Afghanistan: Will Biden Cave to the Forever War Party?

There is no military solution in Afghanistan, and more years of bloodshed and war serve no one.

by Cheryl Benard

February 24, 2021

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/afghanistan-will-biden-cave-forever-war-party-178748

 

As is customary when a new administration takes the reins in Washington, policies of the previous administration are now under review, among them the Afghan Peace Talks. All such reviews must examine whether the policy makes sense for the U.S. national interest; whether it is in accord with the values of the party just elected; if no, what better alternatives exist; and if yes, whether the current implementation approach is solid.

As the future of the Afghan peace talks hangs in the balance, many experts and would-be experts from think tanks, media, and academia are seeking to influence the decision. However, their recommendations reveal two major and astonishing blind spots. First, they seem to be dismissing the lessons of the last twenty years. And second, they listen to and interact with only one of the sides in this conflict, the Afghan government side.

In accord with our agreement on the cessation of conflict, reached with the Taliban in early 2020, we are on a path to bring home almost all of our troops by May 1. But many “experts” are now suggesting that we should void that agreement to instead maintain or even increase our military presence. Do they know what they are saying? If we don’t honor our agreement with the Taliban, there is only one outcome: the war resumes and, since they will somewhat justifiably feel tricked, it is likely to intensify. How is that a good idea? Where have these people been for the past twenty years? It can hardly be said that we haven’t tried a military solution, and in every possible variant. We had not one, but two military surges. We disarmed the local militias. That didn’t help, so we rebuilt and re-armed them. We focused on areas where things were going comparatively better, on the theory that success could spread out from there. When that failed, we focused instead on the most difficult areas, on the theory that if we could handle those the rest would follow. We studied the lessons of other counterinsurgencies. We sent out teams of soldiers who had medical or farming skills, to combine community engagement with military presence. Under General David Petraeus, we dispatched the so-called human terrain experts, until some of them were tortured and killed.

By 2018, we had spent $68 billion training and building an Afghan military. Whereas the Taliban, despite no billions at all, have no problem with recruitment and motivation, the Afghan army continues to struggle with problems of retention and loyalty. Their soldiers desert in significant numbers, or they don’t exist at all but collect paychecks (the so-called “ghost soldier” problem) or they turn on their American partners and shoot them in the back (known as “green on blue” attacks). There is no realistic scenario in which “just a little while longer” is a promising strategy. There were several years when we maintained a troop level of 100,000 soldiers. Even with that, the Taliban were able not only to stand their ground but to extend their hold on their country, until today they control about 50 percent of the terrain. If 100,000 American soldiers couldn’t win this war, then 3,000 or 4,000 certainly won’t. There is no military solution here, and more years of bloodshed and war serve no one. To recommend otherwise, as journalists and desk warriors now are doing, is worse than cynical; it proposes to sacrifice American lives to no purpose.

This does not mean that the United States is indifferent to the circumstances of the outcome. We and our European allies are not prepared to sacrifice values that we consider universal, among them human rights, women’s rights, minority rights, and the basics of democracy. For that reason, our agreement with the Taliban was only the first step, with the second being a direct negotiation between the Afghan parties to the conflict, with each other, to agree on how to end the fighting and on what kind of society to put in place thereafter. The Peace Talks detractors among the experts and the journalists get their information solely from the Peace Talk detractors in Kabul, which hardly qualifies as due diligence. Can the two sides reach an acceptable outcome? Has the Taliban changed from their harsh initial rule? Have they truly forsworn the alliance with terrorist extremists, the unholy alliance that led to 9/11? In seeking to determine this, they are talking only to one of the two sides. And that’s irresponsible.

Detractors of the peace process say there is no point in talking to or listening to the Taliban because you can’t believe them anyway. But the fact is that in diplomacy, you can never believe anyone, ally or adversary, because inevitably, they are guided by their own national, group, and often personal self-interest. It’s true that we can’t just believe what the Taliban say—but neither can we just believe what the Afghan government says. And we don’t have to, as any self-respecting analyst or diplomat should know. There are well-developed ways to measure statements against behavior and to read between the lines, not to mention the information derived from intelligence sources.

This is a well-established branch of analysis and I am baffled by the negligence of my colleagues who are failing to engage in the most basic intelligence task of all: reading the adversary. The Taliban claim they have changed. They say they are patriots and nationalists who want the foreign occupation to end but have no interest in attacking Americans or Westerners and regret having allowed themselves to be pulled into Al Qaeda’s projects. They say they understand that Afghanistan has changed during the past twenty years and that they have changed as well, and are prepared to be more open to the world. Is that just self-serving propaganda intended to fool us? Maybe, but patterns are important, and that has not been their mode of operating in the past. Generally, they have been blunt to the point of provocation. A charm offensive isn’t really in their DNA.  

