The ghost of Georgia 2008 should be haunting Kiev right now

Saakashvili thought Washington had his back, but just like today, the hawks made promises that cooler heads wouldn’t back up.

DECEMBER 15, 2021

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/15/the-ghost-of-georgia-2008-should-be-haunting-kiev-right-now/

Written by
Andrew Cockburn

Current war-party bombast in the cause of Ukraine, supposedly menaced by massed hordes of Russian armored divisions, routinely evokes the 2008 war in the Caucuses in which, according to the tub-thumpers’ preferred narrative, Russia attacked Georgia without provocation only to be forced to withdraw thanks to Washington’s steely resolve. It is therefore worth recalling what actually happened. 

Then, as of now, the conflict was fueled at a fundamental level by the eagerness of the defense lobby to expand NATO eastwards, regardless of entirely predictable Russian reactions. By 2008, Moscow’s erstwhile eastern European satellites, once part of the defunct Warsaw Pact, had all been absorbed into NATO, despite earlier pledges by Western leaders that no such expansion would take place. Strategically emasculated in the Yeltsin years, Russia had grudgingly accepted the process with an ill-grace but could do little more than protest. By the 2000s, with the momentum of expansion carrying NATO ever closer to the Soviet heartland, it was no longer realistic to presume Russian indifference. 

Yet the movement was hard to stop. In Georgia, a charismatic young U.S.-trained lawyer, Mikheil “Misha” Saakashvili, took power in 2003 and straightaway began offering a welcome embrace to Washington and requests to join the alliance. To bolster his standing in the American capital, Saakashvili hired Randy Scheunemann, a Republican lobbyist and the executive director of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a neocon group formed in 2002 under the chairmanship of none other than Bruce Jackson, a senior Lockheed executive and president of the Committee to Expand NATO.  

Privately, Washington players felt a little nervous about their hyperactive protégé, suspecting that he might get everyone into trouble. As one of them told me, Saakashvili “needed a course of Ritalin to shut him up.” But in public, it was easy to get swept away. In 2005, George W. Bush stood in Tbilisi’s Freedom Square and told the crowd they could count on American support: 

“As you build a free and democratic Georgia, the American people will stand with you… As you build free institutions at home, the ties that bind our nations will grow deeper, as well. …We encourage your closer cooperation with NATO.” 

Saakashvili worked hard at ingratiating himself with the friendly superpower, supplying a Georgian contingent for the U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and offering hospitality to American intelligence operations in Georgia itself. Most obviously, NSA interception facilities began sprouting on suitably sited hilltops. Across Washington, the Georgian president basked in bipartisan favor among influential figures such as Richard Holbrooke, as well as Senator John McCain whose close adviser was Saakashvili lobbyist Randy Scheunemann.  

Unfortunately, the burgeoning relationship promoted dangerous overconfidence on Saakashvili’s part. By 2008, he was unabashedly provoking Moscow, apparently confident that he could win a war with his immense neighbor. Receiving Bruce Jackson, who by now was heading up yet another entity, the Project on Transitional Democracies, Saakashvili demanded immediate shipment of various weapons systems, including, remembers Jackson, “a thousand Stingers.” Jackson said that would not happen. “Go f–k yourself,” snapped the Georgian leader.  

Matters came to a head at a NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008. Vladimir Putin flew in to say that the alliance’s expansion posed a “direct threat” to Russia. According to a former senior White House official who spoke to me, President Bush, accompanied by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, took Saakashvili aside and told him not to provoke Russia. Sources privy to the meeting tell me that Bush warned the Georgian leader that if he persisted, the United States would not start World War III on his behalf.  

Bush had arrived in Bucharest eager for an agreement on rapid NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, but he backed off in the face of protests from European leaders. In an awkward compromise, NATO released a statement foreswearing immediate membership, but also states: “We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.” Putin duly took note.  

Buoyed by hubris and undeterred by warnings from Washington, Saakashvili pressed on, ultimately assaulting the separatist region of South Ossetia, which was under Russian control. “Misha,” Jackson told me later, “was trying to flip us into a war with Russia.” His confidence may have been buoyed by back-channel assurances from minions of Vice-President Richard Cheney that the U.S. would, in the end, come to his aid.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley feared that Cheney might indeed persuade Bush to intervene. To ward off this possibility Hadley ordered his NSC aide Fiona Hill to station herself outside Cheney’s office and monitor his movements. If he emerged and appeared to be heading to the Oval Office, she was to call her boss and Rice immediately, so that they could sprint to Bush’s side and dissuade him from any dangerous notions dripped in his ear by the vice-president. 

