A 50 años del mayo francés

Guillermo Almeyra

La Jornada 25 de marzo de 2018

El 22 de marzo de 1968 comenzó el mayo francés cuando un nutrido grupo de estudiantes de la Universidad de Nanterre ocupó la torre central de la misma. Un par de meses después, todas las fábricas de Francia estaban ocupadas, los estudiantes tomaban sus universidades y colegios y enfrentaban con adoquines a la policía; los capitalistas emigraban y el presidente Charles De Gaulle huía a Alemania a pedir el apoyo de las tropas francesas que estaban de guarnición.

Cincuenta años después, este 22 de marzo, millones de obreros, jubilados y estudiantes comienzan un mes de manifestaciones y huelgas in crescendo que harán de esta primavera que comienza con frío y nieve, una ardiente Primavera Social.

Todos los sindicatos ferroviarios, desde los más conservadores hasta los más radicales, decidieron, en efecto, hacer una huelga rotativa (dos días de huelga, tres de trabajo, otros dos de huelga y así sucesivamente hasta fines de junio por un total de 36 días no trabajados). Como tres días de actividad no bastan para reorganizar el tráfico ferroviario, Francia vivirá en los próximos meses en una agitación constante y al borde de la parálisis.

Este 22, por ejemplo, pararon también los distintos sindicatos de los aeropuertos y de la aviación, así como los controladores de los aeropuertos. También los sindicatos de funcionarios públicos del Estado central y de las municipalidades y regiones (salvo la CFDT, a la que el gobierno intenta dividir de los demás), el sindicato postal o los sindicatos de la educación primaria, media y universitaria, los de estudiantes universitarios, los de los hospitales, las casas de ancianos y los de decenas de grandes empresas que están suspendiendo o piensan trasladarse a países donde la mano de obra es mucho más barata, así como la participación masiva de partidos de izquierda, como la Francia Insubordinada de Mélenchon.

El descontento crece rápidamente. El presidente Emmanuel Macron, que había obtenido 60 por ciento de los votos de 40 por ciento, de los electores que no se abstuvieron, o sea, un apoyo real en poco superior a 32 por ciento, tiene ahora un índice de popularidad que ronda 40 por ciento y esa aprobación tibia va en caída ya que, en su afán de elevar los ingresos del gran capital, afectó a todas las municipalidades, sin importar si su gobierno era de derecha o de izquierda, pues les recortó importantes fondos.

También causó la ira de los jubilados, cuyos ingresos disminuyó, recortó fondos para las escuelas y universidades mientras aumentaba el presupuesto para la policía y las fuerzas armadas, tuvo una huelga larga y combativa de los guardacárceles, que en un número insuficiente deben hacer frente a prisiones cada vez más sobrepobladas, y tiene en agitación desde hace meses a los estresados y pocos médicos y enfermeras de los hospitales generales o para ancianos, siempre en peligro de ser procesados si un paciente muere o tiene problemas por la atención deficiente.

Por eso, en las más de 140 ciudades donde medio millón de personas se manifestaron, se sumaron miles de pequeños comerciantes, jubilados y parientes de los niños que no pueden ir a clase o no tienen comedor escolar porque Macron suprimió puestos en las escuelas.

El gobierno del gran capital debe lidiar con una ola de descontentos y conflictos que tienden a unirse pero que no tienen el mismo signo político, lo que aún le permite maniobrar. Enfrenta, en efecto, huelgas que se oponen a la reforma de las leyes laborales o del estatuto de los ferroviarios, pero también las protestas de sectores neoliberales y partidarios de dichas reformas de la clase media conservadora ahora afectados por la distribución de los fondos estatales exclusivamente en favor del gran capital financiero.

Esta evolución gradual de sectores de la clase media empobrecida e incluso de otros más acomodados pero amenazados por la concentración de la riqueza que lleva al cierre de miles de pequeñas empresas, todavía no basta para soldar de modo duradero ese tipo de protestas con las de los obreros que ven que los capitalistas tienen ganancias récord y aun así despiden o aumentan la explotación.

En las luchas, poco a poco se está gestando un frente contra el capital entre los trabajadores asalariados, la baja intelectualidad (estudiantes, maestros y profesores), la juventud (estudiantes secundarios y los nini desahuciados de los suburbios) y parte de las familias populares; es decir, un nuevo 68 pero aún más potente en la escala de Richter social.

La táctica de Macron, por ahora, es la del romano Fabio. Contemporiza, trata de dividir a los sindicatos para aislar a la CGT y a la izquierda, tira migajas a los jubilados, cede a los ecologistas en Les Landes y no hace el aeropuerto que provocó un conflicto de 50 años, su primer ministro declara que está abierto a la negociación con tal de cortar en fetas las protestas y de enfrentarlas una por una. Pero no tiene mucho éxito.

Por ejemplo, los trabajadores de la Ford de Burdeos, en huelga contra el cierre de ese establecimiento para llevarlo al extranjero, están dirigidos por la CGT, y uno de sus principales dirigentes fabriles es Philippe Poutou, el candidato a presidente por el Nuevo Partido Anticapitalista, quien ahora coincide en la defensa de la fuente de trabajo (para los obreros) y de impuestos y puestos de trabajo (para la municipalidad)… con el alcalde de Burdeos, el derechista Alain Juppé. Además, una buena parte de los diputados macronistas provienen del partido socialista y no están dispuestos a votar la legislación laboral, las medidas contra los ferroviarios y la privatización de trenes y aeropuertos, por lo que Macron está obligado a gobernar por decreto, como un rey pero de un país que le cortó la cabeza a un monarca.

En el 68, París cantaba “¡Ce n’ est qu’un début, continuons le combat!”. Este 22 parece ser un comienzo, y el combate indudablemente continuará.

almeyraguillermo@gmail.com