Recently, the Taliban issued an Open Letter to the American People. I could not find anyone in the relevant organizations or the media who had bothered to read, let alone parse it. Yet it touches on the exact issues of main concern: the level of violence, the rights of women, the protection of minorities. Just hollow words? Maybe—but even if that were the case, it would not reduce its value to a trained analyst. In counterterrorism, my profession for over a decade when I was a program director in the National Security Research Division at the RAND Corporation, a basic tool is the analysis, interpretation, and weighing of messages. What are the radicals saying, to whom, when, on what platform, with what likely intended effect? How does it compare to what they say to other audiences, to their own followers, or to what they said in the past? Much can be gleaned from this, and there is a reason why think tanks and intelligence agencies maintain entire staffs to read and interpret the speeches, intercepted communications, sermons, and other utterances of influential radicals. So, let’s take an experimental little stab at text analysis.

In my post-counterterrorism life, I am now the director of a cultural heritage organization. We have been nervous about the prospect of a Taliban return to power, given their previous destruction of one of the world’s most precious and iconic treasures, the Bamiyan Buddhas. We, therefore, sent a letter to both sides of the peace negotiations—the Afghan government and the Taliban—asking them to commit to responsible stewardship of their country’s historic treasures and requesting that this topic be added to the agenda for the peace talks. The Afghan government soon agreed. To my surprise, shortly thereafter, so did the Taliban. In fact, they did more than that. They also issued a directive to their commanders in the field, ordering them to take measures for the protection of historic sites in their respective areas, and instructing them to forbid looting, because these are “treasures that belong to the Afghan people.” As a professional weigher and parser of radical language and messaging, I submit that the Taliban’s statement on cultural heritage is especially telling just because this is so marginal a topic. I and my colleagues love and care about this, but let’s be realistic, this is a niche issue. The Taliban have nothing to gain from this statement, and therefore, this is likely to be their actual view. Underscoring this, we also found some local Afghan radio interviews in which Taliban representatives regretted their part in Al Qaeda’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. Further, in another interesting development completely ignored by Western analysts and journalists, their leader issued a directive to the leadership telling them to refrain from polygamous marriages unless the new wife was a destitute widow taken in as an act of charity. The explanation was that while allowed in Islam, additional wives represented an inappropriate luxury and indulgence and made the Taliban look bad to outsiders.

This is very interesting. It tells us that the Taliban care about their image and that economic opportunities are a priority for them. They are separately on record saying that they don’t wish to again be international pariahs but understand that their country will need help and commercial relationships with the rest of the world if it is to emerge from its stark poverty. For the United States, this means that we have soft power, and the option of sanctions, to keep a Taliban-included Afghanistan on the right track. We are hard without our means of pressure or influence; it’s not a matter of war or nothing.

Still, the question remains, can we trust the Taliban to honor their agreements? Can they even deliver on their promises, or do rogue commanders do whatever they want? The detractors insist that a deal with the Taliban negotiators won’t hold. But there’s a metric for this. In the year since they signed the cessation of hostilities agreement with the U.S. military, not one single American soldier has been killed in combat with the Taliban. Our financial costs have declined accordingly, certainly a welcome development in light of our many other national burdens. It’s time for this war to end.

Dr. Cheryl Benard was a program director in the RAND National Security Research Division. She is the author of Veiled Courage, Inside the Afghan Women’s Resistance; Afghanistan: State and Society; Democracy and Islam in the Constitution of Afghanistan; and Securing Health, Lessons from Nation-building Missions. Currently, she is the Director of ARCH International, an organization that protects cultural heritage sites in crisis zones.

 

China, Russia to face more challenges as the US rejoins UNHRC; more 'wolf warriors' called for to fight back

West woos the US with more Xinjiang lies at UNHRC, eager to show loyalty

By 

Liu Xin, 

Wang Wenwen

and Xia Wenxin Published: Feb 26, 2021

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202102/1216632.shtml

As a new round of silent battles initiated by the US and its allies using the excuse of human rights to attack countries, particularly China and Russia had been waged at the 46th United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in recent days, analysts warn that as the US re-engages with the UN body and touts the idea of a "democratic alliance," they may adopt more aggressive measures to pressure China and Russia by further politicizing human rights issues. 

However, they noted that as China's definition of human rights and its practices in protecting and ensuring such rights - for example, lifting 770 million Chinese people out of poverty over the past four decades - have been gradually recognized by more and more countries, it may be difficult for the US to regain leadership in the human rights domain  or for the West to use the UNHRC as a political tool. 