Meanwhile, Russian forces had swiftly counterattacked and were soon deep inside Georgian territory, making sure along the way to destroy all those U.S. listening posts. Having humiliated Saakashvili they then withdrew. Despite the underlying parallels between Georgia 2008 and Ukraine 2021, most obviously the poisonous chalice of aspirant NATO membership, here are important differences.  In the words of a former senior White House official, who told me: “Saakashvili was a hotheaded megalomaniac. [Ukrainian President  Volodymyr] Zelensky was elected on a peace platform but is being taunted as weak by his internal opposition.” In particular, noted the former official, Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, in pursuit of a comeback, is challenging him to defy Putin. So, he added, are the “idiots” in Washington goading Zelensky and his military. 

This article was adapted in part from Cockburn’s new book,  The Spoils of War: Power, Profit, and the American War Machine (2021)

 MIGRACIÓN DESCONTROLADA,

GOBIERNOS IMPOTENTES Y CIUDADANÍA EXASPERADA

En prácticamente todo el mundo, centenas de miles de personas abandonan sus pueblos, regiones y países para buscar salvar su vida, mejorarla o brindarles a sus hijos oportunidades de progreso.

Guerras entre países, guerras civiles, violencia criminal, crisis económicas, crisis ambientales, desastres naturales, explotación extrema de la mano de obra, dictaduras, estados fallidos, o la simple ambición de buscar nuevos derroteros, han lanzado en las últimas tres décadas a millones de personas en el mundo a migrar del campo a la ciudad, de regiones aisladas a más urbanizadas, de un país a otro, o de un continente a otro.

Pero los riesgos son innumerables, porque todavía el mundo está dividido en estados soberanos, que deciden quién entra y quién no a sus territorios. Y aunque la mayoría no tiene la capacidad para controlar al 100% sus fronteras y sus puertos de entrada, sí al menos establecen una primera línea de contención ante los extranjeros, los que no son nacionales o residentes legales del país, para evitar su entrada libre al territorio.

Sin embargo, las crisis económicas, las guerras, la violencia criminal, el cambio climático, los desastres naturales, los malos gobiernos se han multiplicado en las últimas tres décadas, obligando a millones de personas a salir de sus lugares de origen, principalmente hacia ciudades, zonas, regiones y países más desarrollados en busca de seguridad, mejoría económica y un horizonte más promisorio para su descendencia.

Ante ello los gobiernos de países subdesarrollados, desarrollados o incluso las superpotencias, se han visto rebasados, por la cantidad, la constancia y la perseverancia de los migrantes que no están dispuestos a quedarse en sus lugares de origen; y que constantemente arriesgan la vida en travesías llenas de peligros y caen en manos de inescrupulosos traficantes de personas, que han convertido esta actividad en un negocio tan lucrativo como el narcotráfico.

Según la Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM), en lo que va del 2021 el saldo de muertes de migrantes en el mundo (al menos los oficialmente contabilizados) es de 4470[1]; y desde 2014 suman 45,400 las muertes.

Ningún gobierno en el mundo tiene la solución a este fenómeno social transfronterizo, pues implica una problemática multidimensional, que cubre a la mayor parte del mundo, por lo que los gobiernos tomados de manera individual son impotentes para detener el flujo migratorio, como lo siguen intentando infructuosamente muchos países; absorber de una manera humanitaria y ordenada dicho flujo en sus sociedades, y al mismo tiempo, generar las condiciones idóneas en los países expulsores, para que la gente no sienta la necesidad de emigrar, en vista de que la seguridad, la economía, la política, brindan un entorno favorable para el desarrollo humano en esos países de origen.

Según la OIM el número de migrantes en el mundo hasta el 2020, llegó a 281 millones de personas[2], equivalente al 3.6% de la población mundial.

En 2019, los migrantes en el mundo enviaron remesas a sus países de origen por un monto de 717 mil millones de dólares y se considera que el número de trabajadores migrantes en el mundo es de 168 millones de personas.

Mientras la comunidad internacional esté más preocupada por las presiones políticas y económicas internas, de sus ciudadanías que se exasperan con la llegada incontrolada de decenas de miles de personas de otros países, y se prefiera asumir una posición soberanista, en la que sólo los intereses nacionales cuentan, sin tomar en cuenta la globalidad del fenómeno que se enfrenta, el problema sólo crecerá como bola de nieve, los riesgos y las muertes de los migrantes en el mundo aumentarán, y los enfrentamientos entre poblaciones receptoras y de los países de tránsito, con los migrantes se exacerbarán.

Si la comunidad internacional sigue “pateando el bote” de este problema por años, la problemática será cada vez peor, y los costos futuros para intentar resolverla se multiplicarán.

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[1] https://www.iom.int/es/news/este-ano-las-muertes-de-migrantes-aumentan-y-llegan-4400-la-oim-registra-mas-de-45000-desde-2014

 

[2] https://www.iom.int/es/datos-e-investigacion

 

 America Besieged

BY RICHARD C. GROSS

DECEMBER 15, 2021

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/15/america-besieged/

“America will not be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedom, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

– President Abraham Lincoln

If you wanted to ensure that election officials could overturn the will of the voters, you would put in their place loyalists who would be expected to skew votes in favor of your candidate if that person lost the balloting.

That’s precisely what’s happening in several Republican-led battleground states. The goal is to ensure that if Donald Trump loses another presidential election, if he runs, he still may be able to be declared the winner by subverting the balloting, disenfranchising the voters – to do in 2024 what the Trumpists couldn’t accomplish in 2020. Elections could wind up being thrown into the courts.

More than 60 percent of Republicans believe Trump’s biggest, boldest lie — that he defeated Joe Biden for the presidency, that the election was stolen from him, according to a May Reuters/Ipsos poll. It’s very difficult to believe so many people can be duped.

Those believers are installing Trump loyalists in local polling precincts, according to the online news organization ProPublica and other major mainstream publications.

They would be expected to throw away votes for the opposition or “find” nonexistent votes for the former president, who is virtually certain to secure the GOP nomination in 2024.

They’re also going after school boards, city and county commissions, and secretaries of state, according to Ron Filipkowsi in an essay in The Washington Post. He is a former federal and state prosecutor, now a private defense attorney. He is investigating Trump activists, who he says are getting support from conservative organizations like The Heritage Foundation.

That makes it a determined conservative movement whose mission is to put Trump and his Republicans back in power.

The step-by-step process of taking over the government, including the failed coup attempt at the Capitol, is the upshot of the never-ending lies told by Trump and his obedient acolytes, elected officials among them. They spin fantasies about a stolen election, minorities, race, ethnicity, books, gun control, vaccines, masks, and promote absurd conspiracy theories that millions of people have been deluded into believing.

It’s those millions who put their faith in Trump that keeps elected officials and candidates for office loyal to him.

With Trump at the head, the Republican Party is steering America in the same autocratic direction Hitler took Germany in the 1930s. His first attempted coup, the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, failed. Hitler kept trying until he succeeded in becoming chancellor in 1933. Trump hasn’t stopped trying.

How? By limiting voting for minorities, with 33 laws passed in 19 Republican states; by packing the courts with more than 200 right-wing judges so they could agree to right-wing demands; by gerrymandering Democrats out of the running; and by installing loyalists at polling places and in local offices that have a say in elections.

Shifting into gear the machinery to ensure election victory by the rogue Republican Party has been underway for about a year, certainly since the failed Jan. 6 attempted coup. It’s not an exaggeration to say its success could be the death knell of our democracy.

“. . . Trump and his party have convinced a dauntingly large number of Americans that the essential workings of democracy are corrupt, that made-up claims of fraud are true, that only cheating can thwart their victory at the polls, that tyranny has usurped their government, and that violence is a legitimate response,” staff investigative reporter Barton Gellman wrote for the January-February issue of The Atlantic.

The “precinct strategy” is the newest belligerent right-wing attempt by Trump loyalists to try to restore him to power by packing local election precincts with his supporters in a bid to take over the Republican Party at its lowest level, where people vote, ProPublica reported in September. The strategy is spelled out on its own website.

It’s a strategy concocted by far-right political hit man Stephen K. Bannon, a frumpy, unshaven, pot-bellied onetime White House adviser who is under indictment for defying Congress by refusing to testify about plans for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

Because the Republican Party sold out Trump, Bannon charged, the way around it “was to seize control of the GOP from the bottom up” by swarming “into the lowest rung of the party structure: the precincts,” ProPublica said.

“We’re going to take this back village by village . . . precinct by precinct,” it quoted Bannon as saying in a podcast. He is bent on destroying the “administrative state,” which he once said Trump was planning to do. He nearly succeeded.

The “precinct strategy” went viral, seen by millions on pro-Trump websites, heard on talk radio, and encountered on other right-wing outlets, ProPublica said.

“Suddenly, people who had never before shown interest in party politics started calling local GOP headquarters or crowding into county conventions, eager to enlist as precinct officers,” ProPublica reported.

Forty-one Republican leaders in 65 counties contacted by ProPublica “reported an unusual increase in signups since Bannon’s campaign began,” it said. “At least 8,500 new Republican precinct officers (or equivalent lowest-level officials) joined those county parties.”

“We can take over the [Republican] party if we invade it,” Daniel J. Schultz, a conservative Arizona activist said on Bannon’s podcast in February, ProPublica reported.” I can’t guarantee you that we’ll save the republic, but I can guarantee you this: We’ll lose it if we conservatives don’t take over the Republican Party.”

As an example, Republicans purged one of their longtime canvassers in Flint, Michigan’s Genesee County because she backed the legality of Biden’s victory in 2020, The Washington Post said in an editorial.