Confronted with a stern situation ahead, Russian experts also suggested China and Russia strengthen their cooperation in human rights field and there should be more "wolf warriors" disclosing Western violations of human rights.

In response to the UK, the EU, Germany, the US, Canada and a few other countries'  groundless accusations against China, Chen Xu, head of the Chinese Mission to the UN in Geneva, said at the high-level Segment of the 46th session of the UNHRC on Wednesday that turning a blind eye to facts, certain countries fabricated and spread lies about Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region and Hong Kong in vicious vilification of China. For these countries, human rights are nothing but a tool for political manipulation. 

The US, which withdrew from the UNHRC in 2018 under the Trump administration, reappeared in the Wednesday session as an observer country and its Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivered a speech, in which he reiterated lies regarding China's Xinjiang and claimed that the US is placing democracy and human rights at the center of its foreign policy.

In welcoming their "big brother" - the US - to rejoin the UNHRC, in addition to cooperating with the US to accuse China of "genocide" in the Xinjiang region, some Western countries made their efforts in hyping the alleged Xinjiang issue from the first day of the 46th session of the UNHRC since Monday, analysts said. 

Their tactics to politicize the international body has been easily seen through. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced these tactics at the session on Wednesday, saying that fake and aggressive media campaigns undermine internal political stability in sovereign states and cause violence and disorder, according to Russia's Sputnik news agency. 

The Russian foreign minister also criticized the West for failing to unite globally in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, using the pandemic instead to pressure governments it dislikes and to politicize human rights issues. 

After rejoining the UNHRC, the US would take more aggressive measures toward countries it deems "unfriendly," such as China and Russia as well as Cuba and Venezuela, analysts warned.   

The main reason for the US rejoining the UNHRC is China's increasing influence in the UN body during the US' absence. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the US has been worried that China, which performed better in fighting the deadly disease, would gain leadership in international organizations, Mao Junxiang, executive director and professor at the Human Rights Studies Center, Central South University, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

For instance, although being absent from the UNHRC, on March 7, seven US senators sent a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressing opposition to the appointment of Minister Jiang Duan from China's mission in Geneva to a seat on the consultative group of the UN Human Rights Council. 

Mao predicted that when the US resumes its UNHRC membership, it will ramp up efforts by using alleged issues related to China's Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and other regions to attack China. Moreover, the US may draw upon its Western allies to form a so-called democratic coalition at the UNHRC to push key topics such as lies regarding an alleged "genocide" occurring in Xinjiang. 

Under the guidance of the so-called human rights diplomacy, the US would also adopt more aggressive stances and measures against countries it deems as "evil" such as Russia, Cuba, or Venezuela. It would also use UNHRC agendas, a universal periodic review, or other procedures to make trouble, trying to push UNHRC reforms and place hurdles for nominees from developing countries in attaining crucial positions in the UNHRC, Mao said. 

A silent battle 

Aside from attacking China together with Western allies on topics regarding Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, the US would also focus on touting its definition of human rights to regain leadership in the field. 

Rejoining the UNHRC is the US' plan to redefine the concept of human rights and its countermeasures against China's efforts in trying to enrich the current system, Zhu Ying, deputy director of the National Human Rights Education and Training Base at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Part of the reason why the Trump administration withdrew from the UNHRC in 2018 is that they believed the standards for human rights under the system did not fit its interests or allow for it to use the system smoothly for its own gain, Zhu said. 

The US has always seen China's definition and practices on protecting human rights as a threat. It has been against China's promotion of human rights, for example, that human rights should be combined with the situations of developing countries. China also believes that the concept of human rights should be diversified as there is no one-size-fits-all approach for human rights development and countries should not export their own model or use human rights issues to interfere in other countries' domestic affairs, Zhu said. 

In recent years, China's practices protecting human rights, especially regarding its efforts to ensure residents' basic rights for living and development, have gradually been recognized by more and more countries. And more countries agree with China's proposals that human rights should not be used as an excuse to interfere with other countries' domestic affairs, which worries the US and the West, analysts noted. 

The West has discussed human rights over several hundreds of years and infused certain concepts globally, highlighting that human rights equal freedoms of speech and religion, or that democracy means each person can vote. As for other issues, they are beyond the boundaries of human rights, Mao said, noting that this is why the US and some Western countries do not deem the astonishing death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic as a fundamental "violation" of human rights. 

Neglecting the basic rights for people to live and develop but focusing more on political rights, the US and the West have boasted about their concept of human rights for such a long time and have now encountered questions and increasing reflection about it noted Mao.