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, told The New York Times the Republican campaign to assert more control over election systems “is a five-alarm fire.”

“If people in general, leaders and citizens, aren’t taking this as the most important issue of our time and acting accordingly,” she said, “then we may not be able to ensure democracy prevails again in ’24.”

The Democrats, who have been asleep during the long-running Republican efforts to control the levers of power at the state level, including legislatures, must wake up and combat the GOP strategy before they wind up not only out of office but responsible for handing over our obvious fragile democracy to an authoritarian government. It can happen here.

The Senate must pass the House-adopted voting rights bill that overrides state limitations on the right to vote. Republicans deployed the filibuster to vote against it three times. Kill the godforsaken filibuster rule. There’s no longer any choice; there’s too much at stake.

And federal laws must be tightened to prevent monkeying with the democratic process, including banning weirdly drawn partisan congressional district boundaries. Candidates for precinct offices and poll workers must be vetted.

The problem getting corrective state laws passed: Republicans are in full control of 23 states, Democrats 15. In the legislative branch, the GOP has full control in 30 states, the Democrats 18.

If Republicans win back Congress in the ’22 midterms and overwhelm state legislatures, they could control electors who would choose the election victor. That’s what they’re aiming for.

“We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War,” Biden said July 13 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. “That’s not hyperbole. I’m not saying this to alarm you. I’m saying this because you should be alarmed.”

The president and the Democrats must hammer on this theme in the coming months to prevent the scenario he outlined in July from happening. It would be the height of irresponsibility to allow one political party to control our voters, our democracy, our future.

Richard C. Gross, a correspondent, bureau chief, and foreign editor of United Press International at home and abroad, retired as the opinion page editor of The Baltimore Sun.

Biden’s efforts to appease Israel on Iran have failed on all fronts

It’s not the nuclear deal that’s the problem for Tel Aviv, but the very idea that Washington and Tehran would reach any detente at all.

DECEMBER 12, 2021

Written by
Trita Parsi

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/12/bidens-efforts-to-appease-israel-on-iran-have-failed-on-all-fronts/?

The New York Times Friday published an important analysis of ongoing U.S.-Israeli tensions over Washington’s efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which had succeeded in curbing Tehran’s nuclear program. As helpful as it is in understanding where things stand between Washington and Tel Aviv, however, the article misses a more fundamental takeaway from recent developments: Biden’s immense efforts to appease Israel in hopes of tempering the latter’s opposition to the JCPOA have not only failed but were likely based on faulty assumptions and were thus a mistake from the outset. 

Diverging Israeli and American views on the JCPOA is nothing new. But senior officials on the Biden team thought President Obama could have handled the Israelis better by coordinating more closely with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and actually heeding some of his hawkish advice. This belief, however, is unfounded.

The fundamental question is this: Are Israel and America’s views on a negotiated settlement with Iran ultimately reconcilable or not? Was there— and is there now — a way to clinch a lasting deal with Iran on its nuclear program that also satisfies Israel? 

The answer lies in understanding that the details of the deal are not the real problem. It’s rather the very idea of Washington and Tehran reaching any agreement that not only prevents Iran from developing a bomb but also reduces U.S.-Iran tensions and lifts sanctions that have prevented Iran from enhancing its regional power. 

Many of Washington’s partners in the Middle East worry more about a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement and its geopolitical implications — a likely tilt in the regional balance of power in Iran’s favor, especially given the widespread perception the United States is eager to extricate itself from the neighborhood — than Iran’s nuclear advances. “So long as the United States works to contain Iran’s political influence and undermine its economy,” I wrote in Foreign Affairs in February, “the balance of the region will artificially tilt in favor of these states — a tilt that their own power cannot sustain.” 

Indeed, Obama’s fruitless efforts to persuade Washington’s regional partners and their allies in Washington to go along with the JCPOA had demonstrated that no amount of deference or consultation could change their categorical opposition to a deal with Iran. To the great frustration of some former Obama officials who had gone through this experience, the Biden team thought they could square this circle.

In December 2020, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes publicly implored Biden not to repeat this mistake: “I plead with [Biden],” he said on the PodSaveAmerica podcast. “Do not think there is any ounce of good faith that will be coming your way from Bibi Netanyahu, from MBS, and from the Tom Cottons of this world. These people have no interest in a deal. They’ve never had an interest in a deal,” he declared. “How many times do we have to go through this play? This is in the hands of the Biden people to say: ‘We don’t need to listen to these people.’”

But Biden chose to listen to them. Instead of returning to the JCPOA in the first days and weeks of his administration, critical time and effort were spent trying to persuade Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to get onboard with diplomacy. 

Netanyahu never budged an inch, although when Prime Minister Naftali Bennett succeeded him, Biden was encouraged by scoring some early wins. Bennett agreed, for example, to refrain from publicly attacking Biden’s diplomacy and play to Republican anti-Iran foes, as Netanyahu had done, thus making the U.S.-Israel relationship a partisan issue. (Bennett also agreed to coordinate Israel’s attacks on Iran with Biden, but more on that later.)

As soon as negotiations entered a decisive phase earlier this month, however, Bennett began to renege on the agreement and didn’t hesitate to publicly voice his opposition to Biden’s desire to revive the JCPOA. At this point, it should have been clear that Bennett, like Netanyahu before him, was not about to give ground.

Yet, Biden has continued to try to appease Israel. The Times reports that Biden began ramping up Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions (which Biden officials had always insisted were counterproductive) and issued military threats in an apparent effort to calm Israel.

This line in the Times’ piece nails the folly of Biden’s efforts: “Despite the tougher American talk, Israeli officials left worried that the diplomatic outreach to Iran would continue.” Indeed, Israel’s greatest worry is that diplomacy succeeds, not that it fails.

“Israeli officials have not been reassured,” The Times’ account continues. “They are increasingly concerned that the United States will eventually reach a deal with Tehran and then seek to block Israeli intelligence services from carrying out covert sabotage attacks.” The article goes on to report that Israel now seeks a “guarantee” that Washington will not seek to restrain their sabotage campaign, even if the JCPOA is restored.

So Israel wants to be able to continue to attack Iran even after, in Washington’s eyes, Tehran’s path to a bomb has been successfully blocked. (Given Biden’s refusal to provide Iran with assurances that the United States will keep its word and stay in the JCPOA beyond his own term, it will be interesting to see if he offers Israel a guarantee that it can continue to attack Iran even after the JCPOA is restored.)

But let’s return to Biden’s earlier deal with Bennett. The Times discloses that Israel “consulted” with Washington before launching two covert strikes against Iran in June and September. The piece doesn’t reveal if the U.S. tried to stop Israel.

Regardless, in Tehran’s eyes, this will likely confirm its view that Israeli sabotage is not acting contrary to U.S. strategy, but rather, that these attacks are a component of America’s broader strategy on Iran. Tehran presumably sees the Israeli attacks as Washington’s efforts to pressure Iran as part of Biden’s continuation of Trump’s policies.

Similarly, Biden has viewed attacks by Iraqi militias on U.S. troops as having been ordered or approved by Iran, even though U.S. officials have admitted that Iran’s control over these same militias diminished sharply after the January 2020 assassinations of the IRGC’s Qods Force commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, the head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces.

U.S. officials have told me that one reason Biden chose not to return to the JCPOA quickly after his inauguration was due to Iraqi militia attacks on U.S. troops in January of this year. While the U.S. knew of no evidence that Iran had ordered the attacks, U.S. intelligence also saw no evidence that Iran had tried to prevent them. If the United States interprets such attacks in this way despite the lack of evidence, it is fair to ask how Iran will interpret Israeli attacks on Iran that, according to U.S. media, followed “consultations” with Washington.

A final point: There is a curious passage in the Times piece. “American officials believe that so long as Iran has not moved to develop a bomb it does not have a nuclear military program, since it suspended the existing one after 2003. Israeli officials, on the other hand, believe that Iran has continued a clandestine effort to build a bomb since 2003.” If true, has Israel shared that intelligence with Washington? If so, it has failed to persuade the CIA  and the International Atomic Energy Agency. If it hasn’t been shared, why not? And why did the Times choose to publish this rather inflammatory allegation without investigating these very basic— not to say critical — questions?

The moral of the story is this: U.S. and Israeli interests in Iran diplomacy are irreconcilable. Biden’s efforts to square the circle have predictably failed. Biden must choose whether he will pursue America’s interest or Israel. This should not be a difficult choice.

LA OPOSICIÓN SE DILUYE. MORENA SIN RIVAL PARA EL 2024.

Después de las desangeladas reuniones de fin de semana y año de los principales partidos políticos de “oposición” (PAN, PRI y Movimiento Ciudadano), ha quedado claro que la reinstauración de un partido hegemónico, al estilo del viejo PRI, es un hecho.

Para empezar, el principal partido de “oposición”, el Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), es un conjunto de intereses mezquinos que sólo buscan reposicionarse en los puestos de poder (gubernaturas, senadurías, diputaciones, alcaldías), pues están conscientes de que en los próximos dos años, perderán todavía más gubernaturas y presidencias municipales en los estados, y Morena alcanzará a mal gobernar entre 22 y 24 entidades federativas (contando a San Luis Potosí, “gobernada” por el impresentable Ricardo Gallardo del PVEM).