"A German professor at my university told me that he was surprised to see China's good performance in curbing COVID-19 while the EU and the US have done so poorly. China's human rights concepts are reasonable," Mao noted.

A sense of crisis and pressure - both stemming from its culture and economy - has pushed the US and the West to step up its efforts to pressure China by using human rights as excuses. "They simply cannot accept the fact that some countries have gained prosperity by taking a completely different development pattern than theirs," Mao said. 

Some US media outlets have expressed concerns regarding China's growing influence on defining human rights. For example, The Diplomat, an online news magazine, released an article on Tuesday questioning China's alleged attempt to reconstruct the very concept of human rights "to better suit" the Communist Party of China.

China is not seeking to implement a separate system for human rights differing from the previous one - it is more like using its own approach, which has been drawn from practices that enrich the current international human rights system, Xu Yao, a research fellow at the Human Rights Research Center of Nankai University told the Global Times on Thursday.

Also together with more developing countries, China is fixing loopholes in the practice of human rights since the US and some Western countries have used human rights as political rules and adopted double or multiple standards, Xu said, noting that the US and some Western countries are not models for human rights as they themselves have many problems, including racism, gun control, and the gap between the rich and the poor.

The death of George Floyd, an African American man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020, drew international attention to the problem of racism in the US with protests sweeping many places across the US ever since. 

Challenges, opportunities coexist  

Despite the fact that more loopholes in systems and hypocrisy regarding human rights issues in the US and the West have been exposed further, there are still challenges for China and many other countries to face after the US rejoining the UNHRC with its influence and money, experts said. 

Compared with the US and other Western countries, China is a latecomer in the international human rights field. Less Chinese are taking important positions in international organizations and the interactions of Chinese NGOs with their overseas counterparts in addition to departments in the UNHRC remains limited, Xu said.

Xu attended the UNHRC session in February 2020 as an expert of a Chinese NGO. He said that that Chinese experts have limited opportunities to speak for the fields where China has done better and many of their topics for speeches are in marginal fields. 

While the US and the West use human rights as an excuse to challenge China, experts suggested that China strengthen cooperation with more countries, especially with Russia. 

Human rights are used as a tool to enforce and sustain the current global order in accordance with Western interests. China, Russia and some other nations have already started to formulate a new world order, but it will take time and much effort to formulate a different global humanitarian agenda and render it mainstream for human society, Yuri Tavrovsky, head of the Expert Council of the Russian-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace and Development told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Tavrovsky suggested that there should be more "wolf warriors" disclosing Western violations of human rights to help people and organizations in the West find the true situation in their countries and the monopoly of liberalism, BLM, and other violations.

Oleg Ivanov, vice-rector of research at the Moscow-based Diplomatic Academy told the Global Times on Thursday that there is space for further cooperation between Russia and China as "we are in the same boat."

"We can cooperate and unite our efforts on a bilateral basis, taking similar positions on particular issues in the human rights area. Russia and China can also work together in international organizations, such as the UN, BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to promote a positive agenda to avoid human rights issues being politicized to punish other countries," the Russian expert said. 

 

¿Asfixia de Bloque?

John Saxe-Fernández

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/02/25/opinion/025a1eco

“Cada país de la región de América del Norte deberá de colaborar con el resto de las respectivas soberanías, para construir el bloque mas poderoso a nivel global” (contralinea.com.mx 15/2/21) Así se expresó Esteban Moctezuma al asumir el cargo de nuevo embajador de México en Estados Unidos (EU). Ya somos parte del TLCAN y del T-MEC en abismal asimetría de poder con la potencia norteña agravada por la concentración del comercio mexicano en EU, con inversión dominante de EU.

¿Formar un bloque con una potencia cuya diplomacia de fuerza se hace sentir bajo la movilización de su complejo industrial militar, cuyo poder quedó bien calibrado por Eisenhower citado en Biden y el Complejo Militar-Industrial? ( La Jornada, 11/2/21). Es una diplomacia unilateralista ajena a los principios de la nuestra. ¿No es suficiente la integración subordinada de los neoliberales que, junto al programa de ajuste estructural, dejó a México en ruinas, título de un vital estudio de Arturo Ortiz Wadgymar (UNAM/2010)?

Ya nos subordinaron a los leoninos tratados mencionados. Me pregunto: ¿dónde están consignadas las aspiraciones bloquistas de la 4T? El artículo 89 mandata al titular del Ejecutivo conducir la política exterior bajo los siguientes principios normativos: la autodeterminación de los pueblos; la no intervención; la solución pacífica de controversias; la proscripción de la amenaza o el uso de la fuerza en las relaciones internacionales; la igualdad jurídica de los Estados; la cooperación internacional para el desarrollo; el respeto, la protección y promoción de los derechos humanos y la lucha por la paz y la seguridad internacionales.

Al revisar la política exterior de EU después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y, en especial, de los ataques no aclarados contra las Torres Gemelas y el Pentágono, encuentro elementos que han configurado lo que cabe calificar de sistemática diplomacia de fuerza, por la declaratoria urbe et orbi de virtual estado de excepción, contenida en el documento Estrategia Nacional de Seguridad de Estados Unidos, ratificado en septiembre de 2001, bajo la noción nazi de la autodefensa anticipatoria. Es una declaratoria de estado de excepción, enarbolada en 1930 por el nacional socialismo alemán, en los hechos, de repercusión mundial.

Al ofrecer una reflexión sobre tan magno evento, Gore Vidal, entre los más destacados novelistas y ensayistas críticos de EU, menciona que después de leer el documento, el historiador Joseph Stromberg exclamó: hay que leerlo para creerlo. Y es que, a decir de Vidal, la mencionada doctrina “predica que sería deseable que EU se vuelva –para usar las palabras de Adams– la dictadora del mundo. También (la doctrina) da por sentado que el presidente y sus lugartenientes están moralmente facultados para gobernar el planeta. Declara el documento que nuestra mejor defensa es una buena ofensiva. Para luego añadir que la doctrina de la prevención es asunto de sentido común y autodefensa y agrega que “EU actuará contra las amenazas que surjan antes de que se formen por completo” (cursivas de Gore Vidal) quien ironiza imaginando al encargado del Departamento de Justicia arrestando a todo varón mormón antes de que pueda secuestrar ocho jovencitas para hacerlas sus esposas. (G. Vidal, Somos los patriotas en Cultura y neofascismos: disidencias, Editorial Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, 2003).

Las advertencias citadas por Vidal son de John Adams, notable filósofo de la política, vicepresidente y sucesor de George Washington entre 1797 y 1801, seguido por Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) en lo que sería un rosario de agregados territoriales, empezando por la compra de Luisiana (1803) que duplicó de un plumazo el territorio de EU. La pactó Jefferson con Napoleón a espaldas de la población indígena brutalmente afectada. En aquel entonces, el embajador de España en EU dijo que esa compra territorial abría las puertas de la Nueva España (y de México) a la voraz burguesía del norte de EU y así fue pocas décadas después también bajo el impulso de la soez guerra de agresión expansionista y esclavista contra México bajo el lema de a los mexicanos como a los apaches.

Menciono las operaciones bajo legalidad de transacción de compra territorial, porque en un debate presidencial sostenido entre el entonces vicepresidente Al Gore y Ross Perot, opuesto al TLC, Gore equiparó al tratado con la compra de Luisiana (1803) y la compra de Alaska a Rusia en 1867.

Cuando me pregunté qué está comprando EU en México con el TLC, lo primero que pensé fue en Pemex y la CFE, principales ejes de acumulación del país y así lo consigné en La compra-venta de México, Ceiich-Unam, 2002 y 2016, ambas bajo histórica recuperación por su importancia estratégica. A esas desventajosas condicionantes y a la postura neoliberal de seis sexenios al hilo ¿agregar ahora la soberanía en riesgo de asfixia de bloque? Pues no.

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ESTADOS UNIDOS EXIGIÓ COMPENSACIÓN (GARCÍA CABEZA DE VACA) POR LO DE CIENFUEGOS

Para el Departamento de Justicia y la DEA, el que la Fiscalía General de la República determinara que no había delito que perseguir contra el ex secretario de la Defensa Nacional, General Salvador Cienfuegos, después de que el gobierno de Trump decidiera detener las acusaciones en contra del general, para entregarlo al gobierno mexicano, con objeto de evitar una crisis en las relaciones cívico-militares de su vecino del sur, y para mantener la “cooperación” (subordinación) mexicana en materia de seguridad, significó un golpe político muy duro, puesto que la DEA y el Departamento de Justicia se quedaron con un palmo de narices.

Por ello, de manera discreta, la burocracia permanente de estas agencias e instituciones del gobierno estadounidense hicieron saber a la administración Biden, que se requería una “compensación” por el favor hecho a México, y por la respuesta mexicana de no juzgar a Cienfuegos.

Desde hace años, las autoridades estadounidenses han estado investigando las relaciones del actual gobernador panista de Tamaulipas, Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca, con los cárteles del narcotráfico asentados en esa entidad, incluso desde que era presidente municipal de Reynosa (2005-2007), por lo que estaba en la mira del Departamento de Justicia, la DEA, el Departamento del Tesoro y otras dependencias del gobierno estadounidense.