Por ello, la lucha entre los grupos que apoyan, por un lado, al debilitado dirigente nacional Marko Cortés; y por otro, cada uno por su lado, a los expresidentes Calderón y Fox, así como el nuevo grupo que se está formando en torno a Santiago Creel; más los que aún sueñan con la candidatura presidencial del perseguido Ricardo Anaya, es por recoger los pedazos de este partido, después de que quede con unas cuantas gubernaturas y alcaldías, con vistas a las elecciones presidenciales del 2024.

Saben perfectamente que de no ir juntos con PRI, MC y lo que queda del PRD, no tienen ninguna oportunidad ante Morena y sus oportunistas aliados PVEM, PT y PES.

En suma, el PAN tratará de convencer a alguno de los partidos que conformaron la coalición Va por México, con objeto de presentar una lejana posibilidad de competencia a la candidata(o) de Morena y aliados; pero en realidad están luchando más por su supervivencia como grupos incrustados dentro del PAN, para seguir viviendo del presupuesto.

No tienen proyecto de país, no presentan alternativas viables al desacreditado y odiado neoliberalismo; y menos aún al populismo de nuevo cuño, subido en un pseudo-nacionalismo ramplón y en la ya conocida fórmula de la economía mixta, la rectoría del Estado y un muy deficiente Estado de Bienestar que intenta renacer de sus cenizas.

El PRI por su parte, sabe que o se sube a la nave de Morena, o perece. Por ello la facción dominante de lo que queda del “partidazo”, representada por Alejandro Moreno y Rubén Moreira, ya está orientando al partido hacia la “social democracia” y en contra del neoliberalismo[1]; para así poder explicar, sin “tragar tantos sapos”, como es que van a apoyar al presidente en su reforma eléctrica, que eliminará la que los gobiernos priistas y panistas impulsaron cuando estuvieron en el poder.

Al parecer, una parte del PRI, lidereada por la sobrina del “jefazo” Carlos Salinas, la de la senadora Claudia Ruiz Massieu, aún intentará dar la batalla contra la fusión PRI-Morena, pero lleva las de perder.

Y peor aún para dicha facción, puesto que Moreno, actual dirigente del PRI, ya amenazó que intentará ser el candidato presidencial de la “oposición”, lo que sería la muerte de cualquier posibilidad de alianza con el PAN, que jamás aceptaría que este político de tercer nivel, encabece una coalición en la que el PAN aportaría las dos terceras partes de los probables votos.

Por si fuera poco, el Movimiento Ciudadano, ya anticipó en su convención, que no se unirá a otros partidos de “oposición” para las elecciones presidenciales del 2024, lo que seguramente le garantizará una votación no mayor al 10 o 12%; muy lejos de Morena, pero suficiente para desbaratar cualquier posibilidad de que haya una real competencia en esos comicios; y con ello, el MC se convierte por supuesto en el principal partido “palero” del actual gobierno. Como en su momento lo fueron el PPS y el PARM, durante los tiempos del viejo PRI.

Ante ello, el PRD, que ya es como una especie de muerto viviente, pues también adelantó que podría presentar su propia candidatura presidencial, con lo cual cualquier posibilidad de un frente unido de la “oposición” ha quedado en el basurero.

Como lo hemos dicho hasta el cansancio en este blog, Morena se está convirtiendo en la nueva arena para la disputa por la presidencia, ya sin importar las elecciones formales; tal como sucedía durante la época de la hegemonía priista; y por lo tanto, los grupos de poder económico, político y mafioso se insertan, se acercan y se presentan ante los hombres y mujeres de poder del gobierno de López Obrador y de Morena, para negociar sus intereses (ahí están las recientes reuniones de Consejo Mexicano de Negocios, por tres horas con López Obrador; y la del presidente de Televisa, Emilio Azcárraga, él sólo con el presidente, por dos horas).

“Que todo cambie, para que todo siga igual”.

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[1] https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/12/13/opinion/008o1pol

 

 El complejo militar-industrial

Raúl Romero*

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/12/12/opinion/014a1pol

El 17 de enero de 1961, al concluir su mandato como presidente de Estados Unidos, Dwight D. Eisenhower pronunció un discurso sobre el que mucho se ha escrito desde entonces. En aquella ocasión, el presidente saliente informaba sobre el poderío que el complejo militar-industrial había adquirido: En los consejos de gobierno, debemos estar alertas contra el desarrollo de influencias indebidas, sean buscadas o no, del complejo militar-industrial. Existe y existirán circunstancias que harán posible que surjan poderes en lugares indebidos, con efectos desastrosos.

Por complejo militar-industrial Eisenhower se refería al vínculo del sistema militar, la industria armamentista y el gobierno, conjunción que involucraba las labores de más de 3 millones y medio de personas, así como un millonario presupuesto que representaba más que los ingresos netos de todas las empresas de Estados Unidos en aquellos años. El complejo militar-industrial, que se construía bajo el argumento de la defensa nacional y la paz mundial, fue tomando forma después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

La influencia de esta poderosa alianza entre industriales, militares y gobernantes, señaló Eisenhower, era total: económica, política, espiritual y palpable en cada ciudad, en cada parlamento estatal, en cada departamento del gobierno federal. Además, el complejo militar-industrial implicó también la reproducción de capital, de desarrollo de tecnología militar y la expansión imperialista estadunidense.