De ahí que al tener que recular en el caso Cienfuegos, por consideraciones mayores de política exterior, esgrimidas por el gobierno de Trump, la burocracia permanente de las áreas de seguridad y procuración de justicia, presionaron a Biden para que ahora sí un alto funcionario gubernamental mexicano fuera puesto en el banquillo de los acusados por su relación con el narcotráfico; y así se lo hizo saber Biden a López Obrador, una vez que establecieron contacto telefónico.

La lenta y hasta ahora poco efectiva Fiscalía General de la República recibió el mensaje de presidencia, en el sentido de que en el caso de García Cabeza de Vaca, ya no había lugar para tardanzas, y había que actuar[1].

Además, para López Obrador, el sentar en el banquillo de los acusados a un gobernador panista que aspira a ser el candidato presidencial de su partido para el 2024, y en vísperas de las elecciones intermedias de este año y la renovación de 15 gubernaturas, no pudo caer en mejor momento.

Tamaulipas ha sido por décadas una plaza muy importante para el trasiego de drogas, armas y migrantes, por lo que los cárteles asentados en esa entidad (el del Golfo, los Zetas, ahora el del Noreste[2]), se han significado por ser organizaciones muy poderosas[3], bien imbricadas en el sistema político y en las actividades económicas de la entidad, y por lo mismo, socios de los gobernantes (que hasta antes de Cabeza de Vaca, fueron priístas), en el gobierno del estado[4].

Ahora, la presión para que Cabeza de Vaca sea desaforado por la Cámara de Diputados, sea detenido por la Fiscalía y juzgado, va a ser muy fuerte desde Estados Unidos, cuyo gobierno no va a querer quedar otra vez como espectador en un tema que reclama como propio, es decir, el control del negocio del narcotráfico, tanto en materia de quiénes participan, cómo incide dentro de los Estados Unidos, la narrativa que se desarrolla alrededor del mismo y los personajes que deben ser o no juzgados y condenados por su participación en tan lucrativo negocio, para ambos lados de la frontera.

---

[1] https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/02/24/politica/011n2pol

 

[2] La "Tropa del Infierno" es el brazo armado del Cártel del Noreste, que a su vez es una fracción disidente de Los Zetas. Se disputa el territorio de Tamaulipas con organizaciones criminales como Los Zetas Vieja Escuela y el Cártel del Golfo (CDG). El líder de "La Tropa del Infierno" está identificado únicamente como "El Werko", quien estaría casado con una sobrina de Miguel Ángel y Omar Treviño Morales, alias "El Z-40" y "El Z-42", respectivamente, quienes actualmente se encuentran en prisión.

Medios locales reportan que los integrantes del CDN han estado acosando a los empresarios de la localidad, sobre todo de las gasolineras. Sus ataques han despertado el miedo entre los ciudadanos debido a la violencia extrema que los caracteriza.

El Cártel del Noreste opera en una de las zonas clave para el trasiego de drogas hacia los Estados Unidos. Tamaulipas es el paso fronterizo, donde ingresan cada año toneladas de estupefacientes al país vecino del norte. https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2019/11/18/tamaulipas-la-entidad-fronteriza-que-se-convirtio-en-el-paraiso-de-los-narcos/

 

 

[3] Ibidem.

 

[4] https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2021/02/24/desde-lavado-de-dinero-hasta-vinculos-con-el-narcotrafico-los-gobernadores-de-tamaulipas-bajo-la-sospecha/

 

 

When the US can’t beat China, it should seek common ground for a brighter future: Global Times editorial

By Global Times Published: Feb 21, 2021

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202102/1216083.shtml

Friday's G7 summit and Munich Security Conference were seen as the US President Joe Biden's debut on the international stage, and one of his brightest slogans were "America is back." Bringing US allies together to meet the "challenges posed by China" has been a feature of the new US administration since it took office, but the message from the two Friday meetings suggest that closer US cooperation with its allies is bound to result in mutual influence and compromise, rather than a unilateral hijacking of its allies by the US over their China policies.

In addition to the "challenges posed by China," arguments against a "new cold war" and the need to "work with China" in some areas were noted at both meetings, including from Biden himself. When speaking to the Europeans, the new US president is clearly more balanced than when he speaks only to the US media.

However, there are some extreme political forces in the US that are trying to incite the rivalry between the US and China, which will cast a long-lasting shadow over China-US relations and international relations as a whole. Republican Senator Tom Cotton recently issued an arrogant report calling for a "targeted decoupling" from China. He said in a speech detailing his report at a virtual Reagan Institute event on Thursday that the US needs to "beat this evil empire" and "consign the Chinese Communists to the ash heap of history." He then called the US-China fights a "protracted twilight struggle that will determine the fate of the world."