Si bien las alianzas entre industriales, gobernantes y militares datan de tiempo atrás y tienen diferentes aterrizajes, según las condiciones y características de cada país, la categoría complejo militar-industrial ayudó a entender algunas dinámicas del militarismo y la militarización, y también facilitó la comprensión de la consolidación y expansión de la élite del poder en Estados Unidos.

Cinco años antes del discurso de Eisenhower, el sociólogo Charles Wright Mills analizó en su libro La élite del poder (1956) los cambios en la élite estadunidense y concluyó que, para su época, ésta estaba compuesta, principalmente, de la alianza entre los señores de la guerra, los altos jefes de las empresas y el directorio político. Los señores de la guerra, explica Mills, avanzaron llenando vacíos políticos, fueron obteniendo y se les fue otorgando un poder cada vez más grande para tomar decisiones de las más graves consecuencias o para influir en ellas. Mills también alertó sobre el papel de la publicidad y la tecnología en el complejo, motivo por el que algunos especialistas prefieren usar el término complejo militar-industrial mediático y tecnológico.

Más de medio siglo ha pasado desde las advertencias que tanto Mills como Eisenhower lanzaron. Sus pronósticos se cumplieron: el complejo militar-empresarial hoy sigue vigente y con un peso determinante en la política interior y exterior de Estados Unidos. No importa si en el gobierno están demócratas o republicanos, las élites militares siguen en el poder tomando muchas de las decisiones o, incluso, fabricando guerras para garantizar la reproducción de capital. Pero su vigencia ha implicado también su adaptación. Las armas y los enemigos han cambiado, por eso hoy el complejo militar-industrial construye tecnologías para la vigilancia, el control y la destrucción, al tiempo que fabrica una narrativa de nuevas amenazas, como el terrorismo, el crimen organizado y las personas migrantes.

Hoy que en México el Ejército gana cada vez más influencia en todos los ámbitos, ya sea en lo político, en lo económico e incluso en lo ideológico, vale recuperar las reflexiones en torno a la categoría de complejo militar-empresarial para intentar entender el fenómeno.

En primer lugar, hay que observar la renovada alianza entre gobernantes, militares e industriales en 2006 y reorientada en 2018 hacia el sector extractivo, de infraestructura y de energéticos, ya sea en la edificación del aeropuerto de Santa Lucía, del Tren Maya o del Corredor Interoceánico, por mencionar algunos. Además, definir estos proyectos y obras como de seguridad nacional devela la importancia de esta alianza en el actual proyecto de país. También hay que observar si esta alianza se trata o no de una extensión de los intereses del complejo militar-industrial estadunidense o tiene intereses propios.

En el plano ideológico es necesario poner atención en medidas que van desde el regreso de la obligatoriedad del servicio y la cartilla militar, hasta una amplia estrategia publicitaria que coloca al Ejército como depositario de los valores patrios y la defensa de la nación.

Igualmente, hay que advertir dos escenarios posibles y que ambos casos son contraproducentes para la sociedad: la posibilidad de que esta alianza sea apenas el germen de una renovada élite o bien la posibilidad de que la antigua élite recupere el aparato de Estado, escenario en el que un Ejército con ese poder significaría una amenaza aún mayor para las fuerzas progresistas, democráticas y revolucionarias.

Cuando los militares son miembros predominantes de la élite del poder, reflexionaba Mills, lo que buscan es su expansión. Ojalá todavía estemos a tiempo de cerrarles el paso.

* Sociologo

Twitter: @RaulRomero_mx

 What will be the casus belli for war with China?

From the sinking of Maine to Saddam’s WMDs, there’s usually a ginned-up event behind every destructive US war.

DECEMBER 9, 2021

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/09/what-will-be-the-casus-belli-for-war-with-china/

Written by

Peter Van Buren

In one of the great scenes in the movie Citizen Kane, newspaper publisher Charles Kane, in desperate need of headlines to boost circulation, decides a patriotic war would be just the thing. When his reporters fail to find evidence of imminent hostilities, Kane famously bellows “I’ll supply the war, you supply the pictures!”

Kane is directly modeled after the real-life William Randolph Hearst, who generously fanned the flames of the Spanish-American war, making the sinking of Maine, a U.S. warship, by the Spanish, into a casus belli. It was all a lie — Maine exploded internally, on its own. No matter, a war was needed, and so with that decision made, a cause was created.