Cotton, who stood by Donald Trump in his presidency is a Republican whose rhetoric to more than 90 million members of the Communist Party of China is tinged with fascist racism and incitement against humanity. In a sign of how popular the hysteria is in the US today, the extremist politician is widely anticipated to be eyeing a run for president in 2024.

The root cause of why the US can do nothing to China, and why the new US government is vacillating between cooperating with its allies to contain China and working with China lies in the fact that a decisive break with China and a full-blown confrontation would be too painful for the US. Washington has always wanted to find a comfortable way to make a clear break with China. However, there is accumulating evidence indicating that this is just wishful thinking.

Taking a look at how many German cars are on the streets in China and how many French fashion products are used by Chinese women, one will further understand how unrealistic it is for European countries to give up their huge interests in the Chinese market. We know Washington does not like China very much, but China is a growing provider of immeasurable interests. It is fine to admire, envy, or even hate China's development, but if you want to become an enemy of China, you must be prepared to sacrifice a great deal for your national interests. 

We do not know whether Cotton's evil plan would have any chance to become true and whether a more extreme US government would gain power. But we know as long as China continues its development momentum and leaves the US in its wake, no matter how malicious Washington is, China can still hold the initiative to take hold of the situation to a great extent and the US will be propelled to stop whenever it launches fierce attacks against China. 

Since Trump waged the trade war against China, China has been grappling with a turbulent strategic environment. But during all these years, China's internal logic has become clearer - China's development cannot be stopped, and the strength released from its development has smashed US attacks, including those egotistical plans, and made the hysterical US politicians feel more and more desperate. 

The US malice toward China still exists, but the rhythm of attacking China is slowing down. That's because the US faces multiple obstructions from reality - China-US decoupling will bring no less misery to the US than to China, and Europe, Japan and South Korea are not willing to foot the bill for US' unrealistic strategic ambitions. It is hoped the new US government can truly return to realism, draw a fine line with the previous administration's arrogant goal of bringing China down, and work with China despite divergences to seek new major power diplomacy.

 Britain’s Double Standards in International Affairs

BY BRIAN CLOUGHLEY

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/19/britains-double-standards-in-international-affairs/

On February 12 it was announced by the UN that a British lawyer had been elected as chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court.  No matter what one might think of the ICC, it is taking steps to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan and Yemen, so it can’t be all bad.  But a major point in this international development is that the person involved, Karim Khan, a brilliant advocate, was expected to be chosen by consensus but as noted by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, there was a last-minute objection by the Indian Ocean the island state of Mauritius which “focused less on Karim as an individual, but that he was nominated by the British government. Mauritius had been infuriated that UK ministers had for a second time said they had no need to abide by rulings of international UN courts in the dispute over its sovereignty of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

This is one example of the British government flouting international law when it considers such codes to be awkward, and an illustration of its inconsistent and even hypocritical approach to world developments.

***

Hong Kong used to be a British colony and reverted to China in 1997. Since then there have been disagreements between Britain and China concerning the governance of the region, and the British government has poked its nose where it has no right to dictate the conduct of affairs.  It claims to have a “moral commitment” regarding a security law applicable to Hong Kong, and in a speech about the region on January 29 the British prime minister, the egregious Boris Johnson, declared that he and his government “stand up for freedom and autonomy.”

It so happens that on the same day as Johnson was preaching about his love of freedom the United Nation’s maritime court in Hamburg announced that Britain has no sovereignty over the Chagos Islands.  As the UK Guardian reported, the Court “criticized London for its failure to hand the territory back to Mauritius and follows the international court of justice announcement last year that the UK’s ongoing administration of the islands were ‘unlawful’.”

Britain’s treatment of the former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands has been disgraceful and entirely at variance with its self-righteous criticism of other countries for their supposed denial of human rights.

The Chagos chain of some sixty islets is in the middle of the Indian Ocean and used to be a paradise for the inhabitants but, as noted by the BBC, “Between 1968 and 1974, Britain forcibly removed thousands of Chagossians from their homelands and sent them more than 1,000 miles away to Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they faced extreme poverty and discrimination.” There are some 3,000 reluctantly resident in Britain and many of the younger ones, born in exile, have been denied British citizenship and live in fear of being expelled.