The real reasons for the war included a U.S. desire to take control of Cuba and to become a Pacific power by seizing the Spanish colony in the Philippines. Theodore Roosevelt, who was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy at this time, advocated for the war as a rally-round-the-flag event to heal the lingering wounds of the American Civil War, and as an excuse to increase the Navy’s budget. After all, they sank our ship! The press would wait until WMDs were not created to ever be that compliant again.

It was very much the same story in Vietnam. Washington, imagining a global communist conspiracy rising from the ashes of WWII, began its war in Vietnam by proxy in 1945, soon funding the French struggle for years. By 1950 the first American military personnel was stationed in Saigon. When American advisors and casualties began to come to the public’s attention, and successes by the other side began to pile up, the real American war got underway.

But with a more overt war, a more overt reason had to be found. That took the form of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident: a claim that two American warships came under unprovoked attack by North Vietnam. What really happened was far from that, but it didn’t matter. Congress passed an enabling resolution and the war escalated as needed. They hurt our ships!

In the late 1990s, The Project for the New American Century think tank developed what neoconservatives were calling a compelling vision for American foreign policy based on a “benevolent global hegemony.” They had nothing less in mind than a global war of occupation and regime change, focused on the Middle East. The war was set, but the problem lay in convincing the American people to support it. “The process of transformation,” PNAC charged in its manifesto, “even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

The new Pearl Harbor fell into its laps on 9/11. Even then, though, another made-up reason was needed to justify the invasion of Iraq, the jewel in the neocon planning. The Bush administration made a few attempts to link Saddam to 9/11 directly, then to terrorism generically, but none of it stuck with the public, correctly confused about why an attack largely planned, funded, and executed by Saudis, required war in Iraq.

In the end, the decision to stress the threat posed by Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction above all others was made for “bureaucratic” reasons, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said. “It was the one reason everyone could agree on.” It really did not matter that it wasn’t true.

This was followed by years of conflict under four presidents. Along the way mini-versions of the same game — war decided on first, reasons ginned up later — were run to justify invasions in Libya, Yemen, and Syria. It does not matter what is true because the incidents, real or imaginary, are just like buses; miss one and another will be along soon enough.

These wars, from Maine to Iraq, had no Pearl Harbor. America was not attacked, it wanted to initiate the war itself, and created a false pretext for doing so. Unlike with the WMDs, there was no question the Japanese bombed Pearl and that this was an actual, unambiguous act of aggression. It did not require a lie or an explanation or some 1940s version of Colin Powell at the UN.

This brings us to China, which appears to be the next war now searching for a reason.

“The Fight for Taiwan Could Come Soon,” warns the Wall Street Journal, alongside nearly every other publication of note. President Biden has begun the propaganda spadework, declaring, “on my watch China will not achieve its goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world.” Is war imminent? Will it begin in Taiwan?

The reasons China has no reason to invade Taiwan are lengthy and cover the economic, military, and political spheres. There is no rational, risk vs. gain, the reason for hostilities. But that is not what the historical playbook says matters. It may be the United States has already decided a bench-clearing, superpower showdown is needed, eagle vs. dragon, for control of the Pacific. We just need to find a reason, given that China is unlikely to be a sport and invade Taiwan for us. You can lie about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction long enough to get a war started, but an actual Chinese invasion is a bridge too far for straight-up fabrication.

Now it is possible the war fever over China is just a con inside a con. It is possible the military-industrial complex knows it will never fight an actual war, but is simply using the threat as a way to run up its budget. They remember how the lies about the “missile gap” with the Soviet Union exploded the military-industrial complex budget following WWII. A Chinese threat requires endless spending on the good stuff — big carriers, submarines, and space forces — upping the ante even beyond the decades of spending in Afghanistan.

And then boom! Ascertain as the sun rising in the east is red, last week Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the U.S. was in an “arms race” with China over the development of hypersonic weapons that can evade missile defenses. His boss Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin lambasted China over its pursuit of hypersonic weapons, saying the activity “increases tensions in the region.” America faces a hypersonic weapons gap.

An arms race would be the best case scenario to come out of all the saber-rattling over China. If that’s all this is, it is well underway. But what if the U.S. has its mindset on a real war and needs a palatable reason?

So, a challenge to all readers. On a postcard addressed to the White House, what would be the declared justification for the U.S. going to war with China?

You can have fun with this — Beijing kidnaps Taylor Swift and a rescue mission escalates into full-on war? Or China is caught releasing a virus that disables global trade? Or geopolitically serious stuff about a struggle for rare earth minerals? No cheating with statements pretending to be reasons, like China is an “imminent threat,” or declarations like “clear and present danger.” Imagine you’re a modern-day Paul Wolfowitz, handed the fait accompli of war and tasked with ginning up a reason Americans will buy. But no “they sunk our ship” scenarios. Been there, done that.