As I have written in Counterpunch in the past, the Chagos Archipelago was “depopulated” in the 1960s and 70s because Britain had agreed that there should be a US military airfield on the main island, Diego Garcia.  As revealed in 2004, the bureaucrats of Britain’s Colonial Office had written that “The object of the exercise is to get some rocks which will remain ours; there will be no indigenous population except seagulls who have not yet got a committee. Unfortunately along with the Birds go some few Tarzans or Men Fridays whose origins are obscure, and who are being hopefully wished on to Mauritius etc.”

The sneering condescension of that racist bigotry is repulsive, but the attitude remains, and the Chagos Islanders will continue to be victims of that mentality. By various subterfuges, the people of the Archipelago were expelled, in the course of which the colonial governor Sir Bruce Greatbatch “ordered all pet dogs on Diego Garcia to be killed. Almost 1,000 pets were rounded up and gassed, using the exhaust fumes from American military vehicles.” As one evicted Islander, Lizette Tallatte said in 2004 documentary, “when their dogs were taken away in front of them, our children screamed and cried,” and then the remaining islanders “were loaded onto ships, allowed to take only one suitcase. They left behind their homes and furniture, and their lives.”

The islands had been a French colony and were handed over to Britain in 1814 by the Treaty of Paris which officially ended the Napoleonic Wars. They formed part of the colony of Mauritius, the much larger island group some 2000 kilometers to the southeast.

Then, as Law World records, “In 1965, the UK and Mauritius signed the Lancaster House Agreement, whereby the Chagos Islands were detached from Mauritius and included in a new territory called the British Indian Ocean Territory.  Mauritius later alleged that this detachment was forced, especially due to its vulnerable position as a former British colony. Due to the geographically strategic position of Chagos – equally situated between Indonesia, Australia, Iraq, and eastern Africa – the UK and the United States had long been considering it for the installation of a military base.  In 1966, the UK and the US signed a deal for the implementation of such a base on the island of Diego Garcia for an indefinite period . . .”

So the “Tarzans and Man Fridays”, as the inhabitants were regarded by the bigoted smirking Brits, were sacrificed on Washington’s altar of domination which added another military base to the 800 around the globe.  In 2016, the lease for the base was extended until 2036. No mention was made of the islanders who had been forcibly evicted from their homes.

On 22 May 2019, the UN General Assembly voted 116 to 6 in favor of a resolution demanding that the United Kingdom withdraw “its colonial administration unconditionally from the Chagos Archipelago” within six months. Only the U.S., Hungary, Israel, Australia and the Maldives backed the UK, but although the result was indicative of the world opinion and deeply condemnatory of the US and Britain the resolution is non-binding and will be ignored by those most directly involved — and the islanders will stay poverty-ridden in exile. They are, after all, mere “Tarzans and Man Fridays” and it is no doubt hoped that soon they will all die off and cease to be a problem.

The people who deny the Islanders their human rights are poisonous filth, as made clear in a British 2009 diplomatic cable revealed by Wikileaks (no wonder the Brit establishment detests Julian Assange and is treating him so disgustingly) which stated that the government “would like to establish a ‘marine park’ or ‘reserve’ providing comprehensive environmental protection to the reefs and waters of the British Indian Ocean Territory [BIOT] . . . [which]  would in no way impinge on US use of the BIOT, including Diego Garcia, for military purposes . . . [and ensure] that former inhabitants would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the entire Chagos Archipelago was a marine reserve.”

The inhabitants of Hong Kong, on the other hand, are more highly regarded in London, and on  January 29 the British government announced satisfaction about “the UK’s historic and moral commitment to the people of Hong Kong who have had their rights and freedoms restricted.”  The UK has, after all, declared it wishes to “defend human rights across the globe.”

In November 2016 the Financial Times reported extension of the lease for the US base on Diego Garcia for another twenty years and noted that “the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that the Chagossians would not be allowed to return “on the grounds of feasibility, defense and security interests, and cost to the British taxpayer”.  It was also announced that the evicted Islanders would receive 40 million pounds in compensation.

But on  January 31 it was revealed that less than £12,000 of that forty million has been directed to helping the exiled islanders and their families.  Henry Smith, the UK Member of Parliament in whose constituency many Chagossians now exist, stated bluntly that “it’s outrageous that next to none of this funding has actually been utilized . . . [it is] another failure of Foreign Office promises over half a century to the Chagossian community.”

The “defense of human rights” by the government of Boris Johnson is a charade, and the treatment of the Chagos Islanders is indefensibly cruel and loathsome. But the government and their little helpers in London think it’s such an unimportant matter that it will simply fade away.  Like the islanders.

Alas, they are probably right.  And we will see yet another victory for duplicity over morality, illustrating Britain’s double standards in international affairs.

Brian Cloughley writes about foreign policy and military affairs. He lives in Voutenay sur Cure, France.